Hi fellow Hiveians,
Today I wanted to talk about how I recently eliminated shampoo from my personal hygiene, and have had better results!
No More Shampoo
No shampoo for a month - crazy?!
We all have seen crazy things online and I'm certainly one of them. There are some things though that we may consider to be "crazy" but when you think about it, it really isn't that bad so we can do a little experimentation. This is one of those times!
I was doing my normal decompression at the end of the day one day several weeks ago and came upon something about this guy who stopped using shampoo when he showered because it was not good for his hair and after a week his hair improved. After a month his dandruff had stopped and at two months his receding hairline had started to slowly grow back. I had all of those things going on, so I said fuck it, let's give it a shot!
Granted I don't have the longest hair, in fact I cut it fairly short every few weeks just buzzing it all off but I think the main point I wanted to try and manage was the receding hairline. It's one of those vain things but it annoys me haha, in a weird way. I'm of the age where you get what you get but also where I like to try and exert control over my body so that it improves itself rather than degrades. The receding hairline is one of those things where I want to try and figure out how to get it to come back, just because I would get a win!
So I decided one day about a month ago now, maybe a month and a half, that I would no longer be using shampoo in the shower to wash my hair! It was odd at first because when you shower for a few decades every day and do the same routine every day, you definitely have a little bit of a tough time getting out of those routines. Thankfully with shampoo though, it wasn't that bad. It's also not like I'm saving hundreds of dollars a month by not doing that, note the short hair! :D
After the first few days to a week, you can certainly notice the things that the shampoo does to your hair to damage it. The various compounds in the shampoo are actually pretty bad for you. So many shampoos and soaps use sodium laurel sulfate (SLS) as the foaming agent, which makes nice big foamy stuff to help wash your hair. This stuff is pretty bad for not only our hair but our skin! The shampoo I have used for a few years now is SLS free but there are certainly other things in it that are likely not the best for us. My hair was pretty greasy and oily for the first few days even after showering but that's because my body was doing so much work to reduce the negative effects of the shampoo that it was working to excrete extra oil to balance out the drying effects of the shampoo. Let's not forget the other issues with so many of these chemicals - they promote estrogens and reduce testosterone! That's a big issue for men particularly, where we are already suffering a significant attack on our testosterone through plastics and other estrogen-promoting products.
After that first week, I noticed that it started to level off. Now, my hair is actually quite soft, just as soft as when I was using shampoo every day but if I had missed a day of a shower when using shampoo like when I was too tired, my hair would be nasty the next day and require a shower, which meant shampoo. The other day I ran out of time to shower on one day, then didn't end up showering until the evening on the next day (thankfully didn't do a whole lot of sweating until the end of the 2nd day, so I didn't need the shower until the end) but my hair didn't feel nasty! It was really interesting to see it.
I think the other great thing about it is that the mild dandruff I had from the soap drying out my scalp, is pretty much gone. I'm thankfully not one to have had horrible dandruff but I will admit that it was there sometimes and is likely related to the things I was using for personal care more than anything. I know it's embarrassing for people to admit they have dandruff but it's definitely a significant part of what we are doing to our bodies and care routines that is causing it!
-CmplXty. Real human written content, never AI. All pictures are mine unless otherwise stated
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What a difference.
I have very very long hair and only wash it twice a month… (with a natural shampoo) been doing that forever actually. My hair has been healthier than ever since. It got really damaged when i used shampoos and been colouring it for a few decades. Shampoo is quite bad for you. Good you tested it out.
Yeah I'm glad that you got to change your habit to a natural shampoo and less frequent use of it. Our hair does a good job of keeping clean if we wash it with water daily I think!
My wife dyes her hair frequently and we've slowly started to get into the less toxic dyes but it does do damage to the hair sadly.
We used to live without all the chemicals around. People were much healthier in that way.
Now we are off the grid (almost) and have a septic tank, I am rethinking everything we flush.
Going back to cleaning with baking soda and vinegar. Etc.
Dying the hair is so bad… my original hair is blond but i always had it black or some crazy colours / combos hahaha
Now i have it half grown out and the bottom is half dark. It starts to itch to dye it again as it looks weird now as my hair is very longgggg. But we will see… 🤣😂
I always prefer looking into things that we term "crazy" because there's often more to the story than just that. Many of these personal care companies are really not here to enhance our body but to gradually degrade it. So it's much better to experiment, try out something different and see what outcome we get.
Yeah absolutely. Sadly the companies are about maximizing profit no matter the cost to our health. That has led them to use increasingly cheaper and often times more toxic components with downstream negative consequences. I do prefer to look the other way on so many of these things to see what information is being suppressed. The important thing about it is to have a healthy mind meaning being skeptic of the bullshit scams but not being closed minded to changes in thinking.
Sure, I think generally being at least open minded and not taking everything at face value can be pivotal in navigating the current issues we encounter in such a world we live in. Sometimes, the truth can be right in front of us but we can't register it because we're missing the necessary mindset to unravel it.
Really?
What if I told you that I never knew that shampoo damages our hair?
I’ve never noticed in my life. What I’d do is try to make use of it and see the result myself
Thanks for sharing
Yeah shampoo does a fair bit of damage to hair! It's good to get off it and onto a more natural and healthy way.
I stopped using shampoo more than three years ago, but because I cut my hair with a razor. In other words, I'm bald! But I understand your point. I use shower gel to wash my head, just as I do for the rest of my body when I'm bathing. But I'm going to try to find a solution to use as a shower gel that prevents my body from coming into contact with so many potentially harmful agents.
Castile style soap is a good and old alternative to the new stuff full of chemicals! I'm glad you are open to looking for new things though! Also a bit of a different way to not use shampoo :D
So interesting! Thank you for your recommendation. I do remember that my grandmother used to make her own soap with ashes and olive oil... It looked grayish, but kept her hair, soft ans smooth... I do also remember that she finished her hair wash, rising her hair with vinegar, and rinse it afterwords with clean water. She passed away more then 12 years now, but I keep the memories with me, and recall them when I researched the type of soap that you mentioned.
I have often thought about doing this, but I need waxy stuff in my wire hair to tame it. I have to have a shower every morning, otherwise I have bedhead all day - even with short hair - unless shaved.
I do keep my hair pretty short but I think you can transition away from shampoo by getting the stuff that's better for it like Castile soap instead of the stuff filled with foaming agents and crap.
Take a vacation from work to change your hair routine :D
calbenpuresoap.com/
I started using this many years ago because they use the same formulations that they used when they launched in 1947.
I'll have to check it out! I do use a Castile soap for my general use soap, which is an old style. I will have to see if they are that same style!
It's less expensive than cancer.
Hahah well that’s for sure! Taking small steps in the right direction reduces our chances of it for sure. Trying to get folks to make small changes can be tough but it’s a good motivator for sure. Especially with the heinous chemicals they stick in all kinds of products these days!
To play devils advocate though for the soap ingredients: they used to think aluminum and things like that were good for us back in the 20’s and 30’s, so an old formula sometimes isn’t the best :D. Purely for a different perspective of course!
You can always call them and ask about the material data sheets for the ingredients.
I thought they had them online, but I'm not seeing them in this moment.
I know the powdered laundry soap has some kind of soda in it, but you would have to ask them for the specifics.
The products look great! I'll try the month package which seems like a sample pack type thing to get a feel for them. Appreciate the link man!
I buy the shampoo and laundry soap by the gallon and they last me a long time.
The shampoo can be diluted at least by half, I use a dr pepper bottle with a hole punched in the top because it gets watery, but by diluting it less is wasted 'down the drain'.
When asked how was business, the fella always answered 'down the drain'.
The dose for a load of laundry is one ounce, or 128 loads a gallon.
I'm not sure the laundry soap does as good a job as detergents with their solvents and bleaching agents, but it won't give you cancer from rubbing off your clothes and onto your skin.
You can buy in bulk, but don't let the liquids freeze, I lost most of a gallon of shampoo when the bottle burst.
I bought 100 bars of the bar soap in 2018 and haven't used them all, yet.
I bought the 3year supply in 2011, but I gave most of it away in the course of travelling.
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