DIY Baking Soda Shampoo
DIY: This Baking Soda Shampoo Saved My Hair
Did
you know that baking soda is an incredibly easy way to clean your hair?
Yep, the rumors are true. What shocked me even more than the fact that
this actually works is how much better my hair began to look when I
started using baking soda compared to traditional shampoo!
I’m a complete DIY gal when it comes to my beauty routine
and I’m always on a mission to reduce my exposure to potentially
harmful chemicals, so I was psyched that this method gave me such great
results.
You might be wondering: what's so bad
about regular shampoos? Well, they can contain a lot of harmful
ingredients. Some of the worst chemical-offenders are:
- sodium Sodium Lauryl
- Laureth Sulfate
- DEA/Diethanolamine
- Parabens
- Fragrance
The word fragrance
might not sound so bad, but on a label, it can mean the presence of
over 4,000 separate chemical ingredients. How scary is that?!
There
are lots of great natural brands of shampoo that don’t contain these
ingredients, but as my short hair began to grow, it became really limp
and flat due to the rainy weather here in Seattle. I tried to fix this
with mousse and styling products, which then caused build-up.
To fix that,
I started incorporating a clarifying shampoo every few weeks, but this
dried out my hair, so I added in an intensive conditioner, which only
made the lifeless hair problem worse. Plus, with the cold, my hair was
getting really static-y.
Ugh.
I was ready to chop it all off and go back to short hair when I found my way to the baking soda and vinegar hair care method which solved all my problems.
My hair now has more body, volume, and strength than it did with all the crazy shampooing, products, and special hair care
nonsense from before. And now my routine is incredibly simple: wash
with baking soda, rinse with vinegar, blow dry, and maybe flat iron the
front strands if I feel like it.
That's it.
Since
shampoos strip our scalps of natural oils, this tend to increase oil
production so as you stop using shampoo you might find that you hair
seems oiler than normal for the first few weeks until your scalp
adjusts. Now that I've been using this method for awhile, I've found
that my hair doesn't get as oily as it did before and I only have to use
this method every 2 - 3 days. The baking soda and vinegar method is
cheap, effective, simple and chemical-free and I think you'll love it as
much as I do. Here’s how you can get started:
Method
It might be hard to adjust to the lack of shampoo foaming action at first, but I promise this is worth it in the end.
Baking Soda
Start
by mixing 1 part baking soda with 3 parts water. I have shoulder length
hair and mix about 2 to 3 tablespoon of baking soda with 3 times that
amount of water in a small squeeze bottle. You can adjust this depending
on your hair length.
Apply the baking soda and water mixture to dry or wet hair by starting at the roots and working to the ends.
Let it sit for 1 - 3 minutes then rinse with warm water.
After washing and rinsing with the baking soda mixture, you'll want to apply a vinegar rinse.
Vinegar Rinse
Mix 1 part white or apple cider vinegar with 4 parts water. To minimize the vinegar smell, I also add lavender, peppermint, and/or rosemary essential oils to the vinegar mixture. I like to mix a big batch of this ahead of time and keep it in a squeeze bottle in the shower.
Tilt your head back, close your eyes (to avoid getting this mixture in your eyes), and distribute through your hair.
If
you have longer hair like I do, I like to then (still keeping my eyes
closed) tilt my head forward and distribute more rinse through the ends.
After
a few seconds, rinse with cold water. The cold water helps to seal in
moisture, smooth the hair, and add shine. I have straight hair and have
noticed that this really made a difference with eliminating frizz and
static.
Have you tried the baking soda and vinegar method? Any tips that have worked well for you?
Photo Credit: Shutterstock.com
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