I HEART NO POO (aka. NO SHAMPOO)

The what? Yes, I’m in the no-poo-ing phase right now. It sounds almost cute. Definitely almost wrong. But it’s not. No-poo is basically “no shampoo” — and it’s basically washing hair without using commercial shampoo products.

I have coarse, dry long hair and an oily scalp, so I have to wash my hair every day or else my hair smells a bit funky and gets all greasy and lank. Not my favorite look, thankyouverymuch. I also have highlights, which makes my hair drier than usual. And, mercilessly, I’m getting older and have noticed white hairs hiding under my layers of dark. Aiya.

Unfortunately, because I wash my hair every day it has become drier, frizzier, and I fear the shampoo is stripping away the natural oils that nourish my scalp.

Oh yes, I also tend to work out every day so after the gym my hairline is ringed with sweat. This requires daily washing of my hair as well.

MY GO-TO SHAMPOO, PRE-NO POO PHASE

I prefer to use shampoo/conditioner brands that don’t contain sulfates, parabens, artificial colour dyes, nor as been tested on animals. Sometimes the major ingredients are organic, sometimes they are not. I’ve tried almost every brand (so many!) within these parameters, with my favorites being Giovanni Four Elements and Amazon Series Muru Muru Anti-Frizz. The latter I like, but halfheartedly as it contains fragrance (phthalates).

Now before I go any further about no-poo, let’s go over why I prefer particular shampoos in the first place.

SULFATES: Sulfates, particularly Sodium Lauryl/Laureth Sulfates (SLS), are synthetic chemicals added to shampoo as a foaming and cleansing agent. When SLS is combined with Tri/Die/monno-ethanolamine (emulsifiers and foaming agents), then it can become toxic if absorbed into the body over a long period of time and associated as a carcinogenic substance in lab animals. When linked to byproduct 1-4 dioxane, SLS also becomes more toxic.

Health risk: drying hair, eye irritation, allergic reactions, hair loss.

PARABENS: Most commercial shampoos contain parabens (methylparaben, ethylparaben, butylparaben, or propylparaben). Parabens are synthetic preservatives used to inhibit microbial growth and extend shelf life.

Health risks: Allergic reactions, skin rashes. Studies have shown they are endocrine distrupters that mimic estrogen and distrupt normal hormone function. Preliminary research found parabens in breast cancer tumours.

PHTHALATES (Fragrance, DEHP, DHP, DBP 5, Dibutyl Phthalate): Phthalates are plasticizers that hold the fragrance and colour in shampoos. Usually hidden in the word “fragrance” on the ingredient label.

Health Risks: Headaches, dizziness, rashes, respiratory issues, hyperpigmentation on skin, sperm damage, infertility, depression, disruption of thryoid. 

DYES BLUE 1, GREEN 3, YELLOW 5 & 6, RED 33: These dyes are derived from coal tar (the f***!) and found in shampoos.

Health Risks: Carcinogenic

DIAZOLIDINYL & IMIDAZOLIDINYL UREA: These chemicals are also synthetic preservatives (like parabens) and are suspected formaldehyde releasers which can be toxic.

Health risks: The American Academy of Dermatology has found these chemicals to be a primary cause of contact dermatitis.

STEARALKONIUM CHLORIDE: This toxic chemical often replaces proteins as a cheaper way to soften hair in conditioners. It was designed by the fabric industry as a fabric softener!!

* MORE INFORMATION ABOUT WHAT’S IN YOUR SHAMPOO * 

Check out The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics and Environmental Working Group (EWG) Skin Deep Cosmetics Database for more information about your bathroom products, including shampoos/conditioners. As well as a list of products that are the lesser evil. 

NO POO

Finally! We get to the No-Poo. Once again, no poo is shampooing without, well, shampoo which can dry hair and strip the scalp of lovely, nourishing oils.

Apparently shampooing every day strips the natural oils, which triggers the scalp to make more oil, which creates the greasiness in some spots and dryness in other spots.

I cannot get away without washing my hair every day because (A) I have an oil scalp which creates greasy hair and if not washed becomes funky smelling, (B) When I workout, the sweat hangs around my hairline.

But washing every day means my hair becomes (A) dry, (B) frizzy, (C) and my scalp gets a bit itchy from the drying out due to having my natural oils stripped. 

FIRST I TRIED: DRY SHAMPOO

So, I first tried to use dry-shampoo on the days when I didn’t wash my hair. Major fail. My hair is too long and my scalp seems to be an industrious sebum-oil machine, so my hair soon reverted to its lank, greasy state by the afternoon.

SECOND I TRIED: CONDITIONER ONLY

Then I tried alternating using my shampoo with days using only conditioner every other day. It was okay, but conditioner isn’t really a great cleanser.

Yet this is what I was doing until my beloved hair stylist Danielle turned me onto Deva Curl No Poo.

THIRD I TRIED: DEVA CURL NO POO

Now I don’t have natural curls (I do have slight waves) yet I do like Deva Curl No Poo. It doesn’t lather but stimulates, hydrates, and cleans the scalp without stripping the natural oils. It also contains grapeseed oil to nourish as well. It works really well!

But while it’s sulfate-free and paraben-free….this no-poo sadly does contain Diazolidinyl Urea (paraben-like preservative) and Fragrance (Parfum). Sigh.

FINALLY I USE: BAKING SODA CLEANSER & APPLE CIDER VINEGAR RINSE

I then tried the natural shampoo/conditioner method, where every other day (alternating with shampooing), I wash my hair with baking soda (mixed with water) and conditioned my hair with apple cider vinegar (mixed with water). Obviously this method doesn’t foam and doesn’t become all sudsy like conventional hair cleansers, but you get used to it.

WHY? Baking soda is the weakest alkaline and gently cleanses build-up in hair without stripping the natural oils in the scalp. Apple cider is a weak acidic that detangles hair follicles, seals cuticles, and balances the pH of the hair (as well as balancing the baking soda’s alkaline levels).

WHAT HAPPENED? Initially this method made my hair straw-like and gritty feeling and I was not impressed. At. All. Then slowly my hair got used to it all and it’s all bouncy and shiny! Yee haw! Bonus: Baking soda + Apple Cider Vinegar is eco-friendly.

TIPS: It’s important that if you do use this method that you follow the baking soda/water cleanser with the apple cider vinegar cleanser to balance the alkaline baking soda with the acidic vinegar, else your hair will dry out.

MORE INFO & RECIPES: For more information about this method and recipes for the baking soda and the apple cider vinegar, click HERE at Simple Mom.

 TAH DAH!

So if you’re also in the whole No Poo phase, yay!

MORE INFO ABOUT NO POO

Why You Should Go No Poo

The No Shampoo Alternative – No Poo

How to Go No Poo

No ‘poo? Why many are giving up on shampoo

We Try It! Going Deeper Down The “No-Poo” Rabbit Hole With Water-Only Washing

 12 Top Ingredients to Avoid in Personal Care Products

7 Ingredients to Ban From Your Bathroom

Ten Cosmetic Substances to Shun

I CAN ICE SKATE

I am Canadian and I can ice-skate. This is apparently an anomaly nowadays because kids these days, well, not many can skate. I never actually learned how to ice-skate, like for real.

My childhood home is walking distance away from an ice-skating rink that was named after an iconic Canadian figure-skater. In daycare when I was probably about 5, we walked to the rink, an adult strapped on some girly white skates, and told me to get on the ice.

SLIPPERY

Um. I had no idea. So I had to trepidatiously walk on these thin blades on that waxy floor to the rink’s opening. A grown-up handed me a rusty metal slide-y bar contraption, I grabbed it and just figured it out. No one really taught me what to do. 

I started out “walking” until I slipped and practically did the splits. Then I did that whole scissor-thing. Have you seen that? It’s cute. Then eventually I guess I just figured it out. Now when I skate, I tend to lift one foot to the side and away, and then the other foot. I have to master that cross-over skating maneouver one naturally does when going around the corners of the rink, though. 

STOPPING

The only thing is that I never really did learn how to stop. My friends made fun of me for this. A former certain someone noticed my “fake” stopping and said, “You don’t know how to stop, do you?” Nope, so you caught me.

Instead I either turn around to slow down and eventually stop, or skate towards the boards and stop.

My friend tried to show me how to do that stop where you place one foot back perpidicular to the other skate. But I just pitched forward and almost knocked my teeth out. Then there’s the “teeth” at the front of the skate, which is supposed to do something that helps with stopping. Whatever. I have my methods.

THAT RINK SMELL

Nowadays when I’ve taken a group of kids ice-skating, the ones who don’t yet know how to skate get to slide around holding these bright coloured bars in blue, red, yellow, instead of the crappy rusty metal bars I used when I was little.

I like how the rink still smells the same though, no?

It’s too bad I’m not a regular Kristi Yamaguchi over here though. And it’s too bad I don’t live somewhere cold enough to skate on a frozen pond or river…

What am I talking about?! I’m grateful that I don’t live somewhere cold enough for that. Hee.

Yes, I heart ice-skating.

#3. START BEING HONEST WITH YOURSELF ABOUT EVERYTHING

Continuing on with item no.2 on the list of 30 things to stop doing to yourself / list of 30 things to start doing for yourself. I started with #1 and #2.

WHAT “START BEING HONEST WITH YOURSELF ABOUT EVERYTHING” MEANS

Be honest about what’s right, as well as what needs to be changed. Be honest about what you want to achieve and who you want to become. Be honest with every aspect of your life, always. Because you are the one person you can forever count on.  Search your soul, for the truth, so that you truly know who you are.

Once you do, you’ll have a better understanding of where you are now and how you got here, and you’ll be better equipped to identify where you want to go and how to get there.  Read The Road Less Traveled.

which also means….

STOP LYING TO YOURSELF

You can lie to anyone else in the world, but you can’t lie to yourself.

Our lives improve only when we take chances, and the first and most difficult chance we can take is to be honest with ourselves. 

LET’S BE HONEST…

Let’s be honest here, this is hard to do. Excuses. Self-talk. Guilt. Obligations. Pfft. To truly be honest with yourself is straight up, damn hard.

It’s quite brave and takes courage to search your soul and truly be honest about yourself about your faults, your negative self-talk, your ego, your excuses, your true wants and desires, your guilt, your passions, your will, your strengths, your weaknesses — the irksome and the awesomeness that is in you. 

So when I think about this notion, “Start being honest with yourself about everything,” I realize my whole journey (how I got here) makes a whole lot of sense. When I was too busy it was harder to be honest. But when I was able to stop and be still, to ponder, perhaps mediate, perhaps counseling, about what I truly want and where I truly want to go — my life became more focused and joyful. 

BABY STEPS

Yes, I can be a sh*t. I have been one. I have blamed others and not been honest about my own faults. But when I became still and admitted to my foibles to myself…and then celebrated my accomplishments and potential for kindness, being honest became easier.

So, the part that needs exponentially more work than being honest is that part where I can enhance (rather than improve) my life only when I take chances. Sigh. Why is that part so hard? ….It can only be found through being honest with myself. The work continues…

Damn straight!

THE LAUGHING HEART

your life is your life

don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.

be on the watch.

there are ways out.

there is a light somewhere.

it may not be much light but

it beats darkness.

be on the watch.

the gods offer you chances.

know them.

take them.

you can’t beat death but

you can beat death in life, sometimes.

and the more often you learn to do it,

the more light there will be.

your life is your life.

know life is your life.

know it while you have it.

you are marvelous

the gods wait to delight

in you.

- Charles Bukowski

#2. START FACING YOUR PROBLEMS HEAD ON

Continuing on with item no.2 on the list of 30 things to stop doing to yourself / list of 30 things to start doing for yourself. I started with #1 HERE.

START FACING PROBLEMS HEAD ON

It isn’t your problems that define you, but how you react to them and recover from them. Problems will not disappear unless you take action.

Do what you can, when you can, and acknowledge what you’ve done. It’s all about taking baby steps in the right direction, inch by inch. These inches count, they add up to yards and miles in the long run.

which also means….

STOP RUNNING FROM YOUR PROBLEMS

Face them head on. No, it won’t be easy. There is no person in the world capable of flawlessly handling every punch thrown at them.

We aren’t supposed to be able to instantly solve problems. That’s not how we’re made. In fact, we’re made to get upset, sad, hurt, stumble and fall. Because that’s the whole purpose of living – to face problems, learn, adapt, and solve them over the course of time.

This is what ultimately molds us into the person we become.

BABY STEPS

I have run away from problems, or at least snubbed many of them in the hopes they would go away miraculously on their own. What is that? Wishful thinking or passive-aggressiveness?

I’m starting — baby steps — with turning my thinking around to not react to other people and problems. You know what I mean? It is true that we are made to stumble, hurt, get upset, get sad, be disappointed in someone or ourselves, and fall and fall and fall.

THE HARD PART

The hard part — but it is the part that I continue to do every day — is getting up after the falls. And I have. And I do. I wonder why I forget this?

I have war scars — or “problem scars” — from all the bumping into problems, and falling down from them. But I have always, always gotten up and finished the race….or at least forfeited if that was the right thing to do. And when that happened, I was harder on myself than other people were hard on me.

TENACITY

The more I’ve come to confront my problems head-on….the less problems I seem to have. Do I have many problems now? *thinking* Of course! But nothing that is impossible. I’m beginning to realize I’m a lot more tenacious than I give myself credit for.

I can do this. Just do this, Tamiko. Gingerly may not always be the way…And I do.  And I fall down. I cuss. I blush. I may cry. I wince. But then I get up because tomorrow is another fresh day.

Thank goodness.