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| Me, today. I look clean, right? |
Hair:
I stopped using shampoo and conditioner a few months ago. I still wash my hair in the shower every day or two. "Washing" just means "scrubbing with water" now. At the end of my shower, I douse my head with very diluted apple cider vinegar to combat the extremely hard water at our house. I think my hair looks and feels great-- it's not greasy at all, and it has a lot more body and volume than it did before. Post-shower, I towel dry it, run a comb through it, and muss it with my fingers so that it's not plastered to my head. Ta-da!
Face:
I haven't used anything but water on my face in about two years. (Every now and then, I'll think, "oh, yeah, maybe I should use soap," but it's always turned out the be a bad idea. In fact, it's usually after I use soap that I break out!) I give it a good rub-down under hot water during my shower. I towel dry it. I often put some coconut oil on it afterwards, especially during the winter, because my skin gets dry even just from the water scrub. I get a whitehead maybe once or twice a month.
I don't wear make up unless I'm costuming. During non-costume days, I use coconut oil to moisurize my face and lips, and sometimes a nice lip balm from Lush that is made from shea butter.
From the neck down:
I use a bar of soap in the shower, mostly on the parts that get really sweaty/smelly. I wear deodorant, not antiperspirant-- Tom's or something similar. If I have dry skin, I rub some coconut oil in. In the summers, I put on sun block when I'll be outside.
I think I look good. I think I smell good. (Well, the vinegar in my hair smells like vinegar when it's drying, but then it goes away.) I definitely feel good.
So how does it work? There are two main principles behind my bath and beauty routine:
1. It starts from the inside.
I generally shower in the evening. If you look at the day that passed before that evening, you'll see the real secrets behind my healthy skin and hair: I live an active life, and I eat well. I walk, I bike, I do yoga, I go to tumbling class, I garden, etc. I do stuff with my body throughout the day, every day. I eat good food made from real ingredients-- 99% of my meals come from ingredients in my kitchen. I know what I'm putting into my body, and I so I know that I can expect a healthy body.
2. Products were made for consumers to buy them, not to improve consumers' lives.
Someone invented shampoo. As a result, they invented a marketing scheme that convinced people that their hair needed shampoo. Before that, people washed their hair with water, with soap, with baking soda, with whatever their mothers told them to. The same is true of every bath and beauty product. Think before you buy. Those bottles make great claims, but ask yourself what people did before those products were available. Did people's lives improve? (Sun block is the biggest exception to the rule here-- if you can help prevent skin cancer by putting on a product, go for it. Just make sure that that's the only thing in that bottle.)
Bath and beauty product choices are just one facet of conscious consumption. If you've already made the leap with your shower routine, start looking at other areas of your life!
Has anyone else gone shampoo-free? Make up-free? Any stories to share?
4 comments:
To combat the strong vinegar smell, I put a few drops of either sweet orange or tangerine essential oil in my cider vinegar/green tea mix and shake it thoroughly before I put it on my hair. It does still smell somewhat vinegar-y as it's drying, but by the time it's dry, no vinegar odor, and a faint citrus smell!
What brand of ACV do you use? I wasn't getting much in the way of good results with my Heinz ACV, but the local crunchy grocery store sells Bragg's ACV (with "the mother", oooOOOooo... -_-), and that's actually helped my hair a heck of a lot more.
Also, heck yeah for coconut oil on everything, all the time. Vegas desert dries me out like whoa. =/ I was using baby oil, but I like the coconut oil better.
maybe a month or two ago, i stopped using soap on my whole body! i just scrub it a lot with a loofah. so far the experiment seems to be going alright -- i still smell and feel clean, and nobody has said anything. c.c
unfortunately, my face is a little grumpy about this; i'm not sure whether that's because i have yet to get it its own washcloth, because i've been eating more dairy (have i?), or if it just needs some kind of surfactant sometimes? or if it hasn't adjusted yet. the experiment continues.
i still use shampoo and conditioner about once every 6-10 days -- whenever my hair starts to feel gross. on the in between days, i just scrub my scalp a little with hot water in the shower and use a leave-in conditioner -- it helps a lot with keeping my hair curly instead of frizzy. of course, plain aloe gel works pretty well as a leave-in, when i have it on hand.
since i stopped using soap, i've moooostly not had to use lotion; that said, i definitely still lotion the heck out of my hands and sometimes feet. i still wash my hands with soap, and often, along with dish-washing, so they get pretty dry and sad.
Jes, I've been using Bragg's ACV; it's pricier than other brands, but it's still cheaper than shampoo and conditioner!
Hugin, wow, soap-free! That's great. I have tried dry brushing to exfoliate before I shower, but it's pretty harsh-- maybe it just takes some getting used to. A good scrub with a loofah sounds much more pleasant.
One product I forgot to mention: I love to take baths with epsom salts! I think of it as a treat. :)
Hey Joanna!
I wanted to mention that I rarely use soap, only when I am going to be in town or around family, and need to get rid of smell fast. But I think the stuff is unnecessary.
I got used to swimming in the lake, last summer, and just scrubbing my body with lots of sand. I'm sure there's an alternative to for sand when you're in the shower.
Hope you're having fun homesteading! Sending you hugs!
-Wren
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