24 October 2012

Let's talk about shampoos


I am against the use of an excessive number of beauty products. Looking at beautiful elderly women and asking them their beauty secrets, I have understood that the "less is more" principle perfectly suits to the ideal beauty routine.
I am quite obsessed by my hair (like the most of the women) and I would like them to be always at their best. I thought, wrongly, that buying the most renowned shampoos would  have been good for my hair but it is not true. 
My hair were dull and needed to be washed increasingly often. I realized that something was wrong so, few months ago, I started questioning the use of my current shampoos and even the use of the shampoo itself. Nature equipped us with all we need, so isn't it strange that we need all these artificial products [link]? I am not against beauty products in general, but I am against the excessive number of them and I want to reduce the amount of chemical components on my body to the minimum indispensable.
There are new currents of thought that are the "no poo" and "low poo" methods, i.e. washing hair without commercial shampoos. The harsh components of shampoos strip the sebum (the natural oils your scalp produces) causing the scalp to produce more oil to compensate. This is why we need conditioner after shampoo and this is why we need to wash hair increasingly often. Sebum is a natural moisturizer for your hair and scalp.
There are persons who have quit using shampoo and wash their hair just with water (water eliminates only the excess of sebum, not all of it) [link, link], persons who use the baking soda as shampoo and the apple cider vinegar as conditioner (baking soda is basic and apple cider vinegar is acid, so using them together leaves hair and scalp with a balanced pH) [link] and persons, especially the curly girls, who wash their hair with a conditioner without silicones (this is the co-wash method; conditioner can wash hair because it contains cleansing agents that are milder than the ones of the shampoo) [link] .
These persons experienced an initial transition period of adjustment where the hair becomes greasy because the scalp reacts to the lack of shampoo with excess oil. The advantages of these methods are that you don't remove all the sebum from the scalp, but only the excess of it and your scalp and hair remain moisturized by it. Moreover looking at the INCI (International Nomenclature of Cosmetic Ingredients) of conventional shampoos and conditioners, they contain bad chemical additives such as sodium laureth sulfate and silicone derivatives (silicones coat the hair with a film, preventing moisture from entering the hair, eventually drying it out).
I tried the baking soda and apple cider vinegar and, although I was satisfied with this method, it is not practical carrying these products during the travels or at the gym. I occasionally do the co-wash, but I decided to adopt the low poo method, using an organic shampoo and conditioner. I have a list of ingredients that a natural shampoo and conditioner must not have and, before I buy them, I check their labels. It's a little difficult to find these products, I currently use a baby shampoo. It is incredibly cheap and good.
I am happy with the results, my hair is now much better, very soft and silky and I am aware that I have no builds up on it (the builds up are the chemical insoluble residues remaining on the hair after the rinse). When it's humid my hair gets wavy but I don't care, I know this happens because I have no silicones on it. When I go to the hairdresser for the regular haircuts, I can't avoid their products so, after some days, I do a clarifying shampoo with baking soda and apple cider vinegar to remove the builds up of the commercial products they put on my hair. My hair gets dirty more slowly, so I need to wash it less frequently and this is positive not only for my hair health but also for my time. Psychologically I feel more free because I am not captivated anymore by the shampoo advertisements.
Nobody has the perfect hair, therefore let's accept ours just as it is, without looking for miracle products but relying on our self confidence.


  
You might also like: Pixie, Garçonne, Unaware natural allure

Images: dustjacketattic.blogspot.com, elsa-may.tumblr.com, Studded Hearts

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