Hello all,
Something that is an obsession for me is hair care - I really enjoy finding new ways to maintain my locks without the use of chemicals, heating, and unfriendly hair-styling techniques.
A little bit of background: I have fairly easy-going hair that's almost to my waist (Which isn't saying much because I have the shortest torso on the planet), it's not prone to tangles or to split ends, is insanely thick and has just about every hair thickness you can think, from really fine to really course. My old routine was:
Monday: condition ends in shower, rinse with cold water
Tuesday: condition ends in shower, rinse with cold water
Wednesday: condition ends in shower, rinse with cold water, oil down my hair with coconut oil at night and sleep
Thursday: Wash with shampoo twice, condition, rinse with cold water
Friday: condition ends in shower, rinse with cold water
Saturday: condition ends in shower, rinse with cold water, oil down my hair with coconut oil at night and sleep
Sunday: Wash with shampoo twice, condition, rinse with cold water
So yeah...pretty set schedule, everyone in a while I would throw an egg and honey protein treatment in their or add apple cider vinegar and honey water to my hair and let it soak and then rinse, and my hair has been really happy with this.
EXCEPT: I go through a lot of conditioner, and even though I use the cheap stuff - Suave almond and Shea butter shampoo and conditioner - it still adds up after a while. Also, I hennaed my hair for the first time ever about a month ago - HOLY CRAP IT WAS SO RED! - and it seems to have made my hair more prone to not needing as much conditioner. After the shower I always used Organix Anti-breakage serum and it worked wonderfully, until after the henna. I noticed that my hair was more oily and didn't need the serum or the conditioner near as often.
All of this happened the same time I began to deal with a horrible eczema breakout; which I've dealt with in the past, but this time was different; nothing was helping and it was just getting worse. (I've since learned it was because my el-cheapo lotion had SLS in it and I was soaking that into my skin -eek!)
So that, and the hair acting differently I decided to try something else. I've been a faithful follower of Long Hair Community and learned about Chagrin Valley Natural Soap. I figured that instead of going back to the doctor's the get another nasty cream to fix the eczema I was going to make the swap from liquid soaps to solids.
I'm still transitioning right now and getting used to the shampoo for my hair, and because of the hard water I definitely need an acid rinse afterwards, and I've also been putting a tiny amount of aloe vera gel on my ends while shaving and then I rinse it out. It's interesting, because I'm not used to my hair feeling squeaky, but then again I do run so much conditioner through it, that I've probably been coating my natural hair for so long that I'm just used to it feeling artificial - oh! and a side note: my hair is starting to get way more wavy now that I'm using the natural soap, another interesting side effect of heavy conditioning must have been weighing down my hair.
Other than that it's far so good with the skin side of things - eczema is almost completely gone too!
I'll try to do a video and review all the soaps I've tried so far and I will definitely let you know when I find a good wash and condition routine; the soaps are really gentle so I can use them everyday and plan to, but I'm just concerned about over doing it with the acid rinse; I'm using white vinegar, and so far no bad side effects, but I'm thinking washing every other day and just using the aloe vera in between will be a good balance. We'll see.
Okay, that's all for now, but I will post more interesting things including pictures soon!
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