I wasn’t called by my first name very often in high school. Depending on who was doing the introducing, the affectionate teasing or the haranguing, the monikers ranged from “nerd” to “Casper” to “buttercup” to “JasonandHolly.” But when I spent time cleaning, drying, fluffing and pomading my mane, the nickname of the day would inevitably become “Breck Girl.” The Thing was long and blonde and shiny; it was an entity wholly separate from the rest of awkward, unsettled me.
The Thing wasn’t always so egregiously present. For nearly two years after I was born, my piu calva bambina nel mondo status _ that of “baldest child on the planet” _ caused such surges of guilt in my poor inexperienced mother that she resorted to taping a pink bow to my scalp. It helped stave off the inevitable debates over my sex, but it also incited even more fretting and clucking by strangers over what they viewed as my tragic condition. They would press small idols of saints into my mother’s hands, or clutch her lustrous mane and promise potions that would transfer some of it to my scalp. They would admonish her to feed me slivers of liver, or pureed meats, or garlic. They would slap their hands to their cheeks, shaking their heads, and then they would wave those hands over my soft spot, voodoo-like, all while ave-ing Maria.
I suppose all the voodoo worked: I have been know to shed more, on a daily basis, than most cats, and yet I still hold more hairs on my head than anyone I know. I dread going to a new coiffeuse for the first time, because she will inevitably call over all the other hairstylists to marvel at the miracle of my tremendous amounts of _ “Non, not seeeeek! Sin! Fine!” _ hair. (That’s how Frenchie, my latest chopper, put it. I have beaucoup sin hair, which sounds kind of sexy in that accent.)
I put up with the circus because I like my hair and like it to look pretty. So it might perhaps strike you as oddly self-flagellating and counterintuitive when I confess to you that I no longer use shampoo. Or conditioner.
It’s not. My hair looks better than ever. This is also not an “Eew! Gross!” practice, although I have a feeling that this particular post might elicit some grimaces and wrinkled noses.
(A pause for those now pinching said noses and slowly backing out of the room.)
My trek away from shampoo started a few years ago. It’s been nearly three years, to the day, since my father died of a brain tumor. Cancer had already taken two of my grandparents and waged horrific attacks on the bodies of a number of other relatives. But my father was the first immediate family member whose suffering I witnessed up close. (He had virtually the same type of tumor as Ted Kennedy, which made flocking to Durham last year to query the senator’s doctors on behalf of curious listeners even more shudder inducing.)
By the time my father was diagnosed, I had already adjusted my diet to cut out most any foods that might introduce industrial toxins into my body _ from hormone-and-antibiotic-laden meats to pesticide-laced strawberries. (See my other blog, Sustainable Suppers, for more on that.) I had banned toxic cleaners from our house. Never much of a makeup maven, I had perused labels and thrown out basically anything I couldn’t eat.
And then I looked at The Thing. I’d been dyeing it for years, in denial over the fact that god no longer wanted me to look Swedish. I had, at one point, switched to professional, “less toxic” highlights, but, as the daughter of someone suffering from a brain tumor, I figured I should not be tempting fate. Is there any connection between hair dye and cancer? I have no idea; epidemiological studies on environmental and household toxins are notoriously hard to perform because of the varying amounts of exposure. I have read about possible ties between “dark” hair dyes and bladder cancer, but I knew, just from smelling the stuff, that it was no longer fit for my body, especially for the skin protecting the body part I would most dread harming.
It took months for all the dye to grow out, and after a while, I had Frenchie hack away at The Thing to hasten the process. One day, Frenchie gave me some shampoo and conditioner, promising it would keep my hair shiny.
I read the ingredients. Couldn’t pronounce a thing, and this is coming from a girl who reads Latin dictionaries for fun. I then interviewed a woman named Devra Davis, who wrote The Secret History of the War on Cancer. Dr. Davis, who’s an epidemiologist, blasted the no more fears type shampoos that we put on babies’ heads, urging people not to put anything on babies’ skin that’s not edible. She writes, “The materials that create “no more tears” in baby shampoo are banned in several countries, because they cause cancer in animals. In some cases lotions used on the heads of African-American babies caused development of breasts and pubic hair. The FDA has no authority to regulate any of these harmful compounds in personal care products, unlike the European Union.” I googled the ingredients in some of the shampoos and conditioners we’d been using for years.
That was all it took.
I started doing some research and found books such as this one and sites such as this one, which detailed how I could keep my hair clean without resorting to toxic emulsifiers, detergents, and harmful chemicals.
I started by switching from a detergent-based shampoo to a soap-based one. Castile soap, made from olive oil, is usually a good choice, though I find one that incorporates tea tree oil easier to rinse out. I would use a tiny bit of that, combined with a bit of baking soda, and I would use the pads of my fingers to massage it in well.
After a few months of doing that, I tapered down to just baking soda. Some people taper down to just water.
As for conditioners, I brewed teas from herbs. I’m going to post some recipes over on Sustainable Suppers later this week, but the most important thing to remember is to counter the baking soda with a bit of apple cider vinegar. In other words, use the baking soda in the shampoo part of the process, and then a touch of the vinegar (either alone or mixed into your hair tea) in the conditioner part. It settles the p.h. balance and keeps my hair shiny and clean, and the herbal teas make it ridiculously soft.
I’ve been doing this for a few years now, and my hair has never looked better. I have natural highlights, less hair loss, and only need to wash The Thing once or twice a week. It doesn’t smell, and it doesn’t get greasy. I brush it every day to keep the oils in my scalp moving, and I don’t use any styling products. (My husband, who has very thick, curly, unruly hair, uses a tiny bit of jojoba oil on the front of his hair when it’s wet: it tames the curls and acts like gel, only without the crunchy, Exxon-Valdez texture.)
The other day, I found out I was not alone here. My buddy Justine Raphael, author of The New Hunter Gatherer blog and my sometime milk pimp, just “came out” on Facebook admitting that she, too eschews shampoo and the ensuing exposure to its chemical cocktail. I also know people who use this method to successfully control dandruff. (I’ll post the tea recipe this week over on Sustainable Suppers.)
I highly recommend, should you decide to go this route, that you go slowly and taper off. Cold turkey is great for hair dyes, but your scalp might not react gently to the sudden whisking away of a lifetime drugstore detergents. Just use less and less of your detergent shampoo until you can start switching to the soap-based cleanser. For at least three months, I used a combo of the castile soap and the baking soda, and then slowly tapered off of the soap until it was all baking soda. I still use the castile soap on my body, so when I run out of baking soda, I use the soap on my hair as a back up. It works beautifully, and I’m saving money to boot!
Tea recipes forthcoming. Happy (non)-shampooing!
of this blog and move it all over to Sustainable Suppers. Sustainable Suppers started out as primarily a foodcast, wherein I posted on food and included a little 20-minute mp3 episode, but I’ve decided to expand it, as sustainability is not just about food: it’s about all the things we’ve been discussing here.
