Is Water Only Washing on your TO DO LIST?

                                                                                                                                     

                                                                                       

What have I been up to in my life? Well, golly gee whiz, thanks for asking! Like many of you, I've been just living. I'm kind of tired of that routine so I've have been making a  half ass attempt at sprucing up my life. HOW, you might ask? Nothing drastic, just small changes that I'm trying to get used to before so that they can become staples in my life. I don't want to do something that's a total 360 from what I'm used to, I'm easing into transition. Yes, just like when I was transitioning from relaxed to natural. Wait....I didn't transition, I wore a wig for 2 weeks and said "TA HELL WIT DAT, IF THEY DON'T LIKE IT, DEN DON'T LOOK!!" Shoot, my head was itching and sweating, I couldn't take, I cut that perm off with the quickness. Plus it just wasn't me, the wig was too different, so it didn't stick. I don't want to waste time and money in something that's gonna go to the way side (where the wigs are, Ha ha).

Simplify my hair care routine

This may be a strange thing to list as a top priority, but it takes up so much of my time, time that I could be using doing other shit. Fun shit. CRAZY SHIT!! Well maybe not crazy.......but anyways, new things. So to cut my hair care routine by like 75%, I'm trying the water only hair washing method. Or maybe it's called rinsing only method. I think it also goes as the crunchy, lazy, hippie, green, cheap method. But any who that's the first chang.

The water only hair washing method consists of washing your hair with water and letting your God given sebum condition and seal your strands. That seems simple enough except, most of us wash our sebum right down the drains in our sinks and tubs. That pretty much means you have to start from scratch, unless you have been on a no poo routine. If you have been cleansing your hair with baking soda, black soap, clay, egg or something else that does not strip away your natural oil, you are half way there.

I was reading emails and came across this post from BGLH.com about this chick using water only for 30 days. It was intriguing but I never thought about doing it. Then I came across this YouTube video and was in awe of this woman's type 4 hair and how nice it was.  I mean, I have been a fan of Naptural85 from day one of my natural hair journey, and even though she uses natural stuff, it was just too time consuming and I thought, I don't even like cooking why should I spend all this time making my own products? And believe me, I tried! I am still making and using her flax seed gel recipe with a tweak or two. So on May 16, 2014, I shampooed my hair one final time and embarked on a new journey.

To start this transition off right, I shampooed with Aubrey Organics J.A.Y Desert Herb, the old bottle, not this one. I don't know if the ingredients changed with the packaging because I haven't repurchased this shampoo in years. I chose this over my other shampoos because it is more natural with no sulfates and would not strip the oil that I now needed for this method. I noticed when I used this particular shampoo in the past, my hair would still feel "dirty" or waxy and not squeaky clean. Up until now  I was doing more co-washing anyway and I wanted to keep my sebum that was already there. Feeling like I had a "jump" on things, I did not condition after this final wash. I then braided my hair in mini braids, which I will NEVER do again because at this point I am still removing them. It only took me 2 1/2 days to install them, which was still too much time.  I started taking them down June 16th and I'm still not finished, UGHHHH over 1 week to remove a style, NEEEVVVA, NEVA AGAIN! It is recommended to put your hair in braids or twists(#notminis) during the transition period.

Because it is taking so long to unbraid my hair, I have had the chance to dig out my old boar bristle brush to aid in distributing my sebum, which is also recommended. I had not used that thing in years but I will now use it weekly following my ACV rinse during my main wash day. At the beginning I was rinsing daily to help build up my sebum and get it down my strands, now that I am mostly covered, except for maybe the last inch, I will try more styling and possibly WNG's which didn't work with my hair before. I have noticed that my hair looks dull and gray, I also have hard water which the ACV is supposed to help with, but I'm going to invest in a shower head filter.

My hair does have some sort of smell when it is wet but once it dries I only smell it if I itch my scalp then smell my fingers. EW, sounds kind of gross but I know we all do it. I have noticed that my scalp hardly ever itches, I no longer have huge scaly flakes or ANY flakes for that matter. My hair dries super fast, like in an hour or so. I can see the curls much better and can finger detangle in the shower with no problem. I even used my BBB in the shower and my hair felt great. No more digging out a bunch of products to get my hair to feel soft, I just twist in the shower and I'm done. I think I'm gonna love this!!

Do you have any tips on this method? Are you making changes to your daily life?