Bicarbonate and ACV hair care

I'm doing something new with my dreads.  I love my organic soaps and all, but it's been leaving my hair greasy.  Regular shampoos just won't cut it.  They leave too much residue on the hair, which is bad news for dreads.  I need something that will leave the hair clean and oil and residue-free.

There's been this whole big revolution of people going "no-poo".  Some people choose to stop using shampoo and only use conditioner.  Others just wash their hair with water, nothing more.  There are those who opt for regular bar soaps, organic soaps, or Dr. Bronner's.  I've heard that you can use Dawn dish soap to wash their hair.  There is recipe upon recipe online.  From ingredient checkers to recipe makers to those who simply listen to what some online source tells them, people everywhere are starting to look into alternatives to the shampoo revolution, and for various reasons from cost to health.

In my case, I've started on this whole journey with dreads.  I know from listening to the experiences others have had that it's easy to screw up dreads, as much as it looks like an easy, no-brainer of a process.  Yes, it's a wash and wear hair style, but if you think about it, bound up clumps of hair can easily be damaged or destroyed.  Think about any fiber that gets wet and stays wet for long periods of time.  Moisture builds up inside and it can easily mildew or mold.  It develops a lovely musty smell.  That's just one of the many ways things can go wrong with dreads.  Because of this, you'll want to be careful what you're putting in your hair.

I'm sure you wouldn't believe it, but I've heard all kinds of stories of things people put in their hair to help their hair dread.  The two most disturbing on the commonly used list are honey and tooth paste.  I can't imagine anyone thinking it would be a good idea to put honey in their hair.  For me, that just sounds like a sticky, messy disaster that would leave the hair in a great position to rot if I didn't wash it all out.  Nope, that doesn't sound like fun at all!  Toothpaste actually has much the same effect from what I've heard.  Both of these do nothing to the dreading process, aside from perhaps destroying the hair, which is not at all the intended effect.  There's this huge debate going on about wax as well, given that if used while the hair is wet, it traps in the moisture, encouraging rot and bad smells.  Wax also tends to attract dirt, so you've got to be careful how much wax you use.  Now, I've known a lot of people who have used wax and have had their dreads turn out just fine, so I'm not one of the "evils of wax" kind of people, but I choose not to use it for a variety of reasons.  One of which is the number of nightmare stories of "wax gone wrong" and people trying to get the wax out.  The anti-wax playing field got to me long before the wax side did, and even with the research, I think wax-free is the way for me.  There's too much room to mess it up with wax!  It's easier to put my woolies back in without wax to mess them up too.  Of course, just as the hair stops bleeding out dye so I could put the woolies back in, the weather turns and it's almost too hot for wool!

I wanted something that would be easy and inexpensive. Organic soaps can be pricey.  Dr. Bronner's is great for washing everything under the sun, but it seems several people find that it leaves a residue on their dreads.  I just didn't want to take the risk.  Straight from the start I decided I wanted to go with a home-made rinse, but I didn't think I could because my hair wasn't long enough for a soak.  It's hard to sit with your dreads in a bowl soaking when half your dreads are too short to reach the bowl!  However, I finally decided I had no choice!  I had to do something.

There are dozens of "no-poo" recipes out there.  Most of them contain the same major components, bicarbonate (otherwise known as baking soda) and ACV (apple cider vinegar).  Some of them include additives like tea tee oil, lavender oil, and lemon juice.  For your typical non-dreadie, the easiest recommended recipe is a tablespoon or two of bicarbonate mixed with just enough water to make a paste.  Once that paste is formed, you scrub it in to the roots of your hair just as you would a normal shampoo.  Rinse, and then soak the hair in a mix of one or two teaspoons of ACV mixed with water.  Rinse until the vinegar smell is gone.  Simple as that and done!

For someone with dreads, there's all of these different recipes.  The one thing I'm finding common among all of them are between two and four teaspoons of bicarbonate and between two teaspoons and a quarter cup of ACV mixed in a bowl with about four cups of water.  To this is often added some lemon juice (about the amount of one full squeezed lemon), or a few drops of some kind of oil.  Some even add a bit of sea salt.  You soak the hair, leave it for a half an hour, then rinse until clean.  Until recently I hadn't heard the whole idea of pouring it into and over your hair until soaked and wrapping it in a towel for a half an hour.  That's something I can much easier manage in my daily life.  Soaking my hair is much harder to do with it being so short.  It would mean pouring water from the bowl I soak in with a cup to soak the rest of it.  It might take some creativity.

Not wanting to go with anything fancy, I just used the bicarbonate and ACV.  I mixed them, soaked them for a short period, probably about ten minutes, and rinsed.  My hair felt shockingly dry, and clean!  I wasn't sure I got all of the vinegar out of my hair the first time, so I rinsed my hair again when I showered today to be sure.  Now that my hair is dry, I absolutely love the way my hair is starting to look now!  I have to admit, I was a little scared because the knots started coming loose!  Half of what was there came out, but what didn't is pretty solidly locked up!  I think it's the greasiness of the hair that caused them to slip loose when being washed out.  I went back and redid anything that was too loose and they seem to be staying fairly well.

My hair is kind of dry, but I think that's either a need to tweak the recipe or I need to let my hair adjust to the new system.  We'll see what happens from here, but the dreads are turning out great!  The new wash seems to really be working!