Bethany's Hair Care 101

[kimana517]

When I did my 25 Random Things About Me the other day, the random thing that got the most comments was:

17. I haven't brushed my hair or used shampoo in it for more than 4 years now.

I guess it's been so long since I stopped doing those things that I kind of forgot that many of my friends don't know that.

.

Before . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . After
I have so much worse pictures of me from when I had big hair, but you won't ever see them...
unless you come to my house bearing armloads of junk food.

My mom has stick straight hair and is the biggest tomboy I know. Because of this we had no clue that you should care for curly hair differently than straight hair - and no one bothered to tell us. I was very frustrated with my triangular hair as a teenager because I knew that it could look better but I had no clue how to get it that way. (And this was before you could Google stuff. Yes, I'm That Old.) On my first mission trip to Australia (when I was 17), a friend with naturally curly hair asked me, "Have you ever tried to not brush your hair and see what happens? 'Cause that really helps hair not be so frizzy." I couldn't fathom not brushing my hair! Wouldn't it get tangled? But I figured I was as far away from my usual world as possible, and I should try it. I had short hair at the time (because I got fed up with my frizzball hair when it was long) but even then I could see an immediate difference. Now, those of you who knew me at WOLBI are probably thinking, "Um, WOLBI was after that and your hair was not so great when we were students together." You're right, of course, but that's because I didn't have any style till I was like 19. Hehe. What I had then was unstylish - but mostly unfrizzy! - hair. Anyway - I have not brushed or combed my hair since I was 17.

In the fall of 2004 I discovered an online community for Christian girls with curly hair. My hair was quite long at that time and was far better-looking than any previous time I'd had it long because I didn't even own a hairbrush, but it was still a little frizzy and I had a flaky scalp. The online community was based on the book Curly Girls by Lorraine Massey, which challenged everyone, but especially wavy and curly girls, to stop using shampoo and stop brushing your hair. Shampoo has a lot of chemicals that strip your scalp and hair of its natural moisture, causing frizz. I probably would've thought it was crazy to stop using shampoo if I hadn't befriended several of the girls in the community who hadn't used shampoo for months and had beautiful - clean - hair. The book suggests that curly girls just wash with conditioner. This works for most of my friends, but even after the shampoo detox period (usually 2-3 weeks, as your scalp gets used to not having its natural moisture stripped away each day), my hair was not getting un-oily. So I took some suggestions and I tried a baking soda rinse and an apple cider vinegar (ACV) rinse. Hallelujah! My hair was totally clean and healthy, and - bonus! - the acid in the ACV helps get rid of flakes! It also makes it so I have to wash my hair less frequently (every other day or two days in between), and I don't have any split ends. (I used to have a ton of those when I was a teen.) I remember how amused Isaac was that I was putting food in my hair. LOL. Since then, that is all I've used. I do use some organic (because it doesn't have the "evil" ingredients) shampoo when I travel, for convenience sake, but I really dislike it because my hair has to be washed more frequently and the flakes come back.

So. Here's my hair care recipe routine. I'm sure it would work for anyone else with any hair type.
1) Mix 1 Tbsp baking soda with 1 Cup hot/warm water. (I keep the ingredients and measuring tools in my bathroom.) Stir it up in a cup or something, and pour it in your scalp. Massage it in with the pads of your fingers, and then rinse it out thoroughly. (You could make a large batch of both rinses and keep them in, say, a 2 liter bottle, and that would save you time when you shower. I've just never bothered with that.)
2) Mix 1 Tbsp apple cider vinegar with 1 Cup warm/cold water in a different cup or whatever. Pour it on your scalp, massage it in with the pads of your fingers, and let it sit for a few minutes (while you shave or wash your face, etc.). Then rinse it out thoroughly. Your hair will not smell like ACV; it will smell like whatever conditioner you follow with.
3) Put conditioner on the canopy (top part) of your hair. Then get a bunch of it on your fingers and comb through your hair with your fingers. This is how you detangle, if necessary. Let me tell you - I go to the beach often, drive on the highway in Isaac's convertible with the top down, and had my hair teased like crazy yesterday, and every single time I have been able to get all the tangles out by just using conditioner and finger-combing. Normally I don't have very many tangles in my hair at all, though, despite not even owning a brush or comb.
4) Gently dry your hair by scrunching and/or blotting with a towel.
5) Use a bit of gel or mousse and scrunch it into your hair. Then air dry or blow dry with a diffuser. (My hair is always the shiniest and least frizzy when I air dry, so I nearly always do that.)

Oh yeah, and if you have any wave in your hair at all, layers are your friend.

And that's it! I am more in love with this method than ever after my photo shoot yesterday in which my hair was teased (tangled) into 3 different, big hairdos and sprayed with enough hairspray to make a long-lasting homemade flame thrower. After finger-combing with lots of conditioner and doubling the ACV, my hair is back to its normal, shiny, defined-curls self. No extremely drying clarifying shampoo necessary.

If you have any questions, just ask!

Comments

[lupinskitten.livejournal.com]

So basically, any cheap conditioner will work? That, I can do! Since my hair is greasier, I might want to rinse it all out, at least in the beginning. I scrunched my hair this morning with mousse and didn't comb it, and it is "curlier" than it was. (Which is non-curly compared to yours, but curlier than my straight waves.)

When you have a minute, could you swing by my last post and leave mosinging1986 some tips? I don't know enough about Curly Girl to help her, but she does have natural curls and lately they have gone insane, apparently. She would really appreciate it. =)