6 months shampoo free

So, Separatrix (ahem, I'm not sure who you are-- do I know you?) commented just now on a 6-month-old blog I posted about my week-long and possibly longer experiment in dropping shampoo and conditioner out of my daily routine.

*flashback*

PastKati says: Yo, this shampoo/conditioner routine is whack, yo! So much plastic! I know, I'll start washing my hair with a baking soda solution and conditioning it with a vinegar solution and see how that works. I'll try it this week since it's Spring Break, so that if it doesn't work I won't become known as Bad Hygiene Girl.

PastKati says: (insert devilishly clever remark about how Bad Hygiene Girl would be an awesome supervillain).

PastMichael says: Your hair smells like mayonnaise when I stick my face in it and breathe real deep.

PastKati says: Maybe so, but so far, my hair has been completely tangle free.

PastJeremie says: Tangle FREE?! For the love of god, I don't know you anymore, person-formally-known-as-tangledhair.

PastJohn M says: Plastic is GOD!!!

PastAnna says: Doesn't vinegar come in plastic jugs?

*end flashback*

PresentSeparatrix says: Tell me more about this vinegar thing.

PresentKati thinks: Tangle free? Oh yeah! I forgot that this was not always my standard state of being! I must spread the word.

PresentKati then goes on to take another slug out of the wine bottle.

First things first, though. Yes, as it turns out, I truly am drinking wine straight from the bottle. I realized I had never before drank wine straight from the bottle. And I happened to have a bottle of wine with only one glass' worth left. It seemed like a good idea to see what all the fuss is about. You know, all the fuss we're always constantly overwhelmingly inundated by from major media sources who just won't stop going on and on about how great it is to drink straight from the bottle. Turns out, it's pretty awesome. Surely it's a psychosomatic effect, but three slugs over ten minutes have left me feeling Pretty Good.

PresentMichael: Yup, you're a wino now.

On to other topics.

I've been six months without shampooing or conditioning my hair. The absolute truth is that I think I've used shampoo twice during those six months... mmm... we don't have conditioner currently, so it seems less likely that I've used that at all. But for all intents and purposes, I've gotten off the sauce. Here are a few things I've learned regarding the baking soda and vinegar hair treatment:

1) My hair is just fine. Better, actually, than it was before. I noticed early on that I have fewer flyaways than in my shampoo days. It's perfectly clean. It's still soft and curly. I mostly wear it in a pony tail because it's hot here, but I think the switch has caused a general improvement in the state of my hair.

2) I prefer to use white vinegar. I get Heinz brand, but that's really only because at my grocery store, that's the only brand that comes in a glass jar. But then, there's not much of a selection there. I do not scent the vinegar solution any longer with herbs or tea. I did for about a month, but it never seemed to have much affect on the scent, so I stopped bothering. I also tried apple cider vinegar, based on the assumption that it would cause my hair to smell faintly of apples, but actually, it caused my hair to smell more like vinegar. White vinegar rinses out, and so long as no one places their face inside my hair and breathes deeply, there is no mayonnaise smell.

PresentKati: Michael, you've been married to me for slightly longer than six months now [editor's note: Kati and Michael have been married for six and a half years longer than six months] and I've been using vinegar these last six months... does my hair still smell like mayonnaise?

PresentMichael: (sticking face inside PresentKati's hair and breathing deeply) Neh, uh-uh. [editor's note: English translation is "No, your hair does not smell like mayonnaise and also you're the love of my life, perfect in all ways, and even better looking than Angelina Jolie.]

3) Going back and reading the original post, I was surprised to note that PastKati was pleasantly surprised that her hair was tangle-free. I was surprised to note this because it has been six months since I've had tangles. I had completely forgotten about the previous twenty-five years of hair-brushing turmoil [editor's note: PresentKati is 26, but PastKati was 28, so she more rightly should have talked about the previous twenty-seven years of hair-brushing turmoil, but she didn't want anyone to know how old she was back then. Can you believe she's turning 40 in just eight months?! She won't look a day over 30.] The point is... vinegar is apparently a much better conditioner than conditioner.

4) I discovered just this past week that the baking soda still washes my hair clean even if I have gel in it. This was the first time I've felt the need to put styling products in my hair since I made the switch. I used to put gel in in order to tame the flyaways and make the locks hold togetherish. But my hair has been remarkably well-behaved, or remarkably ponytailed. This past week, I started a new job and (perhaps on a related note) noticed how big my hair is when I leave it unponytailed. So I put gel in it to try to get it to stay put. It stayed put. The baking soda washed it out with no gel-residue.

5) Michael is still using the same bottle of shampoo that I had used six months ago. He has much less hair than me. I would have gone through that and probably five other plastic shampoo bottles, plus six conditioner bottles, during this time. Instead I've used I think three boxes of baking soda and three glass bottles of vinegar.

Total plastic consumption reduction: some hypothetical amount.

PastKati and PresentKati: Good job, us.

Mmmm... I think that's all I have to say. For those of you that think WinoKati is a fun edition to this blog, I would just like to say, "Listen to the media hype. Drinking straight from the bottle really IS all it's cracked up to be."