Fav no-poo hair routine depends on how much time I have. My least maintenance method was 1 rinse and 1 rye flouring (where you dust your whole scalp liberally with rye flour) a month, plus boar brushing to pull oil down to the ends. This worked fine, but had trouble with buildup
Conversation
Eggs and baking soda also kinda worked, but I didn't wanna fuck with the ph balance with baking soda and the eggs still 'cleaned' my hair in a similar way to shampoo, and i felt like that was kinda against the spirit. Plus it was annoyin picking egg outta my hair.
1
29
I tried water-only, a method where you more regularly (once a week?) soak your hair with really hot water and then rub and scratch your scalp to physically loosen all the dirt and grease. This also kinda worked, but not fully, and I got bored with the time it took to do it
2
25
The initial adjustment period wasn't awful, it took me about 2 months for my scalp to adjust to the lack of washing. Afterwards, regardless of the method I was trying, it took my hair around 1 week to start developing oil. Super cool! It's still true to this day.
3
33
Eventually I got tired of the scalp buildup, which is kinda my fault cause the no-poo cleaning methods for treating it are annoying, so I started shampooing again. Right now I use a super gentle, no-sulfate, super-organic etc. shampoo and conditioner, once every 1-2 weeks
2
1
30
This is also the frequency with which I shower. I also experimented with showering, and when I say this usually the people I'm talking to go oh god oh no you must stink horribly, and I promise this is *not the case*, as verified by people around me who do tell me when I stink
3
1
44
I wanted to know - if I have a lot of leeway with washing my hair, how much leeway do I have with washing my body? Over the past three years I've stopped showering 'normally'; I've tried not-showering, going soap-free, soaking, dry-scrubbing, and oil scraping.
1
32
I got interested after I went to a festival, went home, showered, and then instantly stunk horribly after the shower. Wtf was that? My theory was a disturbed skin microbiome; using soap fucked with the bacterial balance in some way and made me want to use *more* soap to fix it.
1
31
(to be clear, in all of these experiments, I still very frequently washed my butthole/genital area with soap. I did not walk around with poopy butthole for three years)
4
1
65
Until recently, I've had a normal shower roughly once a month over the last three years, and this seems to have been largely fine? I won't say I've been perfectly stink-free, but now, 90% of the time I can tell when I'm stinky, and it's easy to fix without a shower.
2
32
Oil scraping is where you cover your body in a base oil + essential scenty oil combo of your choice, and then scraaape it off with a scrapey tool. This is real labor intensive, would be easier to do with two people, is pretty messy, but end results are INCREDIBLE.
Replying to
My skin was supple and extremely moisturized and smelled amazing. All the dirt and dead skin had been loosened and scraped off with the oil, and only incredible-smelling, glowing skin was underneath. Every inch of my body radiated delicious perfume.
But srsly, *super* messy.
3
37
Dry brushing was another one; the idea to loosen top-dead skin and dirt without disrupting the biome. I got a rough brush and went to town. This, like most of the other techniques, worked but was kinda labor intensive and annoying and didn't exactly feel good.
3
23
Water-only showering and soaking did pretty well actually, I think I wouldn't mind still doing this. The idea is to 'soak' off the dead skin and dirt, and rub yourself down with an exfoliating thing.
2
26
My main issue with all of these is mostly just the labor; basically every method I tried took more time and literal muscle power than a regular damn shower. Also, doing it less frequently meant there was more dead skin to remove.
1
30
Eventually the frequency I've settled on has been showering once every 1-2 weeks, same as my hair washing. I use a gentle body wash, but I try not to use any on my armpits, where the microbiome is most sensitive. I *do* exfoliate underarms hard with hot water.
2
31
My general feel now is most people's showering/washing habits feel strange to me? Like for most people, showering every day is probably absolutely excessive and creates a physical dependency on showering more. Your body acclimates and then 'needs' it.
2
2
53
On the other hand, I had a hard time getting a level of cleanliness that felt easy and good after around two weeks out, and so probably that's the upper limit for what your body can naturally maintain (with some variance for diff genes and diets).
1
32
But not sweat! Tho I'm not super physically active, I do dance hard and am an excessive sweater (team hyperhidrosis unite), and the frequency with which I felt I needed to shower was mostly independent of my activity and sweat, tho I *did* spotclean my crevices more often.
1
42
And - again I do risk more mockery here - there is a 'natural body scent' that I grew to really enjoy with less showering (including in ppl around me who also showered less). It's not roses and vanilla, but it smells human and good and full of personality and I like it a lot.
11
2
141
Replying to
I think grapeseed? I bought a few to test out but I forget exactly. I think it was grapeseed.
3