I’ll explain:
No Poo, is an unfortunate name for No Shampoo.
It literally means that you don’t use shampoo.
There’s various methods, water washing, or various concoctions which are hard to come by in Japan.
I did use baking soda at first, it did seem to clean my scalp well, but it’s actually way too harsh for your skin, so I wouldn’t recommend this, as it can damage your hair in the long term.
No Poo is letting your hair regain it’s own natural oils, sebum, yes the oils which shampoo adverts have made you into think they’re the devil. Your hair oils are actually very good for your hair and are stripped away every time you use shampoo.
Essentially No Poo made me realise how conditioned I’ve been in thinking that I needed shampoo.
Like all the adverts tell us, that greasy hair is bad, to have shinier hair you need shampoo and conditioner. To get rid of dandruff you need to use this shampoo.
It’s all rubbish, thousands of years ago, cave women and men would have done fine without shampoo. Grooming was first introduced over 4000 B.C. (very brief history here), then through ancient Egypt 1500 B.C started using essential oils, vegetable oils and animal oils to create a soap like for treating the skin. Various forms of soap were used but shampoo was bottled and introduced in 1930s.
I started No Poo during May 2020, when the pandemic meant that Japan was in voluntary state of emergency and there wasn’t a great deal going on.
I started No Poo, because it was a state of emergency in Japan, so there weren’t many people about or not much socializing.
I’ve also heard that not using shampoo is great for your hair, which made sense in my mind, our bodies do amazing things naturally, but I couldn’t quite not use shampoo.
I also dyed my hair, over the years, I reckon the bleach caused a lot of damage on my scalp and hair.
So I had a very dry scalp, flakey, which turned into dandruff. My scalp was also itchy and my hair also seemed so dry and poofy. While my roots didn’t have much volume at all.
I was using Lush’s shampoo bar, which I liked because of the smell and for travel. But realised that it was probably making my scalp and well no travel in 2020.
So the hair damage from hair colouring, the drying out of my hair and scalp from using the Lush shampoo bar. Plus also the difference in the water minerals in Japan, from being used to hard water in England as well.
Probably made an amalgamation of issues for my scalp and hair.
So I thought what’s the worse than can happen and tried not to use shampoo.
I’d say if you’d like to give it a try, why not, I first gave myself the goal of 6 weeks and then to see if I’d return to using shampoo.
Which lasted several months, until I had a friends wedding November and well greasy hair in Japan isn’t so well looked upon and I wanted to look clean and nice. Ha.
I’m so happy with the results a year ago, doing no poo for about 6 months, from May 2020 to November 2020, afterwards I just washed it once a week.
The shampoo I did use was Weleda (Wheat Balancing Shampoo 190ml), it’s the most natural shampoo I could find in Japan. I bought it from Tokyu hands in Nagano station.
This shampoo doesn’t make a lot of foam, but I feel like that means its much less toxic shampoo (not that I’m a scientist but just my intuition).
My hair has more volume, it’s less itchy, it still itches a little but dandruff can be caused by other issues, like diet and the seasons.
My hair is so shiny! Considering I haven’t used conditioner for a year, it’s amazing!
And overall if you like a more natural healthy look, which I do and my hair is so healthy now.
The idea of No poo is that your hair naturally has oils (sebum) and using shampoo actually strips those natural oils away.
So after challenging myself to water rinse only and no shampoo for 6 weeks, it turned into 6 months.
I found that my scalp was way less dry but I still have dandruff. The ends of my hair are shinier even after not using hair conditioner for over a year! And my hair has way more volume.
I’ve realised I haven’t gone into great details of the method I used.
There’s a blog I found with a little google which explains the method of no shampoo and hair washing so incredibly well, her blog is “Just primal things”.
She’s definitely a kindred soul, who loves to find out why and loves finding natural beauty hacks. Check out her blog for more details and to research more about the No Poo Method and Water Washing Only for No Poo.
A point that she had, that I did forget to mention on the video.
Is that you will have to commit to No Poo, week 3 is very, very greasy, I’m warning you so you are aware rather than to scare you.
I also got a comment on a video I made 6 weeks into No Poo, here’s the link, it is totally normal for your hair to be very very greasy around week 3 and I promise it gets better.
There’s a few methods on “Just Primal Things” blog, she goes into way more detail.
The 3 methods are:
Getting used to not washing my hair with shampoo.
Scalp is getting less itchy, roots and hair were more greasy.
My hair had a lot of natural volume, which it never had before, hair was very greasy, it was also itchy and flakey. Also brushing my hair a lot more, to move the oils from your scalp to your hair ends.
It was similar on week 4, however I used methods of scritching, preening and brushing my hair to move the oil from my scalp to the ends of my hair. I also had a hair cut to cut off all the old hair dye and dry hair ends. Dandruff was a lot better, less flakes, my hair looked a lot healthier, the scalp itself was so much healthier. I was using rice water, from the starch of Japanese rice, which is always rinsed before cooking.
Finally my hair was healthier, I decided to continue to water wash for another 6 months until November 2020.
This content is very different to my usual work, I live in the mountains of Japan, near a ski resort area called Myoko.
I thought I’d share different wellness tips which I’ve experimented with and I’d share with you.
Thanks so much for reading and feel free to comment if you have any questions.
Nanaco
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