No-Poo Adventures Episode 2: Conditioner-Only Washing

2 months or so ago I posted about the apple cider vinegar rinse.  I now know that the rinse did what it was supposed to, but the immediate effect of it made me panic. For any of you out there that use a daily routine of smoothing cream, no-frizz products, flat ironing and so on, letting your hair air dry and sit naturally is a very difficult concept to grasp. I spent some more time in my nopoo community, and decided to ease into it a lot more slowly. My hair is fine, and prone to breakage, so going from and over-processed routine to NoPoo straight away was a bad idea for me.

Conditioner-only washing is exactly how it sounds. You use conditioner only to wash your hair in order to keep the oils in your locks that shampoo would have stripped them of completely. It is recommended to switch to a natural conditioner, at least with no silicones in it. I decided to use my own conditioner first, for two reasons: It's a huge bottle and I want to use it up, and this transition needs to be as gradual as humanly possible for my hair.

I've been using Wella for color-treated hair, and here is my 6 week process.

The beginning! My routine:

Shampoo and Condition with color-safe products

Apply Got2b smooth operator to towel-dried hair

Blow-dry with round brush

Flat Iron

Hair Spray

Daily.

This is a freshly finished, morning look of my old routine. It was after this trip to Cologne that I decided to start gradually moving in to conditioner-only washing. I'll be honest, transitioning at the beginning sucks. Like, really sucks. My hair didn't react too badly but it was a greasefest. I think it was harder for me mentally than my hair physically though, the idea of not using my flat iron was sacrilege.

I started with washing every day, but only with shampoo ever two days. Then, water only every day, and conditioner every other day.Once I successfully adjusted to washing every two days, I stopped using products and head tools completely. About 10 days of air-drying and no-styling, washing ever two days, I could start washing with conditioner only once a week.

This was taken after a conditioner wash, after going 7 days with using water only to rinse my hair in the shower.

3 weeks of conditioner-only. This was taken last week, 2 days after a wash. I find that my hair looks best 2 or 3 days after a wash.

Same day, different lighting.

This morning. 4 weeks of conditioner only. 5 weeks since I used any product. 6 weeks since I stopped using my flat iron and hair dryer.

It's early.

My routine now is simple, I wash with conditioner once a week, wrap my hair in an old t-shirt for about 25 minutes, or simply leave the house with my hair wet. Something I was never confident enough to do before. I used to obsess about my hair looking okay and being sprayed and molded perfectly for me to be comfortable with it, but not anymore. It's liberating, actually. I am planning to learn how to use products to style my hair again once I have fully transitioned to no-poo, and no-poo for me means, whatever method of no-poo works best for my hair. This could be:

Shampoo bars

Baking soda to wash and ACV to rinse method.

Silicone, Paraben, and SLS-free Conditioner-Only washing

Lemon juice and white vinegar method

Water-only.

The full transition will take some time for me, but I think next week I will give baking soda and ACV method a shot.