I wash my hair once a month (and then with only water)
I cringe at the label, but I've always been somewhat crunchy... over the years, I've settled down into my own style of this, taking what works for us and leaving the rest:
- we dress mainly in natural fabrics (merino, cotton, linen) - blog post about how we dress here
- there's no non-stick cookware in the house - it's stainless steel and cast iron only
- I breastfed my kids until they weaned naturally, which was almost 5 years old for N and between 3-4 for D. I’m so grateful I did that because I’m convinced it prevented even worse health outcomes from our vegan diet at the time.
- but I don't buy the fear mongering around microwaves so we still use one
- my kids are vaccinated
But when it comes to body care, I think that’s worth its own blog post, because it really is rather unconventional.
Skin care
I wash my face every night with warm water, then rub it down (while wet) with pure jojoba oil, rinse with more water, then rub off with a dry cloth. This is my wash; no soap of any kind, ever, except to wash hands because of germs. My skin has never been clearer.... I follow this evening face wash with tallow cream. In the daytime, I often use make up (mineral powder foundation and a bit of eyeshadow / mascara), but certainly not always.
I burn easily, so will use sunscreen, slowly tapering off until my skin has got used to the summer sun - it tends to forget what that shiny thing in the sky is, during those long dark British winters.
Dental care doesn't need its own section - I brush my teeth with a sonic toothbrush and fluoride toothpaste because, again, I don't buy the crunchy alternative story on that. No mouth wash, but a weekly oil pull (swishing coconut oil around the mouth for 20 minutes then spitting it out) is essential maintenance for whiteness and plaque prevention. My dentist has commented on how plaque free my teeth are!
Hair - once a month??
In 2012, I quit shampoo.
I had been extremely dependent on it, especially through my teens when my hair was so greasy I had to wash it daily without fail, or look like someone had poured oil on my head. I hated it, my aunt even used it as leverage at times (refusing to let me wash my hair, as a punishment)... it was bad. My hair is naturally straight and fine, so it looked like limp rat tails when unwashed.
Around 2011, aged 31ish, I was very concerned to find my hair looked like it was thinning on the top of my head!! That sent me off into a rabbit hole of trying different things, including the curly girl method (a disaster on hair like mine, but I tried...) - and eventually just quit using shampoo altogether, although I continued to wash my hair daily with water only. I would always blow dry it afterwards, and nobody noticed a thing except for me: I found my hair getting stronger, thicker, and more malleable. It was no longer so thin and slippery, it had body.
For years I kept washing daily, but eventually I began spacing it out a bit: up to three or four days were eventually possible, and that was a revelation, particularly when I had the babies! To not have to wash and dry my hair every day was incredibly freeing.
Eventually though, I came across a few Youtube videos about historical haircare, and it's clear that historically, women just didn't have the time to wash their hair daily - and hair dryers weren't a thing! First, I learned about boar bristle brushes. My hair is particularly thin and limp, so I actually found those brushes unhelpful even after trying to get on with them for several months if not years. I would still have to wash my hair every 3-4 days, and the boar bristle brushing actually made it look flatter and oilier than if I didn't use it! So eventually I gave up on that, it may work for people with thicker hair but not for me.
At the beginning of this year, once again through Youtube, I learned about using corn starch as dry shampoo - in my case, mixed with cocoa powder because my hair is dark. I thought, what do I have to lose? and tried it.
Ta-dah... a revelation!
My hair loves the stuff. It makes my scalp feel clean as it soaks away the oil, but doesn't stress the hair like water washing and blow drying does. I put some through my hair once a week or every five days-ish, in the evening; in between those times I massage my scalp daily with my finger tips and comb it through carefully. Now my hair looks stronger than it’s ever been, it's malleable, it feels and looks clean.
I keep doing this dry routine for a full month. I haven't gone beyond that - there's no need; once a month I will wash with water only and blow-dry it afterwards. To remember to do that, I follow my cycle and do this at the end of my period. This makes it feel like a bit of a ritual, and helps me not to forget!
What might be worth saying is that I don’t run or otherwise work up heavy sweating normally… for exercise, I just do about 100-150ish deep squats each day (two dozen after every time I go to the toilet, so that’s spaced out through the day).
Also, for context, my hair is about shoulder blade length with a fringe. I cut it myself every six months or so as needed (the fringe more often) - since I wear it up at all times in public and only my family ever see it down, it’s not a big deal if the cut isn’t perfect.
Well, that’s it, I have found my groove here. Crunchy? Not my hair!