Lighten Up experiment 1

So, does anyone want to guess what these are for? I guess I should at least tell you what they are before I make you guess. That seems fair, right?

In the green "oil and vinegar" bottle, we have a mixture of 1 C. water to 1 T. apple cider vinegar. The square glass container has baking soda in it. And I keep them together, on the same shelf (not this one, incidentally) and use them exclusively (I don't use anything else) for a single event that never included either of them before this experiment. Anybody going off to Google so that you can have a good guess? THAT should give you some interesting ideas!

Give up? OK, I'll tell. For the last 10 days, I have been using these to wash and "condition" my hair. Yep. Really. I mix 1 T of baking soda with a little water to scrub my scalp. That leaves my hair squeaky clean - and I DO mean squeaky. I do that every other shower. And then, every day, I splash a little of the vinegar rinse over my hair and leave it on for as long as I can stand the smell - so far that is about 30 seconds! Then I rinse that off (VERY WELL) with cool water and I'm done.

The theory is that the baking soda scrub acts as both a scalp massage (for blood flow, etc.) and a grime remover. Then the apple cider vinegar rinse is supposed to restore hair to the slightly acidic pH that is more normal for hair. I read a lot about this online, but I have to admit that it took almost 5 days of reading off and on. I mean, theory and other people's experiences are one thing - but this is MY hair, ya know? But I finally took the plunge.

The results? Clean, SHINY, soft, non-greasy hair. The vinegar rinse works so well that even D2 is using it (OK, not every day, but he has done it twice already!) and he's notoriously picky about his hair!

The only possible negative that I've seen is that this combination doesn't add any real weight to my hair. That means that my curls are telling me exactly how much I need a hair cut since they are getting a bit (to use an Ommi phrase) "kicky out-ee" (is that how you spell that?) on the ends. Oh, and the smell, which is gone before my hair is dry - which is pretty quick with my fairly short hair in the desert here.

Positives are abundant. No 2nd greasiness for my hair. Crazy shine. Fewer, manufactured chemicals in my life. Less money given to the corporate beauty industries. Less money for my hair care in general, too. Clean, green and cheap. That is my current version of a "Lighten Up" hat trick!

So, 10 days in, this experiment is looking good. I'm not sure how it will work if I let my hair grow out again, but there are netizens out there that swear by it. (Of course, we all know how much that means.) But this is a definite step along my Lighten Up in 2008 path!