Plain and simple

Guys, baking soda shampoo and vinegar rinse worked great for me, but I was bad at keeping it up. So yes, I use commercial shampoo now BUT they don't contain sodium lauryl/laureth/laureate (?) sulfate. Not that I'm plugging them, but I've used The Mane Event shampoo bar from Kinder Soaps* (RM22) and the shampoos from Indochine Natural (RM40... YA RLY).

Caveat #1: I tended to shampoo the same spot with the Kinder Soap bar because it's in bar form and doesn't glide over hair as it would on skin. You can use it as soap too, by the way. And I'm wild about how spicy it smells; I think it's the tea tree oil.

Caveat #2: Yes, RM40 for 250 ml, i.e., 1 measuring cup, is fucking costly for a low-budget person like me (and low-budget people everywhere).

I feel a bit regretful over my "lapse", although going back to ultra-basics was the last thing on my mind when I was browsing a gossip blog. I came across an article about Shailene Woodley of The Fault In Our Stars fame. She seems to be part of the Gen Z (or whatever millenials are supposed to be labeled) new hippie tribe and once said something about sunning her vagina to obtain vitamin D.** (Which opens her up the floor to all sorts of terrible jokes about what she does to get the D.)

Anyway, she claims to wash her hair once a month. It works in the winter I guess, so I'd like to see her do that in the (Western) summer. She didn't elaborate on her efficient haircare approach, but it reminded me of a "tip" I read when I was teen. The premise was that as most of the dirt in our hair is water-soluble hair product (this was the 1990's, mind), it would be enough to just clean your hair with plain water. I tried it then, and the grease was horrific.

As all things are with time, my hair is different now. It was also due for a wash, being about 3 days since the last shampoo. I decided to rinse again. Using cold water instead of warm though. No conditioner, not even a light oiling after. It's been 24 hours and my hair is actually (still?) unoily and actually feels washed. My scalp feels fine. I will rinse again today and see how that works out. If it does, this could be the money-saving tip of the year!

*Enfant Terrible and I still argue whether it's pronounced "kainder" or "keender".
**If you don't already know, the skin is the largest organ (heheh) we have, and the UV it absorbs from mere minutes of exposure to sunlight is enough to activate your vitamin D, so you don't need to go to any extremes, and guys need vitamin D too. #health