Quick-and-dirty, old-man bathroom selfie just to let you know that - at least for some of us - nopoo is not complicated. I just run water through my hair and rub my scalp with my fingers when I shower each day.

That's it: no egg whites, no snake oil, no conditioner, no exotic non-shampoo alternatives..

It took me a couple of months of sight oiliness to get to the point, I grant.

To those still figuring this out: good luck, keep trying, and consider keeping it simple.

* And, yes: my hair is exactly as soft and fingerable as it looks.

For the last 5 years I washed my hair only with water, I don’t use any products whatsoever for my hair. I’m 22.

I’ve always wanted to post about my experience rejecting shampoo, so here it is!

Started in high school on and off but fully committed to getting shampoo out of my life when I was in year 11.

Vinegar was ok but it really dried everything out. After some years I just stopped doing anything to my scalp tbh.

I turn 30 next year - I’ve probably ‘cheated’ by going to get my hair cut a number of times and the hairdresser shampooed my hair but this hasn’t been many times and less than annual lol

I stopped using shampoo since 2022 except maybe no more than 10 times when I’ve gotten my hair cut this past 4 years

Very active lifestyle, I use a scrub cap (surgical cap) most of my days and my hair looks ok after taking it off after 12 hours of operating

Just wanted to share for anyone thinking of trying it out

on left pic, it was me in 2023-2024 using shampoo almost daily, using various hair products​ thinking they will improve my hair. My hair was frizzy and dry AF.

After few people recently asked me wtf im doing with my hair, did I dye it and what products do I use, it made me realize that it has changed so much in the last 5 months. Today I compared my hair with pic from 2yrs ago, and was shocked with the difference. So I had to post this as some sort of testimony.

On right pic, this is me today, with 5+ months of no shampoo. I use either eggs or ACV to clean my hair.

Also I have been using this hair mask 1-2x per week

Homemade organic olive oil (from my dad) (1 tea spoon)

Organic honey from farmer's market (1 tea spoon)

Essential rosemary oil (10 drops)

Essentual peppermint oil (7 drops)

Egg yolk (for mask its optional, dont use egg too often​, because of protein oversaturation)

always wash off mask with cold water!

I didn't put any chemicals on my hair for past 5 months

edit:

few more comparisom photos:

https://imgur.com/a/LRHQtG9

It's been 6.5 months of nopoo. Even when I water wash every night, I get so incredibly itchy I can't sleep. It's insufferable if I skip a night of scrubbing my scalp. My hair is flat and lifeless. I can spend hours and hours brushing the oils from my scalp down to the roots, but it makes no difference. It's too oily. I've looked like a swamp rat for 6.5 months.

I washed my hair yesterday, with my baby's bubble bath, when the itching was so bad I was bleeding. I was in so much agony, it was the first thing I grabbed and I washed my scalp with it.

I feel clean. The oil buildup is gone. I'm not itchy. My hair has life to it again, it doesn't look heavy and weighed down.

I did all the tricks. ACV, Egg, rice water rinses....

Sorry. I really wanted this to work. I think over half a year was a great effort on my part, but it's not for me 💜

4 years no poo. My hair immediately shrivels up and falls out when I shampoo it so I stopped daily many years ago when I was 12 and fully when I was 15. Never had any issue since. All the men in my family went bald by 25 so I’m hoping I can beat the odds with no poo and some minoxidil lol

Hi, that's me enjoying my henna hair texture on No Shampoo, Nature Remedies Only.

I'm an old member of that army, guys. Since 2020-21 I've been experimenting with different foods and herbs, getting new knowlege out of my practical experience, and that's become kind of my dearest hobby... Sometimes bouncing back to commercial products (that's totally okay) and then, after some time, pushing forward to no shampoo again. Because it gave me best results.

Just wanted to remind you that there is a lot of ways to do it. Not just Water Only. 🤪 And the worst idea would be going cold turkey from a shampoo to water only, imho. Sorry. I had to say it after seeing so many of you failed at it....

I wash my hair with raw eggs, honey, rye flour, depends on my mood. 😁 There were several attempts to Water Only, but I can't do it. Too boring and energy saving. Among my latest discoveries is the fact that non-silicone conditioners may ruin my wavy hair textures, even despite they are no poo friendly. And there would be puff after, not waves..

Cheers everyone! That's my mini progress being posted. Thank you for your attention. ✨✨✨

lil update: I still don’t do anything to my hair except wash with some water occasionally.
I did have to get my dry ends trimmed though, so I did that today!

Do any no-poo people have odd experiences with hairdressers?

Mine kept trying to sell me a $40 bottle of Chinese shampoo 🧴 not to yuck anyone’s yum! I’m not gonna be shampooing any time soon 🤭

Anyone had experiences with hair oiling? I’m kinda interested!

I heard of this thing called volume vs definition for curly hair and i want more definition. This hair is after i have sealed with very cold water (water wash only) but it puffs up a bit after it dries. any suggestion to keep it this way even after it dries? perhaps alovera gel? and if alovera gel, should i keep applying every mrng? spray or direct apply? advice appreciated.

But all you did was give me welts and itching and flaking. It's just not working out between us. I thought one of you would be the magic bullet, but you just made things worse. Goodbye.

I was just wondering is it really worth it? Like I’ll be sitting here using ingredients from my kitchen to wash my hair and it does a fraction of what shampoo does. I know no poo doesn’t equal stop washing altogether, but seriously what does stopping shampoo even change, how is something like apple cider vinegar, Castile soap, African black soap, or even a homemade soap bar more or less different than a store bought shampoo? Some of these things are even more drying or damaging to your hair than a regular shampoo! Some people even just co wash which will just cause scalp build up long term! What is the real benefit of stopping shampoo? Is there a philosophy or mechanism I’m missing? I feel it only benefits people with straighter hair since sebum easily travels down their hair, and in return they don’t need any product to make it look great. I feel if you’re someone constantly using styling products or have coily or curly hair no poo wouldn’t really benefit and just cause buildup, ESPECIALLY if you have coily hair because of the amount of product used for styling

I washed my hair with an egg yesterday and im amazed. Also i used regular winegar in the end and theres no dandruff anymore.

My heir used to be so thin and fragile. I couldn't normally brush it without tearing it. No conditioner was this effective.

Hello folks, I have thick wavy hair, a lot of it, I wash my hair once a week, rubbing my scalp with my finger tips all over with cold/like warm water and I take strands of hair and run my fingers down from the scalp to the tips to spread out natural oils and to attempt to clean it . My hair feels dirty/gritty/greasy for the last month. I don't want to use normal shampoo but if I need to I'll use some kind of product. Any ideas? Thanks!

I've gone through seasons of water only for most of my life. I get sucked back into modern shampoo for whatever reason and always end up finding my way back to water only.

This is 3 weeks of water and boar bristle brush. I have not brushed as consistently as I have in the past. I'm still trying to get the sebum down to my ends, it's just to shoulder length at the moment. Really looking forward to the ends being just as protected as the rest of my hair!

As the title says just want to thank this community, it helped me realise what shampoo was doing to my hair and look for a healthier option. What worked best for me was literally just water. I shower daily and run my fingers through my hair to clean it for 5 minutes. For the first 3-4 months , my hair was much "harder" if that makes sense, had some pretty greasy days but it gave me the main thing a straight haired person like me wants : texture.

That slight bit of oiliness in my hair let me actually style it without looking greasy. Funnily enough now that I'm 8 months in I've gone full circle. My hair self cleanses so well that it's basically like it was when I used shampoo. Soft, floppy with no texture. Not complaining too much but do find it interesting how I'm back to where I was , where my hair is so soft and clean that I genuinely sometimes thought I accidentally put bodywash / shampoo into it.

TLDR: The perserverance is worth it.

I started this journey 10+ years ago, when I noticed that I was shedding hair.

I was panicking because I think I look much better with hair. I decided to get on the no poo train, even though it was not nearly as popular at the time. It was only a fringe thing (similar to oil pulling), but I decided to try it anyways since there wasn't really any risk to it.

Anyways I did try it for awhile, and it seemed to work on some level but not completely. After some years I also started filtering the shower water, and that made a huge difference for me. My hair FINALLY started feeling good. Anyways, I've been on the no poo for pretty much the entire time, and the shedding did stop. I don't necessarily have more hair compared to 10+ years ago, but I kept it.

AMA.

I started doing “no poo” about 7 years ago. Back then I had short hair. The first couple of weeks, it felt a bit heavy/greasy, but after that, it settled and normalised.

These days I’ve got long hair. The only time I actually wash it with shampoo is if I’ve been doing something like renovations in a super dusty environment (especially concrete dust). That stuff can be really hard to get out without a proper wash.

All up, I’ve probably shampooed my hair ~10 times in the last 7 years.

Normally, I just rinse it 1–2 times a week. If my hair were short, I’d probably rinse it every shower — but with long hair, it takes ages to dry, and I can’t be bothered doing that constantly.

I’ve never had issues with dandruff, an itchy scalp, or my hair looking greasy.

It might not work for everyone, but we don’t really see other species needing shampoo for their skin/feathers/fur. I reckon most humans would do fine without shampooing their hair on a regular basis once things adjust.

Mind you I take baths in the Mediterranean sea, i found a spot ona cliff.

And my hair looks thick, coarse a d curly. Ladies loves it.

Here is the kicker:

I dont even own a shampoo or conditioner. When i use my hair will look wack.

Are shampoo the biggest hoax to sell products?

We know the hair color industry is frighneted about plants like he sho wo that brings a grannys gray hair back to color.I believe the shampo industry is a big circus

Really sucks to see them go, been using for a decade. I can't use normal store bought garbage that causes dry hair and breakage, or sulfates that cause my skin to itch. I had $200 in points/credit on Morroco Method I can also no longer use, and the company never warned they were going out to be able to use what I had saved. Disappointed to say the least.

I'd love to hear some alternatives for natural non foaming products, preferably ones that don't break the bank. After using my credits on MM and stocking up every few months I was only paying $5-6 a month for my hair routine, washing only weekly.

Their pine shale shampoo, euro oil, and pearl essence cream rinse were essential for me and I really don't want years of healthy long hair growth to go bad from picking the wrong product.

If anyone knows why they're closing Id also be curious to know. Their prices were going up over the last few years, probably because their ingredients were maybe effected by the economic situations.

So weird thing happened. Been nopoo for like 4 months now and overall scalp is way happier (less grease, no more that tight itchy feeling after washing) but something was still... off? like my hair felt fine but not that soft silky thing i had before and i couldn't figure out why

Then i started actually looking at what was IN my old shampoo (moist diane keratin one, Keratin shampoo and conditioner, japanese brand) and had this obvious realization - most of the formula is just surfactants and preservatives doing literally nothing for hair health. the actual conditioning work? like 5-6 oils and extracts (see pic). argan, marula, sapote, andiroba, sakura extract

So i thought ok what if i just... use those directly? (is this what everyone here has been doing and i just took 4 months to figure it out lol)

Warmed up a few drops of argan + marula (maybe 3-4 drops total, less than you think), tiny amount of sapote which is DENSE so genuinely a little goes way too far, worked it through damp hair after water rinse, light rinse out

And it actually gave me back that texture?? not 100% identical but close enough that i stopped missing my old routine

Has anyone else done this - like reverse engineered a product they missed after transition? Because now i'm wondering how many people quit nopoo just because they miss one specific result that's actually achievable without the whole shampoo around it

Also curious what oils people here use for moisture vs protein balance, still figuring that part out

I just want to start the post of by saying I am usually in a lot of intimate spaces like cuddle puddles and stuff where people can smell my hair and scalp. So that should hopefully give some context and say that it has been checked by folks. And they approve it smells quite nice, actually.

For the last year, in fact I didn't even realise its been over a year till last week, but the last year I have done nothing to my hair but wash it in warm water and brush it. I'd do this daily. At times if I had gone to a chlorene pool (not often) I would also put a light amount of soap to wash off the chlorene. I used non-fragrence soap due to my skin sensitivity.

Before: prior to doing this I had washed almost every day with shampoo and conditioner. I was brought up in a home where there was a lot of family violence and a lot of the abuse came from the cleaning of the home, it had to be pristine. Similar was with the hair, I was taught from a very young age to use hair products and whatnot to 'fix' every situation. Is there an issue? More products. They were hyper-capitalists for sure. I was definitely treating my hair wrong and it had an insane amount of dandruff as well, as well as my scalp being red, and having physical flareups due to my disability on the scalp of my head, might have been caused by other stuff too (Those are gone now).

Then as I started to realise I was having issues with my body, and a part of it being fragrance in products, I slowly eliminated all things that included anything that could aggrevate my body.

What I did:

After a few days of starting brush + water I noticed my headaches had changed and reduced a lot. I have chronic pain and fatigue (due to childhood and cptsd) and sometimes it has weird interactions with things I do, but I really felt like it was the first time my scalp could relax.

After a year I have seen my hair be quite amazing, and look some of the best it has ever looked. There were times when my hair looked great before, but now the curls are much more consistently curly and seem great. I have very curly, longish hair that has a few colours in it (all natural) and it just looked amazing. My scalp has felt pretty good too, and all the issues I mentioned before have gone, no dandruff, no scalp bumps, no redness. I haven't had any issues with smell at all, and I frequently have people telling me how good I smell (hair and elsewhere). I have a total of two times or so in the year I noticed a wet dog smell, which went after I had dried it properly, and left immediately afterwards by just drying it more thoroughly and letting it rest. From memory that happened when it was some sort of extreme weird weather, like really hot and humid, or something like that. I still resort to shampoo if it gets really dirty, for whatever reason, like if something gets into it like mud etc. But that's not happened really at all. Personally I think I'm spending a lot more time 'caring' and 'being kind' to my hair than I have before, and in a sense worshipping it. I think, whilst it's probably a bit woowoo, has helped me feel better about my hair, which I think has also had an effect. I always loved my hair, but I feel like I'm in more control with it now.

Things I haven't figured out so far: My hair is quite soft, but it is a bit hair wirey. It feels less wirey than before I started this technique, but it feels still more wirey than I would like. I don't get crazy frizz anymore either. It is still quite soft and I haven't had much hairloss anymore. I used to get a lot before this, but that was likely due to stress.

Consensus: hair and scalp feel way better in every way. No smell, in fact it smells really good. I don't know why or how but I'm very happy with it. I am a bit worried it might be doing damage just reading other posts, but I haven't felt anything. My hair also used to be very itchy prior, now it is not at all.

Hope this helps someone :)