Missy Diggs

Shampoo is probably not the first thing you think of when you hear the word “revolution,” but there is a small —but growing!— movement of people who are giving up shampoo and other hair products for good.

This trend is called “going no ‘poo,” and if you do an Internet search on that phrase you will probably be surprised by how many hits you get, and how many of them are from the last six months or so. I’m telling you, this wave is rising!

I first heard of the concept after my daughter was born, when I was spending a lot of time lurking on the Mothering.com forums. Lots of natural living mamas over there, for sure. I was tempted to try it out myself but in the fog of caring for an infant I think I just forgot about it.

Then, last year, I heard there was a lot of talk about it on the message board for one of the crunchier local parenting groups. Since then, whenever I run into someone I know from that group, I always wonder whether they are using shampoo or not. Usually the kids are pulling us in all directions and I don’t get a chance to ask. But I have my theories.

Right now, after 8 months of chemotherapy, with my new hair about half an inch long and growing, seems like the perfect time to give it a try. Not only because this is the closest I will ever come to starting over with all-new hair (I hope!) but also because now that I have cancer I am even more uncomfortable with some of the ingredients in the “self-care” products we use every day. I know there are usually more natural versions of the products available, for a price, but many of those contain suspicious ingredients too (for example, a “food-grade paraben” listed in a “natural” product is still a paraben; I don’t care if the FDA says it’s okay to eat it). And paying a higher price for a product I actually don’t need doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me anyway.

And the people who promote going no ‘poo claim that their hair looks better now than it did when they used products to clean and condition it. Supposedly, the shampoo strips your hair and scalp of natural oils and even bacteria that would otherwise be helping your hair look shiny and full. When those oils are stripped away, your skin produces extra oil to compensate. Then your hair looks greasy and feels dirty and you need to wash it with shampoo again. Conditioner weighs your hair down and keeps it from looking as full and shiny as it would if you had left it alone in the first place.

So they say.

Also, many of the things I’ve read say that there is a transitional period during which your hair will not look awesome, as your body adjusts to the job of taking care of itself naturally. Well, sure, with any new job, there’s a learning curve, I guess. During this period, and possibly beyond, some people like to “wash” their hair with a mixture of baking soda and water, rinse, and then “condition” their hair with apple cider vinegar. Otherwise, people just wash by running warm water through their hair, letting it dry, and brushing it to distribute the natural oils from the roots throughout their hair.

And so I think I will try it. If I’m going to go through a period where my hair does not look awesome, it might as well be now, when my hair’s too short for anyone to be able to tell. When I think of the money I could save by forgoing hair products for the rest of my life, I get pretty excited about what else I could be spending that money on…. like new lipsticks! Or, well, I’ll guess I’ll figure that one out later.

Sometimes it seems like Real Life slows way down, but this old blogosphere just keeps on spinning.  A couple of weeks have zipped by while I’ve been recovering from surgery, and I just haven’t  had much to say that would be of general interest. The things that are holding my attention right now are very specific, of overwhelming interest mainly just to me.

So I will post just to say that I am fine, I am healing quite well, and I am anxious to have my horrible surgical drains removed so I can really start getting used to my changed body. My family is hanging in there. Every stage of the treatment journey seems to have its hardest parts, and we are bumping over one and getting ready for another.

In the real world, amazing things keep happening as life moves on. Some of our favorite people have new babies, are taking awesome vacations, are getting married, are hoping to buy a house, are interviewing for really cool jobs, are coming home to stay. In the blogosphere, I am sad to see that some of the people I have come to know through my IBC message board have died from this invasive disease. It seems like life just keeps marching on, with its celebrations and its grief, even when I am curled up in bed for two weeks waiting to heal.

When I walked out of the hospital with my wonderful old friend the Reiki Master, the day after my surgery, I blinked in the sunlight and said, “wow.” As if reading my thoughts, she sort of chuckled and said, “Yep. It’s still here.”

Amazing.

It’s been at least four years since I’ve blogged anything. But now that I am embarked on the strangest adventure of my life (read: CANCER) and have a lot of time on my hands, it seems like a good time to get started again. This will be a place where I can record my fleeting thoughts, rants, and enthusiasms as they occur or at least as I feel like it.

And I promise, it won’t all be about CANCER. Though it probably won’t all be about rainbows and butterflies, either.

Bear with me as I learn how to do this again, and I’ll see you in the blogosphere.