Reader submission!!
This is more a “I’m so glad to see I’m not the only one” story.
I’ve been struggling to find a good routine for my hair – now down to my hips – for about two years now. I’ve been growing it out for about three years and recognized that when I had long hair before, I didn’t take great care of it, and I always had it up. I decided that I would be growing it out to actually wear it down and enjoy, but to do that I needed to make sure it was as healthy as possible.
I tried the SLS free method – I used shampoo bars and vingar rinses – and while it cleaned my hair nicely and left it soft the first day, I would experience an incredible amount of static the following days and I would losing a TON of hair every time I shampooed, so I quit that after trying it for almost 6 months. Plus that, it was extremely pricey!
So I tried another method; one that I had used before, I went to Giovanni hair care products which, again, were more expensive and the amount of conditioner I needed to use for my hair, which is probably comparable in thickness to that of a lion’s mane, was really killing my pocket book. So I nixed that.
THEN I tried another tried and true method, I used Suave Naturals and did a heavy coconut oiling before I shampooed (which has been twice a week for as long as I can remember, with a nightly conditioning in the shower for my length.) This was working great, except I noticed that I was experiencing more and more tangling and I was just going through WAY too much oil – again, it was getting expensive.
Frustrated as heck, I decided to give one other method a go – a derivative of the no-poo method. I knew I couldn’t do Water only, because my hard is too hard and I absolutely wasn’t willing to go through the process of getting my hair’s oils to adapt because I tried it in the past and it just never actually calmed down and I had greasy and staticky hair at the same time. Nasty.
So, I bought – based off of many other people’s recommendations – the V05 line. I massage a large handful of conditioner into my scalp and run another, smaller, handful through my length and keep massaging until I hear that “squeaky clean” noise.
Oh, my GOODNESS!! My hair has never felt so lovely! It is soft, and clean, and it doesn’t tangle and you know that downy feeling you love from a kids’ head of hair? Totally have that. And V05 costs .75 a bottle, so even though I am going through a bottle a week, the cost is nothing compared to what I used to spend.
I did shampoo – without oiling – a month into my experience to get rid of buildup, and so far this seems to be working extremely well. Plus that, the additional massaging has really helped the healthy of my head.
In the before and after you can see the fluffiness of my hair before vs. the softer look that I have achieved now.
So I really just wanted to share my success with this and that it’s just so cool to see someone else is having such a great time with it. Thanks for documenting your success!
Hey! I wanted to show you a photo of how my hair is looking these days. There you go! That’s with no (professional) hair cut in 5 months. I have trimmed my bangs and the back twice now with your help. That’s so awesome for me! I absolutely love how the asymmetry keeps it looking soft and feminine. Who knew a badass hair cut like the “dragon tattoo cut” could grow out to be so perfectly girly? This is the first time I’ve grown it out in about three years. I always thought I couldn’t have long hair because it was too dry and unmanageable but now that I am ShamPHree-ing and not using heat tools or hair products I’m realizing my hair actually kinda rules ;] I was just holding it back (and frankly torturing it) before.
