… and honestly my hair isn’t that bad.
Most people react to the fact that my hair is two weeks unwashed with disgust;
“your hair must be so gross!”
“please stand down-wind”
“don’t touch the pillow with your hair!”
The list goes on.
Yet all who have this reaction, do so out of an ingrained untruth. One that I am out to prove wrong; that you need shampoo.
It’s been two weeks since James and I, over several beers and a long night of poker, decided to forgo washing our hair with shampoo for several weeks as part of the Great Shampoo Challenge. Although the ‘Challenge’ is over (check out the results!) we still are giving it a go.
The theory is of course, that shampoo removes your hair’s natural oils, prompting your hair to produce more to replace them, prompting you to wash your hair again. It’s another one of those things, where the more you fight your body’s natural processes the more you get into trouble.
Now I still wash my hair with water, and I brush it a hell of a lot, and I must say it’s going better than I expected. Yes, it feels different to when you wash your hair with shampoo regularly, but I believe that the way my hair feels is more natural, than the squeaky, stripped hair feel you get after shampoo. It certainly looks better, and I’ve had next to no scalp problems (which were quite common in the times of shampoo). I have read that it will get worse before it gets better, but so far I’m optimistic!
Maybe we’re out to save the environment, maybe we’re rebelling against the ‘machinery of consumerism’ as Richard Glover writes, or maybe it’s just another one of those semi-drunk pacts, that you can’t take back. I still remember the ’swim every day of the year’ challenge a few years back …
In any case we’ve still got 4 more weeks to go. The challenge will continue.
