baking soda cider vinegar

Did you know that your expensive bottle of shampoo promising thick, smooth and shiny hair is probably full of endocrine disruptors, thickeners, foaming agents, solvents, plastic, silicone, preservatives and decidedly unnatural chemical fragrances? It also likely shares ingredients with things like paint, herbicides and putty. The scary thing is that very, very few of the chemicals in cosmetics, including shampoo, have ever been tested for safety.

The other problem is that commercial shampoo strips your hair of its own oils, then coats it with all sorts of other gunk so it looks healthy but isn’t. Not only do you get a build-up of all these dodgy ingredients, but your scalp goes into overdrive to replace the naturally occurring oils and you have to shampoo again. Rinse and repeat.

So what to do? I used to believe that DIY shampoo was difficult, if not impossible. I remember reading somewhere that making your own shampoo was just too complicated and costly. It turns out that it isn’t – in fact it is ridiculously easy and you don’t really have to ‘make’ anything. The only thing that would be complicated and costly would be trying to replicate the chemical concoction in the bottle, which is what I am doing my best to avoid in the first place.

So here it is – drum roll please for the simplest shampoo on earth.

Shampoo:

  • 1 – 2 tablespoons bicarbonate of soda dissolved in a bit of warm water

Conditioner:

  • 1 -2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar mixed with a bit of warm water

That’s it folks.

What you do:

  • Wet hair thoroughly and pour bicarb mixture onto your head and shampoo
  • Rinse and then pour the apple cider vinegar over hair to condition

There is no lather but it does feel soapy. Don’t expect instant results because it takes a bit of time to transition but you will thank me for softer, shinier, more manageable hair – naturally.