coco this is similar to the brush i use on my dry hair , then i follow it with a light misting of water and the almond oil to bring back the curl otherwise i look quite scary ;p
[www.hotcombs.net]

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist

tamukhs thanks for the info though all those chemicals still seem suspect to me
so i just go for the stuff whose chemicals i recognize

jgunn

okay no H2O thanks for the heads up

coco

yeah...i'm with ya... though i like lemongrass so i might follow tamukhs advice and get dr bronner's lemongrass shampoo

Hi - I've been raw/living fooder for eight years, and I never wash my hair, nor do I use soap on any part of my body, unless soemthing real sticky gets on it. My hair and skin are soft. I think the body is self cleaning and balancing. If we use soap, , yes the bacteria are removed, but so are the the needed good bacteria and the oils that our bodies need for protection, etc. I stopped washing myself with soap three years into raw fooding and have never regretted it. CW

I can't imagine not washing my hands with soap. I have 2 kids, one is just potty trained so I touch pee and @#$%& with my bare hands every single day (not to mention touching the toilet, the seat and flusher, wiping, touching door handles etc in public, etc etc etc). I wash my hands a LOT! Some bacteria you really, really don't want in your mouth. Plus with kids during cold and flu season, we don't take anything aside from the precaution of hand washing. Dr Bronner's tea tree oil soap is what we use, I wash the house with that too.

Jodi, your link just went to their home page. I have a wooden paddle brush from the body shop I got as a gift one year (it's getting so old it's started to crack), that's all I use. I could get one with natural bristles next time but what exactly are they made of, is it animal bristles? EWW! What a thought, brushing my hair with some other creature's old hair.

@Consciouswoman: I am curious about your feelings regarding germs like Coco mentioned. For me it's more of a psychological thing because I have a hard time believing that water doesn't wash everything away. So even if you touched @#$%& from changing a baby, I cannot imagine that running your hands in warm or hot water wouldn't wash away pathogens. But it's hard to make that leap, I will admit.

Oh, I watched a study last year about just that. In fact, if you don't wash your hands with soap for a minimum of 20 seconds (it's longer than you think, time yourself and see) you might as well just wave your hands at the sink. Soap actually does something that water alone cannot. I'm not a big paranoid about cleanliness either, I can go a while without a full shower or hair washing with even water, I'm not a freak about smelling like fragrances. But hand washing? Yah, I'm not giving that one up, not even for a day.

Er...I saw a similar thing last year as well, which stated that washing your hands under comfortably hot water for around 2 minutes showed the same reduction in bacteria as doing the same with anti-bacterial soap, but I mean, come on, who is gonna wash their hands for 2 minutes? plus thats allot of wasted water as well... me, I will stick with soap as well,lol... im to OCD to get by without soap...lol...

Interestingly, the reason why it takes water 2 minutes to do what soap does in 20 seconds or so, normal or anti-bacterial, which actually makes almost no difference in the levels of bacteria either... is that the soap strips your skin of its natural oils, harmful bacteria are usually stuck to these oils, and are washed away with them... so it takes longer with just simple warm/hot water because it takes longer for just plain water to strip the oils...

I'm giving Giovanni TT conditioner a try. Also mixed 2/3 aloe vera in & only rub my scalp with it. It has the questionable ingredients at the bottom of the ingredient list. For the moment my hair feels happy. Thank you for your advise/suggestions. Really helpful to keep this conversation going. I'm always surprised by how many people are shocked at the no-poo method let alone brushing your teeth with baking soda let alone only eating vegs. let alone.... well you get the idea.

My toothpaste mix includes: Bentonite clay, Magnesium chloride (mag oil), Dead Sea Salt, water and essential oils of clove or peppermint and eucalyptus.

It washes the mouth much better than other things because the clay is negative and so clumps onto the positive charged bacteria and so you get a huge amount of "material" leaving the mouth every time you brush. I often brush with Tom's after the clay.

I made some Hilda Clarke parasite tincture...clove, wormwood, walnut root...that I use as a swollowing mouth swish after brushing.

i saw bentonite clay used in a terresential shampoo

its just mostly clay as the main ingredient

actually i remember ignoring it when i first saw it

now, i am seriously considering getting it since i read the few posts here about bentonite

then again, shouldn't i just go and purchase bentonite alone?

anyone have a good brand they can recommend?

so its cool that it can duel as a shampoo AND a toothpaste

nice

I cannot find an Organic Conditioner without the ingredient, Sodium Benzoate.



Sodium benzoate IS NOT found in foods unless it is added as a preservative.
When you mix "sodium hydroxide" with "benzoic acid" you get sodium benzoate.


When Sodium Benzoate is exposed to heat it turns into a terrible thing....

**
BENZINE
**

So, be careful in that nice hot shower if your products contain SODIUM BENZOATE.
You are exposing yourself to a poison.


This disturbs me, as it is in so many things. I refuse to buy anything with Sodium Benzoate in it.

Better safe than sorry, I say.



You will find a number of sites on the internet stating that sodium benzoate is found in foods. That information probably came from Concise International Chemical Assessment Document 26 (2005). I encourage you to read it for yourself.

raynewoman,

Thanks for this. Environmental Working Group, people!

I have found that all my years of using conditioner were a big, fat waste of money; just washing my hair every other day or every third day, keeps it soft and shiny and more manageable

There's none in the Nature's Gate products I recently purchased.

[www.natures-gate.com]

I have super dry curly hair that doesn't do great with no-poo so far. It's the conditioner I really need but because I wash my hair so infrequently I actually do find the shampoo helpful.

It has been 2 months now that I'm using baking soda (1 T and 1 C water) and white vinegar 1 T and 1 c water.
If you hair doesn't work with apple cider vinegar it is because of the ph of the acv,so white vinegar is better.

I did it 5 years ago and it didn't work because I didn't know that my hair works better with white vinegar.My hair is oily and very fine.Looks like apple cider vinegar is better for dry and normal hair,I believe.

Also,the hair has a time to detox,so takes a while to get used to baking soda and vinegar.

I looked up Edgar Cayce shampoo the olive oil one, by a company called Heritage House...and its got Sodium Lauryl Sulfate, which I read in book once is poison. I doubt he would have that in his shampoo. I think the olive oil was the last ingredient, meaning the least in it. What do you guys think? DO you think they are just using his name to sell products filled with chemicals?

I learned Victoria boutenko shampooed with flax seeds ground up, she says it evens foams up.

I am looking to change my shampoo. And conditioner. ANd never dye my hair again.

coconutcream,

As someone that lacks the industry of, say, our beloved coco, above, my shampoo is simply Dr Bronner's Shikakai pump soap or just the regular Baby Mild liquid soap diluted with two parts water. It's about as lo-fi as it can get, and economical because a little dab'l do ya

you can try buying online something called Meera hair wash powder - it contains Indian herbs like shikakai, tulasi , hibiscus and fenugreek. it also contains soapnuts which is I think what makes the cleansing and slight foam action.

I don't think it contains anything artificial (not listed on the box anyway) but I can't say 100 % as ingredients are not always listed in India. But the smell is herbal for sure - no perfumy smells and no big foam or anything....
it does work...

For conditioner you could use coconut oil before shampooing and then wash out - a little is left in the hair which leaves conditioning action...