Burning down the house...

There's no pictures because... well, you don't whip out a camera in this situation. But bear with me anyway...

My hair has always been a frustration to me -- it's not exactly curly, it's not wavy, and it's definitely not straight (despite the fact that EVERY mall I've walked in tells me there's something wrong with me because I don't straighten my hair).

Shampoos and conditioners and products that claim this and that and magic wonderfulness DO NOT WORK. The end. Maybe they're supposed to come with a magic wand and I forgot to venture down that aisle... but shampoo has done nothing for me except clean my hair.

After seeing it mentioned on Dooce Community quite a few times, I also stumbled upon a no-shampoo information FAQ page on Baby Slime's LiveJournal and decided to give it a go.

Basically what no-shampooing hair care is... is just that. You don't use shampoo. You use natural things like baking soda and water for a scrub every few days (because this returns your hair to a natural state, you don't need to wash your hair every day, more like every third or fourth day) and you use apple cider vinegar and water as a rinse.

So I did this... easy enough.

And there's also some recipes on her page for natural hot oil treatment of olive oil and rosemary. Didn't have rosemary... had lemon balm though so went ahead and used that. Added olive oil and dried lemon balm leaves to a pot. Put it on the stove. Heated up the burner.

DOES ANYONE ELSE SEE WHERE THIS IS GOING? Why was I not thinking?


Side story here:

About a year ago, one of my best friends was displaced from his dorm. Why? Because his roommate decided to fry some chicken in hot oil... the oil caught on fire on the stove, and boys being boys the first reaction was to pour water on it. This led to big fire, sprinklers going off like crazy, and a mildly burnt roommate. Due to some strange building issues that went wrong, half of their floor and the two floors below it were completely flooded. It was more water damage than fire damage, but still. HOT OIL. FIRE.

End side story.


My oil and pan suddenly dance aflame and luckily enough I was making more baking soda shampoo at the sink at the time and just dumped half a box of baking soda on it, putting it out. But not before heavy smoke and one of the most awful smells I've come across (burnt olive oil smells remarkably like blue cheese... which I can't stand) fills our apartment. We also discovered that our smoke detector doesn't really work because it's got a bad connection. Yay!

The windows and doors are opened, the fans are turned on. The pot is taken to the front stoop where it lights itself on fire again and Alex has to make a mad dash for the box of baking soda. Goodbye pot. May you rest well in our dumpster and hopefully you didn't light on fire again after we threw you out.

Cutest thing ever... our greyhound herded our kitten into the bedroom and pushes her toward the open window before getting up on the bed (the nearest perch for him to get near the window) so they can both breathe. How adorable is that? Especially considering he avoids most contact with her that he can -- though she does make sure to get a nose bop in at least a few times a day.

Anyway. I officially nominate myself for a dumbass award.

On the upside, my hair does feel softer. I will continue this no-shampoo experiment for a bit and see if it does good things for my hair. No more hot oil treatment attempts though.

Anyone else tried this no-shampoo method?