Week 1 of No-Poo

While looking for natural homemade shampoos I came across the idea of going "no-poo" meaning going shampoo free.  The basic premise is that our hair was just dandy in the many years of human history that preceeded the invention of shampoo and that shampooing every day and striping hair with chemicals and detergents, then using more to condition and style, is damaging and "unhealthy."

"No-pooers" do not use shampoo but clean hair when needed with something like baking soda and then rinsing with vinegar.  Regular shampooers can now go days without cleaning their hair as their scalp and hair learn to take care of themselves rather than needing constant intervention. There can be a rocky transition period but converts swear their hair is so much better at the end of it.

I became a convert last year to oil cleansing for my face rather than using drying detergents so why not for toss detergents for my hair too.

But not shampooing??? Eww....???....

Day 1: I almost entirely gave up.  My hair felt gunky and awful.

Day 2: Gunky, gunky, awful, terrible, embarassingly bad hair.  I cleaned it again even though I was going to try to take the day off.

Then.... while googling going no-poo I stumbled across a post talking about the importance of starting no-poo by clarifying your hair.  *Slaps forehead* *Angels sing*

I broke out my Dr. Brommers, lathered up, and rinsed with diluted apple cider vinegar.  Immediately my hair felt clean.

I was able to skip cleaning my hair the following day.  That wash lasted two days but my hair was pretty greasy at the end of it.  I'm now on day two of this last wash and I woke up with still-silky hair that just needed a wet hair brush to tame.  It's like heaven for working moms!

Does this mean I'm now through the "transition" phase??  Hopefully I'm so lucky.

Turning caustic, skin-melting ingredients into healthy, skin-friendlysoap

I've always loved nice soaps but am far too cheap to buy the lovely artisan ones and far too lazy to run over town to buy them. Grocery store soap it is!

With my boys having some eczema, I've attempted to keep their skin as irritant free as possible. I started with getting rid of laundry detergent in favour of soap nuts (I'll do another post about those). Then I made my own wool dryer balls to get rid of dryer sheets (after much unravelling, I have now perfected those!). I've picked mild soaps but things haven't cleared up completely so I wanted to give natural, homemade soap a try. 

Instructions on Pinterest didn't seem to complicated and I was good at high school chemistry so why not?  Lye was rather intimidating but I'm adventurous.

First: steal a simple recipe online.

Check: http://www.orthogonalthought.com/blog/index.php/2008/05/homemade-natural-soap-basic-recipe/

Second: heed advice about long-sleeved shirt, glasses and gloves.

The kids are sleeping and there's no one home  drive me to the hospital.

Third: go for it!

It was easy enough. The lye mixing went smoothly with no accidents. Precautions seemed overkill until I started using the stick blender.  My red shirt is now covered in tiny black spots!  

I decided to add some ground oats for fun. Everything is now setting in my downstairs closet and my lye is safely stored away from little hands. Hopefully things will set nicely to cut in a couple of days and I'll have some nice soap in a month's time. 

Bucket List for 2013

So much to do so little time!  Here's the "to do" list I'm starting with:

House:

1. Finally get the house clean from top to bottom
2. Have house "sell ready" just in case we do put it on the market
3. Find a piece of land in the country to build on next summer
4. Paint my spare bedroom furniture purple
5. Repaint ugly man cave
6. Repaint pretty orange bathroom a more neutral colour

Projects:

7. Successfully make homemade soap
8. Successfully make a natural homemade eczema lotion for the twins
9. Sew something that I can be proud of
10. Get as many chemicals out of the house as possible
11. Try making homemade essential oils & fragrances

Just for Mommy:

12. Remember to take before and after pictures
13. Take a vacation
14. Try going no poo
15. Figure out if I can handle "natural" cosmetics
16. If I can handle "natural" cosmetics, how about hair dye??
17. Go after a job promotion
18. Monthly "date night" with hubby
19. Workout 3 days a week whenever it's even remotely possible

Joining the blog world- I'm so 2003!

Starting a blog in 2013?  You're likely already judging me.  I admit it- I'm not hip!  I'll try harder.

This will be my chronicle of my life as a working mom trying to do and have it all.  Not a big fan of keeping up with the Joneses- I'm far to cheap for that- but my aim is always to be the best mom I can, have an awesome career, and on top of that still have a beautiful home while staying sane and as debt free as possible.