My Hair Care routine update and self sufficiency

Hello everyone!

I have been asked by a few friends in person and on the blog sphere what my hair care routine actually is. So I am going to try and answer that question in this post. There are so many different things on the internet, it did seem overwhelming and a little scary back in August 2010 when I took the plunge and decided to wash my hair with an egg and some baking soda and water. :) I first heard about the method from the Feelin Feminine website. You can find it here-http://feelinfeminine.com/ Jocelyn had also posted a lot of tutorials on her blog A Pondering Heart, that interested me and thats how I took the plunge and washed my hair with a fresh egg from some of our friends hens. :) I also rinsed with apple cider vinegar back then, but now I don't do that anymore and love the results much better.
Little did I realize that I would be changing the way I thought about taking care of my curls. :)

Now here is a recent photo from about a month ago of what hair looks like currently. I believe its much healthier to the touch, not so dry and brittle and much bouncier curls. :)

photo credit-http://www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/shopping-storing/food/storing-hard-cooked-eggs-10000000695687/index.html

I told you all that the first thing I tried was washing my hair with an egg. Now I do not wash my hair with an egg every day. My new routine that has been working for me is doing it once a week, but washing my hair with water and the egg yoke only. I use the egg white whisked for moose. Like I said I do not do this daily, just once a week. I highly recommend using fresh brown eggs from a farmer you may buy from or friends who have laying hens. But if you can't get that get brown organic, cage free eggs from your grocery store. The white eggs you do not know where they have been and they don't have as much protein and stuff that is good for you in them. Since most white eggs were processed in a plant and were from chickens who were ill treated and not fed good stuff they won't be so great for you. But anyway brown eggs are the best in my opinion! :)

photo credit-http://lifehackery.com/2008/07/22/home-4/

The next thing I use it baking soda, now many of you may be saying it has no smell really and you use that for baking, not washing?! Well baking soda actually is a very good for washing just about anything, hair included. My mom uses it to scrub our sinks and I scrub that sinks in the bathrooms and the bath tub with the stuff. It also works great on tile. I am not sure what is exactly in the stuff that makes it such a great thing to clean with, but it works well for hair as well. I only scrub my scalp with it. I don't dump it all over my hair. I talked about in this post putting a little in the bottom of a condiment/sqeeze bottle and adding water up to the top. I still do this, but I have cut back on how much baking soda I use. My hair is very dry usually and baking soda can dry out your hair. 


I have heard in the no shampoo world that gals like me with hair that tends to be dry use very little( I don't measure it when I put it in the bottle), but I probably use about a teaspoon and a half I am guessing. But definitely experiment yourself to see what is best for you. I have heard gals with hair that tends to get greasy should use more than what I would use, because it will keep there hair not so greasy. 

You may be wondering what do you do for conditioning your hair?! You said you don't use vinegar anymore. Well I stopped using the apple cider vinegar because my dad and sister and mother all said my hair smelled funny, not bad, just a little weird. :) That was before I had added essential oils to my routine. Maybe when you all experiment you could add some essential oils to your routine to cover up the vinegar. But instead of vinegar I have been using an organic conditioner we have that needs to be used up. But now that thats gone I am using egg whites again. But I don't put that in till after I have gotten out of the shower. I don't condition in the shower anymore. This works well for me. You just take one egg white from one egg and whisk it till its frothy and then put it through your hair just as you would a store bought moose or gel.  It works great for me!

I also have started using essential oils. I love to use orange or lavender. I add a few drops to my baking soda shampoo and I put some in my hair between washings when I don't need to wash it but I want some scent. I love the natural scent and I am never using store bought bath and body works sprays again either. I love essential oils instead. I have seen bottles of it at wegmans, which was the best buy for us when we first wanted some essential oils to try and at whole foods. Wholes food is really expensive, so I would recommend that as a last resort. We have now been getting them in bulk from a whole sale company. So that has been great! But definately research how you could make or buy them cheaper than at the regular grocery. I have been making rose oil this past week with yellow roses from my yellow rose bush in our yard. I plant to make some rose water as well. So you could do that as well instead of essential oils. I so very much want to be self sufficient and not need to go to a grocery all the time. We hardly go anymore, since we started growing some veges, going to the farmers markets, getting eggs from a local farmer, milk and meats and cheese as well from a local farmer. So we hardly go anymore! So start small and try and make your own maybe. I was inspired very much this month by the Devrae family.Here is a video about them below-

They are totally self sufficient, well dependent on the land the Lord has given them. I would love for my family and I to be able to be somewhat sufficient as that someday. We are hoping to get laying hens soon, but in our city it may not be aloud. Still seeing if we can though.:) 


well sorry for the rant off of hair care, but definately when you change your life style from buying off a shelf all the time to buying from farmers, etc. or growing it yourself you tend to appreciate and be more thankful for what the Lord has provided. I have found this to be true! No way am I sufficient on only the land the Lord has given my family, but we are trying to be more frugal with our purchases and buying fresh and natural foods and products instead of the massed produced stuff. This has really been on my mind lately after going to the food and farmers rights rally. 


Have a lovely rest of your monday!


In Christ,
Rebecca


I thought I better add a list of places where I found recipes and other encouragement and ideas about going without store bought shampoos and conditioners. 
http://ylcf.org/gotcurl/ - great place for curly girls!
http://aponderingheart.com/blog/?p=4749
http://aponderingheart.com/blog/?p=2201
http://feelinfeminine.com/?page_id=2 - I was featured with my no shampoo story in their e-book on feelin feminine, may be worth your money if you are new to it and want all the resources in one spot!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yF0hizHWghc&feature=related - this gal did a great video telling about what she uses to wash her hair! I got inspired by her in the first place when I found her on the feelin feminine site!

I hope all these links help you all out! :)