After 10 Years of No Shampoo, I Am Using Modern Hair Products Again. Here’s Why. (Historical + Modern Hair Care Fusion)

https://youtu.be/IqqgOV1XBuo

After a decade without shampoo, I’m going back to modern hair products. Nobody saw this coming, least of all myself. Let’s talk about why, and what my routine looks like now with a fusion of natural and historical hair care techniques as well as modern products and techniques. 

I’ve spent the last ten years proving that you don’t need conventional hair products. I grew my hair to tailbone length by using natural products that I mixed up in my kitchen, as well as historically inspired hair care techniques. And the truth is that I still love all of those things, but in this video I will share why despite that, I am making some radical changes to my decade long hair care routine.

In order to understand this, we need to talk about the honest and upfront pro’s and con’s of my previous radical natural hair care approach. Some of these are humbling to admit, but let’s jump into it.

Natural Haircare Pro’s and Con’s

Let’s talk about the good and the bad of my decade long natural haircare experiment. Keep in mind that this list of pro’s and con’s is specific to me, my life, my hair type, and the specific regime that I was following. Namely, I have curly, coarse, dry hair that is easily tangled, I have a very busy life, and I was using clay as a non-shampoo hair washing method, alongside regular hair oiling for conditioning and detangling. I was not using any conventional or store bought hair products until recently, and only used my fingers to detangle my hair.

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The Good

I was able to retain a lot of length and grow my hair longer than ever before. I do believe the natural products I used had a lot to do with this, as well as the fact that I simply put more intention towards caring for my hair and handling it gently.

The clay treatments I used strengthened my hair by creating a thin coating over each hair strand, increasing the hair’s body and likely its resilience to stress and breakage.

The oil treatments created a protective coating around my hair strands, as well as conditioning, strengthening, and supporting my scalp to be an optimal environment for hair growth through the unique nutrients and herbal components in my herbal hair enriching oil.

Another pro - I learned that hair care can be minimalistic - I liked to say that if I were ever stranded on a desert island with no access to modern hair products or tools, I would have been just fine. That was huge for me at the time because prior to starting my all natural routine, I literally hated my hair unless it was doused in styling products. So you could say I also learned to love my natural hair texture and support it to be the best it could be without being masked in anything else. 

That said, as much as my radically natural routine was minimal in terms of the amount of money you need to spend and the amount of products you need to use. In other ways, it was far more labour intensive, but we will talk about that in a moment.

The Bad

Again, I will preface that some of what I came to view as bad changed as I evolved as a person, and as what I needed from my hair care routine changed. For example, I now have a higher priority on saving time detangling my hair, making my hair more manageable, and being able to achieve reliable aesthetic results every time I wash or style my hair. 

My natural routine got to be very labour intensive in terms of how long it took to detangle my hair. My hair was always so tangled, and because I didn’t use conditioners or detangling aids of any kind - literally just used my fingers - this was taking me hours and hours with my hair at the length it is now. I believe this led to me under prioritizing cleansing my hair as often as I could or should have, because it was just so much work to detangle my hair every time the curls shrank up again.

Now that I have added in modern shampoos and conditioners as well as a modern detangling brush, my hair is so  softer and more manageable, and it has been a God send, frankly. 

Next con, and this one is a little funny - my hair did not necessarily look “conventionally good”. Sure, I was blessed with long, thick hair, so that was good. But I can only say this in hindsight because at the time, I either thought my hair looked fine, or I just didn’t care as much if it fit the conventional standard of “good-looking hair.” But now that my hair does look a little more “conventionally good” I will look back on old pictures and videos of how my hair used to look and actually cringe a little, because it looks a bit oily and clumpy to me now.  I think this was a combination of my very gentle finger detangling approach that caused tangles to build up, the texture that clay washing can give to hair, and the fact that I was not using conditioner and relying instead solely on oils. 

Finally, the radical approach I was following was also a just lot more time intensive overall. I already mentioned the detangling aspect but I’m also really enjoying not having to literally mix something up in my kitchen every time I want to wash, condition, or style my hair. There was a lot more finesse involved in using these products also, and much more troubleshooting needed even for someone experienced with the routine. 

So why did it take me 10 years to make these changes?

Why This Happened Now

First of all, I am eternally thankful for the natural hair care routine that allowed me to grow my hair so long when I used to think it wasn’t capable of growing.

I can say that while at the same time acknowledging that I got to a point where changes needed to be made. So why now?

In the past year, I experienced severe hair loss - I lost up to half the hair that had been on my head - due to postpartum hormone shifts, combined with rapid weight loss, and a lot of stress. It is all under control now and my hair is growing back, but it was this experience that cracked me open enough to desire a radical change. Not because I blame my routine for my hair loss, because I don’t at all. Rather, I needed to bring some joy and excitement back into the process of caring for my hair. The prospect of caring for my hair had become traumatizing during my hair shedding because every time I touched my hair so much was coming out.

Experimenting with new products and techniques brought that joy back into it. 

I also wanted to try washing my scalp more often because that is important when you are dealing with hair thinning or wanting to regrow your hair. This prevents buildup from impeding your hair follicles, but also allows you to use scalp treatments more often. 

So in an unexpected way, allowing modern products into my routine, like shampoo, and washing my hair more frequently, has allowed me to get more use and benefit out of my natural treatments, like my herbal hair enriching oil.

I have actually been treating my scalp everyday with my oil and some other products, with no need to worry about buildup or greasy hair because I am washing it more often.

Finally, as part of my recent experimentations, I wanted to try modern bond building products, which are products that can penetrate into the hair strand and repair damage. These require shampoo to be used first in most cases to make sure the product can penetrate fully into the hair strand.

I know what you are wondering ….

What Does My Hair Routine Actually Look Like Now?

Keep in mind that this is still a transition and experiment for me. But it has been fun and healing for my hair care routine to be flexible and not such a rigid or dogmatic approach. I will  not be sharing specific product brand names in this video unless you happen to see a bottle label on screen here and there. 

Let’s start with my …

Pre-wash Oil Treatment

I apply small amounts of my herbal hair enriching oil to my scalp nearly once per day, with a slightly heavier application the night before I will be washing my hair. I also apply some of this oil to my hair ends the night before washing and as needed throughout the week, and usually plain old coconut oil to my hair length as well.

Next…

Hair Wash Day

I wash my hair the next day with shampoo. I enjoy diluting my shampoo and applying it in a hair applicator bottle, just like I did with my clay wash. This helps ensure the shampoo is getting directly to my scalp where it belongs, with minimal scrubbing of my hair required. I only apply the shampoo to my scalp and let it rinse down the length of my hair. I still wash my hair in four loose braids to keep the hair strands as detangled as possible and minimize the chance of breakage when it is wet and weaker.

I then use a bond repair treatment if I am using it, followed by a clay wash if I using it, which I don’t always anymore. 

Finally, a conditioning product, like a regular conditioner or a deep conditioner.

I let these sit for a few minutes, rinse with cool water, then squish the moisture gently out of my hair using my hands and a microfibre hair towel. I then spray a leave in conditioner product on my hair thoroughly, and finally seal my ends with a little of my herbal hair enriching oil. I Wrap my hair up in a microfibre towel, and I am done for now.

If I am blow drying my hair, I only use room temperature hair, and focus the drying on my scalp. This is to prevent moisture from staying trapped on my scalp and causing dandruff or other scalp issues. 

Now, how often have I been washing my hair these days?

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Wash Frequency 

I am washing my hair more often - up to twice a week. I am also not styling my hair curly most of the time - by that I mean that I am not applying products and manipulating my hair in a way to exaggerate my curl pattern, but rather I often dry it in a way to purposely stretch out the curls. The main reason is now that I am washing it more often, my curl pattern does have a propensity to develop single strand knots, and all of that scrunching and diffusing and air drying in a tightly curled state can worsen that. It’s also easier to detangle my hair when it is not super tightly curled. I do think my hair looks nicer with the curls exaggerated and defined, but most of the time I wear my hair in braids anyway so I am doing what’s practical.

Which leads me to my next point, that yes, I still use protective styles  regularly to aid in length retention. So much of growing long healthy hair does not come down to what products you use so much as just taking good care of your scalp and hair ends. 

Yes, I still use my boar bristle brush. I probably brush my hair at least a little bit about 4 days per week with it, often in combination with my Unbrush plus or my fingers to detangle. I also still love my wooden brush, wooden fine tooth comb, and of course my scalp massager. 

So overall, I still love the hair oils, the clay treatments, the boar bristle brushing, and the protective styles. I still think there is so much to learn from how those long-haired Victorian women may have cared for their hair. But I no longer wish to entirely define my own hair care routine by these things.

Furthermore, I am finding that by using modern hair products where they really excel, it is actually boosting the efficacy and the ability to consistently use my all natural hair treatments, like my herbal hair enriching oil.

So even though I know for my long time viewers what I shared in this video may be rather shocking, I hope you can see that it’s not so much a departure but rather, more of a maximalist approach to hair care. In other words, not EITHER natural OR mainstream, but using the best of the both worlds for the ultimate goal of long, thick, healthy, manageable hair in a sustainable way that brings us joy.

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next article!