A Natural Hair Treatment

A couple weeks ago I was lamenting about my hair on Facebook.  It has become increasing difficult to style it because it is shedding again and seems so limp and lifeless.  All my go-to products just didn’t seem to be working anymore.  Lauren reached out and told me about her new discovery.  I have been using her natural hair treatment for the last 3 weeks and all I can say is “WOW.”  My hair looks and feels great.   I am going to let her share her “secret” with you.

Guest Post by Lauren Chiodo-Benmuvhar

I was diagnosed with PCOS when I was 14.  Of course at 14, I didn’t understand much of what they were telling me—I just thought the few symptoms that I noticed were annoying and embarrassing.  My hair used to be super thick when I was younger.  You know, the kind of hair that when you put it in a pony tail while it’s wet, it’s still wet for another three hours after you take the ponytail down.  By the time I was 17, all of that thickness was gone.

There are many hormones that play a part in this thinning of hair; however, there are also a lot of external stimuli involved.  Diet and exercise are the obvious answers…though not the only answers.  A major component in hair health—and this is for everyone, not just women with PCOS—is what you are putting on your hair.  The important part here is to understand how conventional shampoo and conditioner work.  Shampoo is a detergent, which acts as a surfactant.  All you need to know about this is that it strips your hair of the natural oil produced by the follicles.  Some of you might say, “but I have oily hair and I want the oil to be washed out!”  The likelihood of you really having oily hair is extremely low.  Your scalp produces oil when it’s running low…so by using shampoo, you are keeping your scalp in constant oil-production mode.  Conditioner does nothing by restore this loss of oil with a synthetic oil.  Your scalp doesn’t actually recognize this as oil, so it continues its cycle of oil production.  The problem with this is that by stripping the oil every day, you are actually ensuring that the oil will need to be stripped every day, just in order for your hair to look clean.

When I was using shampoo and conditioner, I would have to change brands every couple months.  Every six to eight weeks, my hair would get this waxy buildup that wouldn’t go away until I switched brands.  I would get a few weeks of clean feeling hair, but then it would start coming back again.  In addition, I was using 400 styling products to get my hair to stay in place, not frizz up, volumize, and do whatever else all of the bottles promise.  It wasn’t as unruly when we lived in New Mexico, but now that we’re in the humidity of San Antonio, I tend to look like a reenactment of The Lion King.  I decided to look for a natural solution that I wouldn’t have to change every two months.  That’s when I remembered hearing about baking soda and apple cider vinegar, and decided to try it out.

My blog post describes everything about how to use these products to clean your hair.  Basically, the baking soda unclogs the hair follicles by acting as a mild exfoliating agent, and the vinegar balances the pH of the scalp.  Your scalp will go through a period of adjustment to not being stripped of its oil every day.  You may feel like switching back to shampoo, but don’t!  Once you go through the adjustment period, it will be better.  Trust me when I say this: if you use shampoo even once, you will have to start the adjustment period over.  If your hair gets too greasy during this period, use more baking soda.  If it gets dry, put coconut oil in your hair for 30 minutes before your shower.

While I can’t say that my hair is as thick as it was when I was 12, I can say that I saw a major difference after only three weeks of use…and after almost four months, my hair is much thicker than it was before.

For an added bonus?  It costs less than $10 per year!

For more info visit: http://mycarbonbasedlife.blogspot.com/2013/04/poo-free.html

Lauren Chiodo-Benmuvhar plays the roles of Toddler Cruise Director and Kitchen Chemist in San Antonio, Texas with her husband (JR), her 16-month old son (Isak), and chihuahua (Vigo).  She is on a mission to eliminate every chemical in their house.  When not working in the kitchen laboratory on homemade cleaners and body products, Lauren can be found playing in the nursery, at the park or botanical gardens, watching SVU, or drooling over everything in Barnes and Noble.  She’s on Twitter at @LaurenCB80.