Organic Mutant

A few years ago I read a book called Curly Girl. It is basically a primer for peeps with curly or wavy hair and describes in rigorous detail how one afflicted blessed with non-barbie hair should maintain it. The main premise is that shampoo is bad because it strips hair of its precious natural oils that condition and control the hair shaft. Shortly after reading that book I banished shampoo from my daily regimen and only used a small amount of organic conditioner, viewing shampoo with distrust.

I preached to my hairdresser the sermon of Curly Girl. She admitted that my hair looked great, but cautioned me to rethink my extreme stance. A few months later I gave in and added shampoo back into the regimen, but used far smaller quantities than in years passed (omiodosh - in high school I would use bottles per month…sorry, mom and dad). A bottle would last months instead of weeks and my hair looked great. La!

When Lucas was born I read with horror about Sodium Laurel Sulfate, a common ingredient in shampoo. It is basically is used in (animal?) research as an irritant. Of course, it is used in much greater quantities and concentrations as an irritant than as an ingredient in shampoo, but still, I would think, ‘isn’t there anything better?’ And once we saw the curls on that kids head, we opted to use all organic and gentle products on his little collection of hairs. Anyhoo, due to this I am always on the look out for alternatives to the shampoos.

During our bathroom upgrade, we would bathe at Mom’s and Dad’s house while our bathing facilities were not in working order. At CasaReY, Dad being the sensible resident that he is, they have my eternal enemy, the low-flow shower head. I have abundant hair. It is also very long and I would have to rinse my hair for tens of minutes in order for all the hair care residue to rinse out. Sometimes if I was in hurry or rushed or impatient, I would neglect to rinse for the necessary minutes and my hair took on the strange quality of being overly conditioned. My hair took hours, sometimes all day to dry out.

One day I stumbled over this and thought, ‘Yo, I should try this’. I, the intrepid blog sailor, ever the trusting soul, tried this strange recipe that day in the shower and wow! was my hair shiny and clean and manageable. Woot, sez me. The only thing is that the vinegar smell was, um, a little strong. The next morning I washed my face, inadvertently wetting the hair framing my face and a faint whiff of vinegar reminded me of my experiment. I used the recipe a few more times and each time my hair felt a little less clean and a little less manageable. Wade complained of the vinegar aroma that filled the house at every wash and surrounded me like a cloud until my hair dried. Vinegar is an acceptable scent when you are the salad bar at Souplantation (what a dumb name!), but not when you are trying to snuggle with your partner.

In short, I gave up. The vinegar was the white elephant gift that kept on giving. Today I went back and re-read the instructions after MaGreen over at Green Parenting posted a review of her experience with the recipe. I wondered how one could use ‘a citrus rinse’ in place of the vinegar rinse. Well, see here’s the problem, I mis-read the instructions. Instead of using 1 tablespoon of vinegar in 1 cup of water for the rinse, I was using 1 cup of vinegar as my rinse.

Today when I asked Wade about it after my shower. He said, ‘What vinegar?’

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as far as the alterna- pre-fix, I’m not really alterna-anything. it just sounds good. nor should you take it as an endorsement of neal pollack, the original alternadad