Months ago, I started this awesome new hair care regimen, the baking soda wash/apple cider vinegar rinse, done twice a week. I wanted to rid myself of chemicals and having to spend a lot of money on hair care products. At first, it took awhile for my hair to get used to it. My head was overly oily and I ached for wash days. But after a few weeks, my hair adjusted and it did just fine. I could even go close to a week without washing. I loved it! The only thing I didn’t like about it was that it took me a lot longer to wash my hair in the shower, and I did start to miss the shampoo smell.
After several months of doing this, I started to dislike the apple cider vinegar rinse. It’s supposedly really good for your hair (and face, and your tummy, and a lot of other things), but I didn’t like the way it made my hair feel--which resembled the texture of hay almost exactly. I missed the slick softness that conditioner provided. So, I thought, I will do the baking soda wash and just barely put conditioner on the ends of my hair. That will work, right? I thought so, and my hair seemed to do just fine. But I was wrong.
I did that for about 6+ weeks. The baking soda wash and the regular conditioner (no ACV rinse). Then I started noticing my hair breaking and splitting....very badly. It looked horrible. It started to look like I had fried it with one too many hair dyes (and, for the record, I’m not against dying your hair, but I have never ever done it...not even once. So, the fact my hair looked like this frustrated me to no end).
So, I went to get it trimmed last week. I was ashamed when she could tell, without me even telling her, how much my hair was damaged, how bad it had been breaking. In fact, she had to cut off a good 2 ½ inches to cut just the dead ends off, and that still didn’t get them all. I didn’t have the guts to tell her I’d been killing my hair with baking soda for the past few months. She suggested I get a good damage control shampoo/conditioner, stop using bobbie pins, and stop putting my hair up so tightly. And she added that it would take a long time for my broken hair to grow out and be strong and thick again. I almost cried when I left, but my hair does look tons better after the cut.
After I left the salon, I went right over to the store and got some replenishing and repairing shampoo & conditioner. While it wasn’t anything expensive, I am hoping that after awhile of washing it the normal way, my hair will be back to what it was before.
I feel that as I tell this story, I should add the reason that this didn’t work for me. I’ve read about many people who have been doing this regimen for years and have had great results. But I did it all wrong. I should never have stopped the ACV rinse. I read that when you wash your hair with baking soda, you strip your hair of everything, but apple cider vinegar helps restore the PH balance back to your hair and scalp and all is right in the world again. Without the ACV rinse, I was just stripping and stripping my hair and never restoring. Duh. My bad. I wish I had a picture of how fried and damaged it looked. Or maybe I don’t, that’s something I think I want to forget.
In conclusion, do more research before trying anything new, especially on your hair! Maybe someday, I can go back to doing the baking soda/ACV wash at some point, but I need to get my hair back to healthy status before attempting to try it again.
I did this too. But I stuck with the ACV rinse. It still messed up my hair. Badly. I just think my hair is too dry with only baking soda. It always felt dry and brittle. And Jason would say I smelled like a salad when I dried my hair after the ACV. I still do a baking soda wash and ACV rinse about once a month to rid my hair of buildup.
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