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Any of you guys ever try this? Just heard of it (using a mixture of baking soda and water as "shampoo" - although I think you can use it dry too, and it soaks up the oil or whatever) - sounds interesting but was just curious to hear the results before I tried it. And, do you think it's safe (in terms of causing hair damage)?
Dave K
Last night my grandad told me about someone at his old workplace who washed his hair with the powder you put in washing machines to wash clothes...Can't remember what the proper name is and apparently his hair had incredibly body and whatnot.
I don't recommend it though :P
Baking soda is alkaline which will open up the cuticle of your hair, making it rough and prone to tangling and possibly increased breakage. Alkaline chemicals are used in hair bleach. I would not recommend using it.
I have been using corn starch to remove excess oil. It seems to work. I am trying to transition to using water only. It takes a month or so for natural oil production to decline. (Shampoo removes this oil and the body compensates by cranking up oil production.)
I was forced to do this about a year ago due to a serious injury, and I was unable to wash my hair for over 3 weeks. The oil and corn starch form a gray pasty material on the comb which has to be scraped off. A woman at my church said that oatmeal will work even better.
Absalom
I tried only rinsing it in water every day last summer. My head is naturally pretty oily (I need to wash it at least every 2 days, with shampoo), so I figured it wouldn't work at all for me. But, it went OK - I lasted about 3 weeks before I went back to shampoo - eventually it just got too oily for me. But it would probably work out fine for those with less oily heads (or maybe I just needed to stick with it longer) - should work better for you also as you have very long hair. Also during that time I noticed almost no itching/flaking which I usually get from dandruff, even a little when using dandruff shampoos.
Dave K