How to Wash Your Hair with Baking Soda & Vinegar

Awhile back I blogged about the baking soda and vinegar hair care method and I wanted to give an updated post about this. Baking soda and vinegar is an incredibly simple and easy way to clean your hair without shampoo. Since I am always on a mission to reduce my exposure to potentially harmful chemicals and simplify my beauty routine, it felt right to be using a natural, time-tested method to clean my hair.

Now, you might be asking, what's so bad about shampoo? Shampoos can contain a lot of harmful ingredients. I am by no means an expert on this, but in my research, I've repeatedly found the worst chemical-offenders to be:

• Sodium Lauryl/Laureth Sulfate (used as a foaming agent in shampoo and is a possible carcinogen)
• DEA/Diethanolamine (an emulsifying agent that can create carginogenic compounds when combined with other chemicals found in personal care products)
• Parabens (used as preservatives to extend shelf life, but many of these chemicals have been linked to breast cancer)
• Fragrance (the word "fragrance" on a label can mean the presence of over 4,000 separate chemical ingredients; scary!)

When I found out what was really in shampoo a year and a half ago, I vowed to stop using it and so I switched to the baking soda and vinegar method.  This worked really well for about four months. Then I fell off the baking soda wagon.


As my hair grew out and I got a bit lazier, I began resorting back to shampoo and trying to find natural brands that didn't contain the ingredients listed above. The funny thing is that I eventually found my way back to baking soda because it actually works better than shampoo!

A few months ago I began struggling with my shoulder-length hair being really limp and flat due to the Seattle weather. I tried to remedy this with mousse and styling products, which then caused build-up. To remedy that, I started incorporating a clarifying shampoo every few weeks, but this dried out my hair, so I added in an intensive conditioner that only made the lifeless hair problem worse. Plus, with the winter cold, my hair was getting really static-y. Urgh.

I was ready to chop it all off and go back to short hair when I remembered the baking soda and vinegar hair care method. Could this solve all my problems? Yes, and it did.

After being back on this method again for three months I can honestly tell you that I will never stop using it.  My hair now has more body, volume, and strength than it did with all the crazy shampooing, products, and special hair care nonsense that I was doing before. And now my routine is incredibly simple: wash with baking soda, rinse with vinegar, blow dry, and maybe flat iron the front strands if I feel like it. That's it.

Now that I've been using this method for awhile, I've found that my hair doesn't get as oily as it did before (shampoos strip our scalps of natural oils so this increases oil production to compensate) and I only have to use this method every 2 - 3 days.  The baking soda and vinegar method is cheap, effective, simple and chemical-free and I think you'll love it as much as I do.

(Note: I've slightly changed my method since my last post. Read on...)

Method:

It might be hard to adjust to the lack of shampoo foaming action at first, but I promise this is worth it in the end. Start by mixing 1 part baking soda with 3 parts water.  I was making a large batch of this and then keeping it in my shower, but I noticed it wasn't as effective as the individual batches I used to make. Then a reader (thanks Heather!) informed me that water activates baking soda and so now I am back to mixing individual batches in travel-sized squeeze bottles (pictured above). I have shoulder length hair and use about 2 - 3 tablespoon of baking soda with 3x that amount of water. You can adjust this depending on your hair length. 

Baking Soda:

• Apply the baking soda and water mixture to dry or wet hair by squeezing a little at the roots and working to the ends.  
• Repeat this process all over your head.  
• Let it sit for 1 - 3 minutes then rinse with warm water. 

After washing and rinsing with the baking soda mixture, you'll want to apply a vinegar rinse. (I've found that white vinegar does not leave as strong of a smell compared to apple cider vinegar so that is what I use in my rinse.)  Mix 1 part white vinegar with 4 parts water. To minimize the vinegar smell, I also add lavender, peppermint, and/or rosemary essential oils to the vinegar mixture.  (In my last post I had more suggestions about how to customize your rinse fragrance.) I also mix a big batch of this ahead of time and keep it in a squeeze bottle in the shower. 

Vinegar Rinse:

• Tilt your head back, close your eyes (to avoid getting this mixture in your eyes), and distribute through your hair. If you have longer hair like I do, I like to then (still keeping my eyes closed) tilt my head forward and distribute more rinse through the ends.
• After a few seconds, rinse with cold water. 

One of the ways that I've changed my method is rinsing my hair with cold water after the vinegar rinse. The cold water helps to seal in moisture, smooth the hair, and add shine. I have straight hair and have noticed that this really made a difference with eliminating frizz and winter static. 

Since my hair is longer than when I used to use this method, I first noticed the vinegar smell leftover in my hair much more. To remedy this, I simply add two drops of lavender essential oil to my hair brush and run it through my hair as I blow dry it. Works like a charm! 

Have you tried the baking soda and vinegar method? Any tips that have worked well for you?