My Experience Using Baking Soda and Vinegar For Hair Wash and Rinse

One Of The Many Uses For Vinegar and Baking Soda: Shampoo and Conditioner

I have been using a baking soda solution to wash my hair and a vinegar solution to rinse my hair for over 6 months now. I use 1 Tblsp. of baking soda dissolved in 1 quart of water for my shampoo and 1 Tblsp. apple cider vinegar in 1 quart of water for my conditioning rinse.

I thought I would share in this post what my hair care routine is like and how it has worked for me.

Before I started using baking soda and vinegar in my hair I just used any 'ol generic brand of shampoo and conditioner. My hair is wavy and tends to be dry. I would often shampoo only once a week, but condition my hair a few times in the week.Using extra conditioner helped to keep my hair from being dried out and made the curls more defined.

About 9 or 10 month ago I read this article by Quinn from Reformation Acers Blog. The author had been using baking soda to wash her hair for nine weeks and it looked great! She also had wavy hair and showed before and after pictures of how her hair had gone from kind of wavy to pretty curly. Her article convinced me to give baking soda "shampoo" a try.

All summer I used 1Tbs./1Qt. baking soda to water and 1Tbs./1Qt. apple cider vinegar to water as my shampoo and conditioner. I was mixing my solutions up in one quart sized plastic bottles and what I didn't use I just left in the shower and used the next time I washed my hair. I was getting about three washes out of one quart and washing my hair once a week.

This routine was working very well. My hair was feeling fine. My hair was getting a little dry towards tips. I started using baby oil and/or olive oil to moisturize my hair occasionally.

Things took a turn for the worse in the fall around the end of October. For some reason my hair was getting really greasy. I am not sure what the cause was for all of the build up. It may have been a combination of the changing seasons, humidity, junk in the water supply, who knows. I was determined not to give up and use a commercial shampoo. I began brushing my hair out more frequently with a fine comb and I washed it everyday for three days straight, using the full quart of baking soda water and vinegar water. That resolved the grease problem, much to my relief.

Since then I have continued to use the full quart of solution every time I wash my hair, and washing my hair a few times a week. Not only do I think using more seems to do a better job, but the bottles of watery baking soda and vinegar get very cold when left in the shower. So, I like mixing up a warm batch every time I wash my hair. :)

In conclusion, I am very happy with how my hair feels after using only baking soda and vinegar to wash and rinse my hair for the past 6 months. My hair feels healthy and soft. Baking soda and vinegar are cheap and effective. I am glad that I know exactly what is being put on my scalp and I don't have to be using a chemical soap to wash my hair.