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Ever since I stopped using shampoo, I’ve tried several different approaches to having presentable hair: apple cider vinegar rinses, brushing it out with a natural bristle brush, and essential oil-baking soda scrubs.

After giving up on baking soda after hearing it was too harsh for hair, I’ve relied on hot water and vinegar rinses almost exclusively. It does a pretty decent job; no itchy scalp or horrendous hair. The best was the time I washed my hair with an egg. Sure, I smelled faintly of egg, but, surprisingly, my hair felt more like it used to after shampoo than anything I’ve tried.

The other day, though, feeling like trying something a little different, I decided to wash my hair with mayonnaise.

I realize what that sounds like. I’m not a huge fan of mayonnaise in general, and mayonnaise on hair? There is an ick factor. Why not, though? I thought. I’d already cracked a raw egg on my head. How bad could it be? After all, mayo is just egg yolk, oil, and vinegar, right? Lots of people clean their skin with oil–maybe I could clean my scalp with an oily, eggy condiment.

I did not google this, by the way. It was my own little brainstorm. Bear this in mind.

So I scooped out a bit of cold mayo, plopped it on the top of my wet head, and started squishing it in. Trying not to think about potato salad, I kept squishing and massaging it into my scalp. After what I figured was an acceptable amount of “washing,” I began to rinse it out.

At least I tried to rinse it out, but the mayo wasn’t going anywhere. The shower smelled like a club sandwich. My hair felt like salty, mayonnaise-y ropes. I made the water hotter, hoping to melt it out. Nope.

More washing, then a vinegar rinse. A little better? Another vinegar rinse. More rinsing. My hair seemed borderline okay. I towel-dried it and went to bed. Maybe it would be all right in the morning. I went to bed.

In the morning my first look in the mirror, never the best one of the day, was startling. I’d forgotten about the last night’s “treatment,” and what I saw looking back at me through bleary morning eyes was eye-opening. Arching out around the sides of my head were greasy locks of horror. My first thought was: ponytail, but I knew even a ponytail was no match for this ‘do. The thing would probably have stuck straight out the back of my head like the flame behind a rocket.

What could I do? I didn’t want to give up and pour on the shampoo. I also didn’t want to entertain my kids with my hair disaster. Cruel, I know, to deprive them of such prime fodder for future jokes at my expense. They’d already had too much fun with the fact that I’d requested the mayonnaise jar from the refrigerator the day before.

I did what I should have done in the first place; back to the egg. I stuck my head under the tub faucet, cracked one of our hen’s eggs on my head, scrubbed it around, and rinsed. The rinse water ran white. My hair began to feel like hair again. Hope. I toweled off my hair and hoped for the best.

Unbelievably, one egg took out the mayo, gave me clean hair, and saved the day.

Later, searching for mayonnaise hair washing, it turns out to be a treatment for dry, usually curly hair, and is followed by a good shampooing.

Moral: When going no ‘poo, hold the mayo.