Shampoo and body wash, like all synthetic detergents, work equally well in hard and soft water. The problem is that it’s expensive and rips the oils out of your hair. Hence the need for conditioner–to cover up the oil-stripping-damage done by the shampoo.
Soap is WAY better. The problem with soap is that it doesn’t work as well in hard water and is hard to rinse out of your hair. But, it’s not near as damaging.
So here’s your solution:
Put 1/4 cup of apple cider vinegar in a quart of water and store it in a squeeze bottle. (Mine is an old mustard bottle.) It should last you at least a week.
Now here’s your new shower routine:
1. Wet a bar of real soap. ( I recommend Ivory if you don’t have homemade. )
2. Rub bar all over head until you work up a good lather, especially attending to your greasy spots. Rub, rub, rub.
3. Wash the rest of the bod with bar or handfuls of all that lather on your head.
4. Rinse hair until it squeaks. (read: can’t run fingers through it easily at all and you’re thinking HOLY CATS, what has Ivory done to me???)
5. Grab bottle of diluted cider vinegar and ‘draw’ all over your scalp with it. (Yes, it’s smells strong, but trust me, it’s great stuff. Cures itchy scalp and all that. Smell dissipates quickly.)
6. Rub around and rinse hair again.
7 . Notice that you CAN now run your fingers through it.
Isn’t that amazing? No conditioner.
If you care to know, it’s two things:
1) AC vinegar breaks down any remaining soap residue.
2) AC vinegar is acidic and makes the hair scales lay back down.
Now, go shave your legs. You SO don’t want to do that before you rinse with the vinegar. Stingy-stingy!
Ivory
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I finally got around to trying this today – wow! Love it.
Now I am wondering if I can do something similar in a spray bottle for a detangler? But would not rinsing it out be a problem?
@ Anni–I don’t know. It’s a pH thing in relation to the soap. I wonder how well it would work if soap isn’t the tangling factor…
I have had dandruff for years. Not bad, but persistant. Since starting this vinegar rinse, dandruff is totally gone. No more itchy scalp either. I LOVE it. Now I have to figure out what to do with that big bottle of conditioner that I’m never going to use on my hair.
LuMaSa Momma!!! YAY!!!! I”m so excited. It keeps away my itchies like a charm.
I use the vinegar rinse, too! I have thick, coarse hair and I got tired of having a lot of buildup from my various shampoos, so I jumped on a recipe that someone gave me for a baking-soda “shampoo” (baking soda mixed with water), with the occasional vinegar rinse afterward. Now my hair isn’t oily, and my scalp doesn’t itch anymore either!
@Deidre–It simply…ROCKS.
So I was a little concerned about the “Holy cats what has Ivory done to me!” comment in your article…but got home fromt eh gym last night and tried this. Hair was oily and icky from build up. WOW. LOVE it. I even used (ehem) Ivory soap
Thanks for the great stuff you post!!!
Shauna
@Shauna–HURRAY! Another person free from the tyranny of the shampoo row at Walmart! I love Ivory soap. That’s how I got the name. It was a nickname in college.
I love Ivory Soap. I use it to make up personal batches of soap for the family and friends. It works like a dream on my hair too. The best thing about the vinegar is that it helps with getting natural highlights in the sun. Forget spending 60$ at the salon for them, like I used to.
I still need to try the deoderant that you have, sounds like it’ll work well.
I only use Ivory soap to wash my hair now and I cannot get over how much thicker and glossier my hair looks. I have had more compliments since I went to this routine. The vinegar rinse does not work as well for me (maybe it is because I have naturally curly hair???) so I use Burt’s Bee conditioner but I do alternate with the vinegar rinse.
Thanks so much!!!
Just seeing this today! I’ve tried the baking soda routine, but I think I’m gonna give this a shot. Baking soda was really drying to my hair. After rinsing with vinegar, I usually add a few drops of essential oils to a cup of water and use that as a final rinse. It gets rid of the vinegar smell and leaves my hair smelling so nice!
This absolutely rocks. I’ve been doing the baking soda-ACV routine for a bit, and it’s worked reasonably well, but my hair is way softer and fuller with this combination. And my perennially itchy scalp itches no more!
Wow! This site just keeps getting better and better! Laundry soap, simple bath solutions, and lip balm things…I am totally loving this stuff! Let’s see how this Ivory-Vinegar thing works against my special organic shampoos…
By the way, are there any tips you have for making a protein treatment/mask for hair? I’ve tried avocado and banana before with horrible – HORRIBLE – results…
@Tacy–what kind of hair do you have?
Hi there!
This worked GREAT for me in NY, but as soon as I went to Florida to visit home, I noticed that my hair was very lank all of a sudden. It felt like I had wax all over it. Mom asked me when I was planning to wash my hair. What happened? Tampa has hard water, and I suppose Westchester county, NY has soft water. I rinsed really carefully in Tampa. Thoughts? I want to do this again now that I am back in NY. BTW, have any of you used henna to color your hair? I have great results with it, and you can tweak it so that it doesn’t come out flaming red. I have about 20% grey, and it still works like a charm, it’s natural, and it costs me about 10 bucks to do. A lot cheaper than the salon dye, and much nicer than the results I had from home-dying.
@Vanessa–I haven’t ever dyed my own hair. Wait, I did once and ended up tiger striped…horizontally. YIKES. But, my mom’s people are from Tampa. The water there is AWFUL. You probably HAVE to use shampoo there. Though the vinegar rinse should have helped a bit…
@ LuMaSa Momma: use that no more needed conditioner to shave your legs with!
Ivory, you are right about the Tampa water. I wondered, about 2 days into being home why I felt so “off,” and I realized that I had been drinking Diet Coke nonstop to avoid the water. I grew up there, and I don’t remember its being so nasty. I am going to try to Ivory Soap thing again here, because I see so clearly that shampoo makes my hair lie down and play dead. When I was doing it up here (NY), my hair was super shiny. As far as dyeing one’s own hair, there is a website I can direct you to, if you were to want to learn more. I swear I don’t get paid to push henna, but the stuff is just amazing. My hairstylist has been with me for 10 years, and she had to do a lot of repair-work on my banged-up hair when I dyed it with the boxed stuff. Even when she colors it (not corrective coloring), it costs me 65 or 70 dollars (ant that is hella cheap for NY). She loves the henna results so much that she told me she’ll never use chemical color on me again. At seven dollars a month, I’d say I have mastered frugal, worry free color. Thank you for this excellent blog!
I’ve been shampoo free for a few months now. I LOVE it!! I am still using baking soda instead of soap but love the ACV. Sometimes I infuse it with a “tea” of sage or horsetail ferns and Anni, I never rinse my vinegar out, I just squeeze it. Smells a little vinegar-y, but essential oils or herb teas added help and once the vinegar dries the smell goes away. Thanks for all the great info.
I have been using soap in my hair instead of shampoo for a long time. My favorite, so far, has been the coconut oil soap. Not tried the Ivory…hmm. Just might have to do that. Here is a really great tip, I do use the vinegar rinse but instead of diluting the vinegar with plain water, I use rose water. This really rocks! My hair is so fab I can’t hardly stand it.
So I’ve gotten on board this wagon and wanted to comment that I don’t think the vinegar HAS to be apple cider, correct? I was looking at my local warehouse store (Smart n Final) and ingredients for the large size Heinz apple cider vinegar were actually vinegar “made from grain,” caramel and flavoring. I bought the smaller size that actually appeared to come from apples, but honestly I can’t imagine it makes any difference. And distilled white is SO much cheaper.
@Anni – I know this is about 6 months later, but I have heard about a leave-in conditioner you can make. Basically, just put a small amount of any conditioner you use in a squirt bottle and dilute with water. Squirt on as usual. I haven’t tried it yet, but I’m planning to.
Hi there
I am trying out the soap and vinegar shampoo (and am very excited about it!)
I have done it three times now, but my hair seems quite greasy when in dries.
I am not sure if my hair is just getting used to the new routine, or if I am not using enough apple cider vinegar to get all the soap out, or if the soap i am using is just clinging to my hair more than normal….
any suggestions?
The problem could be happening in a few places, but let me go for the most common. Unlike detergent (shampoo), soap doesn’t clean just by passing through. If you don’t get the suds down to the scalp, the scalp ain’t gonna be clean. If you don’t scrub over your ears, same thing. You should be able to work up a REALLY GOOD lather all over your head. Better than shampoo. It will be a ’shaving cream’ level lather. And when you rinse, keep rinsing until you get the SQUEAK. It feels SQUEAKY CLEAN. And you think, I’ll never get a brush through this. But it’s just the pH. The cider vinegar corrects the pH, and breaks down any soap residue so you can again get your fingers through it without yanking yourself bald.
thanks for the trouble shooting
I felt like I scrubbed pretty good today- but next time I wash I will do a super scrub so there are LOTS of bubbles.
how much of the water/vinegar mix do you usually use to rinse out?
I used about 3/4 cup.
think that is enough? and should i let it sit for a while before rinsing out??
thanks again for your speedy reply!!
well, you were right!
thanks for the tip
i scrubbed really hard and my hair came out looking great.
hoorah!
A friend of mine was told by her hairdresser to use baby powder in between shampoos to help her hair. Her hair is very fine and needs the natural oils. Every night she sprinkles some into her hair and brushes it out. The powder works like dry shampoos you can buy for camping and its cheaper. She still showers though.