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