No Poo

First of all, you have to love living in the South.  We currently have snow flurries going on and they have canceled all the local K-12 school.  (No such luck with UNCC)  In all fairness, we're under a winter storm warning and they are expecting between 3 and 8 inches of snow.  But still.  It's funny to cancel classes when there is no snow on the ground!  Even better, on Saturday, the highs should be in the 50 and on Sunday, they should be in the 60s.  We have two days of storm, and then back to our regularly scheduled Spring.

So what's this about No Poo?  Am I refusing to change diapers already?  Actually, no.  This phrase refers to No shamPOO.  I have very curly hair.  When I was growing up, Marcia Brady's hair was what we all aspired to.  I did everything I could to control my hair--even the people who cut my hair told me it would be really ugly and bushy if I let it grow from short to long.  (I still harbor a great deal of resentment against these people and would like to find them and torment them for all their meanness to an insecure child)

During college, I dealt with my hair by becoming a punk chick.  I dyed it red and worked with a hair style close within the mohawk region...with, of course, a long rat tail down the back.  IT WAS THE 80'S.  I looked cool.  Then I graduated and got a job up North.  I remember saying to a friend of mine that I wished I could be taken hostage so I could lose weight and let my hair grow out.  After recovering from the stunned look my friend gave me, I thought what the hell.  It's easier to grow out my hair than lose weight, so that's what I did.  And I've never cut it short since.  The weirdest thing about that adjustment is that there's no way this hair looks punk---it can definitely look "romantic" on occassion which still freaks me out a bit.  I'm still that punk chick at heart. 

So, mid 20's, long curly hair...what to do now???  I had no idea how to deal with long curly hair.  So, I picked up all my grooming techniques from the underground curl culture.  Those of your with curly hair know what I'm talking about.  People in salon's don't know what to do with our hair.  They've finally learned to leave it long and to be careful cutting it because it springs up so much when dry.  But they know absolutely squat about styling curly hair.

We have to pass on our styling techniques to each other.  You find someone with curly hair that looks good and ask them:  What do you do?  Someone who is not as far along in the curly culture are you are stops and asks you:  What do you do?  We curly girl who don't know each other realize we're not strangers.  We're all in this befuddled hair care world together.  We have to share what we know with everyone.  I've been in restuarants, paying my toll on the highway, walking down the street and shopping in the stores and exchanged hair care secrets with women I don't know.  It's how it has been done. 

What did I learn from these women and what secrets did I pass on?  Do not blow dry your hair.  Do not towel dry your hair.  Put a towel on your shoulders to let your hair air dry without ruining your clothes.  Do not ever use a comb or brush except to spread conditioner through your hair in the shower.  Use much more than the "nickle" or "dime" size amount of product the directions recommend.  Do not touch your hair while it is drying.  Really, don't touch your hair ever after putting the product in! 

Now there are a few books and web sites and even salons out there who focus on the curly girl.  Ouidad was the first.  I went to their local Ouidad affiliate in Charlotte, but I wasn't impressed.  They cut all the thickness out of my hair and put a boatload of product on my hair to keep it from frizzing.  Folks, I could put 5 ounces of ANY product on my hair and it wouldn't frizz...and it's taken me nearly a year to recover from that haircut.  The other salon, also based in New York, is Devachan, co-owned by Lorraine Massey who also wrote the book Curly Girl.  I think she's the real deal.  The NY Times recently had an article about her a couple of Sundays ago and that is when I learned about No Poo for curly chicks.

That's right.  Curly hair should not use shampoo.  Ever.  We just need to rinse our hair and massage our scalps and then put the conditioner in.  I imagine the book has some additional insights and it's on my wish list at Amazon.com.  But I have to be honest with you folks, I haven't used shampoo for 10 days now and my hair looks fantastic!  I'm so much lower on the frizz and I've got some volume at the roots---it's not so weighted down by product.  And to be honest, I'm even using less product on my hair in total.  It really only took about 3 days for the benefits to start showing and now I'm hooked.  You normal haired women are probably reading this slack jawed imagining how awful it would be to not use shampoo---and for you, yes, it would be awful.  But we're nothing like normal haired people.  That's why it's been so difficult for us.

It's a curly haired cult out there.  And now we're not going to use shampoo anymore.  And we're going to look verrrrrrrrry good. 

It's really starting to snow now!  yay!

8:10:40 AM