My Time as a Human

It’s been about two weeks since I began the no shampoo experiment. Today, after holding off as long as I could, I finally gave in. I was too curious. I had to know what would happen if I put baking soda on my head.

The oils that naturally keep your head and hair healthy are replaced when you remove them. If you strip away all of the natural oil with shampoo, that wonderfully efficient little machine you live in (your body) responds by pumping out more. It takes a while for it to recognize that not stealing the oil isn’t a one time thing and you’re serious about letting your head do its job. In the transition, about 3-4 weeks, it’s gonna get thick up there as the little pump keeps running at the same high speed.

Washing with water every day I’ve had no trouble. My hair feels thick when I wash it, but it doesn’t smell or feel dirty. Some people worry about that, or experience small amounts of itching, and they resort to a baking soda wash to remove some of the buildup. I’m guessing that this only slows down the process as your head says, “see, see?! I knew you didn’t really mean it! I’m not cutting back the oil supply!”

At the same time… I was fascinated. What would happen? I kept putting it off, wanting to let my head know I was serious. Today I caved in. I had to know. I mixed up a little cup of baking soda and water and brought two half lemons into the shower. I poured the baking soda in my hair first and let it sit for a few minutes. I massaged it in and then rinsed it out. Immediately my hair was twice as light. Terror gripped me. I’d gone too far! Wasted two weeks! It did, however, feel really nice and soft.

The next step is recommended so that your hair doesn’t smell like baking soda, although I’m guessing it’s also because you need the vinegar, an acid, to neutralize the baking soda, a base. I couldn’t find vinegar fast enough so I grabbed a lemon, also very acidic.

Now, here’s the trick with lemons in the shower. It turns out that picking up lemon seeds off of a wet floor is like wresting a greased pig. With your thumbs. They kept creeping closer and closer to the drain but I couldn’t get a hold of the feisty little critters. I finally slid them, ever so carefully, all the way up the shower wall until they hit the soap dish. There was a tiny lip, and my hope was that… if I just barely tipped them over the edge onto my waiting thumb… I could just… and with a yelp of triumph, I popped them off the wall! …and back onto the floor. The third time was the charm and I managed to wrestle them into their original plastic bag.

The comb was the finishing touch. I ran it through my hair briefly and then looked down in horror. There were thick chunks of something coming off of my head! Was it globs of grease? Chunks of skin?! What disgusting or terrifying thing was happening to me?! Then I looked a little closer. And took a taste. Mmmm! Zesty! It was chunks of lemon peel.

And so here I am, smelling zesty and feeling good. My hair feels great. I hope I haven’t backpedaled too far. I’ll keep you updated.

My friend once decided to shave off his eyebrows to see what would happen. Besides freaking me out in a weird way I couldn’t pin down (until he pointed it out) he learned, of course, what eyebrows are for. Behold, without eyebrows, we’d get sweat constantly running into our eyes. Yep. That’s what happened to him.

I’ve had some pretty weird hair colors and styles over the years (and have stuck with the dilbus) but I’ve always washed it every day. The thing is, when you’re home with your parents recovering and not leaving the house… suddenly you have time to try whacky new things. The whole “no shampoo” thing has been going on for a while now. The process takes about a month, it seems, before your head stops freaking out and trying to make up for all the oil the shampoo bubble squad was stealing every day. Once it settles down it is, apparently, quite nice and low maintenance. The bonus is that you don’t dump a lot of questionable chemicals onto your head. Even better, for me, it means that my ultralight travel pile gets one bottle lighter!

Of course, no shampoo doesn’t mean I’ll never wash my hair. It just means I’ll do it with water. There are a number of other solutions to use during the transition time, including apple vinegar and baking soda, but I’m sure that’s just for wusses.

So today it begins: 30 days without shampoo. And then..?

Here is a pile of blogged scribblings about other people’s experiences:

Sean Bonner

Sean Bonner update on Boing Boing

Fulfilled Homemaking

Ridiculously Extraordinary Karol Gajda

Free The Animal, although this guy is too willing to be a freak to make this seem mainstream!

Living the Simple Life

I really screwed this up. One of my best friends, Steve March, and I swore to join one of our favorite freaks, no matter what it took, on the Big Island for the arrival of the end of the world. Terence McKenna had many charms, not the least of which was his weird voice zooming in and out about alien beings and the collective unconscious. He created a mathematical model of the progression of novelty through the course of human history called Timewave Zero and decided that there was a singularity at 2012. When he discovered that this corresponded with the end of the Mayan calendar, he happily declared it the end of the world as we know it… whatever that might mean.

Sadly, he died back in April, 2000. Our plans of dancing beside him amidst some kind of bizarre beach party near his place in Hawaii were wrinkled and twisted and now, here we are, with Terence sliding around through the ether somewhere and Steve and I separated by a continent.

Happy New Years Steve and Terence. I’ll find a way to make this up to you guys.

Watch Terence do his thing: (skip video forward to 2:45 where he appears)

My songs are spells. Each one is developed for a particular intense experience. Each one is formed like a custom antibody for a particular bacteria, a unique incantation for a particular writhing beast inside me that must be exercised. Once crafted I learn and repeat the spell and with each repetition breath flows in and pushes the rage, frustration or fear out. When at last I feel purified, I carefully place the song on the shelf on the chance that it will closely match a future trouble and be useful again. This shelf of spells casts a shadowy image of my progress over time, all I’ve learned from relationships, travels, and troubles.

I think this is why I’ve never been particularly aggressive about getting other people to hear these songs. Their role is not to entertain, win women, or make cash. Apparently, that’s what my more recent children’s songs are for.

In an interesting shift, I’m finding that as the muse wakes me at four in the morning I’m striking different bargains. I wrestle with her a bit, I have my own demands. I take what she gives me and fight to turn it into something I can make childlike, simple, and fun. Suddenly that angry riff becomes a high energy background to childish excitement. Suddenly that sad finger rolling melody is the old tan curtain behind a storyteller.

The magic now is in taking the learnings themselves, the essence of all of those old spells, and making them simple enough for children to absorb and integrate so that they too can breath them in, laugh them out, and tuck them away for a time when it matches one of their own struggles.

Yes, just like an inoculation through a vaccination, giving them Antibodies.