Gunky hair blues

[kumudini]

I would agree with amd, I also have read that you can clarify your hair once a month with baking soda paste by itself or in shampoo and do a vinegar rinse. I did with shampoo, the H&S and then the vinegar rinse. Although I never had much build up, my hair felt so much cleaner after this treatment. Now I'm using my own shampoo bar, but I have a slightly different way of doing things. I oil my hair at night and wash it off thoroughly in the morning and work in few drops of oil while the hair is still wet. Once a month or so I do the vinegar rinse and my hair doesn't get build up.
May be you could try baking soda followed by vinegar rinse a few times. it's really gentle, I don't think it would hurt to try.

 

[gigisiguenza]

I would agree with amd, I also have read that you can clarify your hair once a month with baking soda paste by itself or in shampoo and do a vinegar rinse. I did with shampoo, the H&S and then the vinegar rinse. Although I never had much build up, my hair felt so much cleaner after this treatment. Now I'm using my own shampoo bar, but I have a slightly different way of doing things. I oil my hair at night and wash it off thoroughly in the morning and work in few drops of oil while the hair is still wet. Once a month or so I do the vinegar rinse and my hair doesn't get build up.
May be you could try baking soda followed by vinegar rinse a few times. it's really gentle, I don't think it would hurt to try.

Same here, but I never thought to do the baking soda rinse too.

 

[Jstar]

Jstar, soap is what got my hair into this gunky mess in the first place! I'm sure you understand my unwillingness to try it again. Especially with the super-hard water creating super-scum in my shower.

Went back and read again, and see you used 'Gennys Shampoo bar'..what is that? Is that a recipe from here? Only reference I found was on Teachsoap and it lists shea butter, AO, OO,castor, and SBO.

Seems like that many soft oils would tend to get sticky...anyway, have you tried with a bar that has more CO? It may be drying but thats what I use, and once I spritz with the Argan oil, I dont have the drying issue.

Also, have you tried switching out the water with distilled or something?

 

[Obsidian]

Yes, genny's shampoo bar is from a post here. It's mostly soft oil, no CO at all. Most people don't want CO in their soap, its too drying but some people like yourself like a more cleansing bar. I personally altered genny's recipe to remove the soy and add in a bit of CO & neem. I also lowered the SF to 3%.

You'll find the recipe in the first post here http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?t=30946

 

[Trix]

Hi flybystardancer,
Baby shampoo as it is a clarifying shampoo, and vinegar are your friends. Baking soda will dry your hair, even if it cleanses it well.
Also thinkmof the environment you live in, and that the hair absorbs everything so easily. Cities, pollution, humidity in some places, in addition to the previous air pollution, and maybe hard water, means that unfortunately for hair, we need somwthing that will bond with the dirt on one end, and the water on the other hand to clean it, and make sure all gunk is washed off.

For now try baby shamppo, a silicone free conditioner, and apple cider vinegar.

 

[TeaLeavesandTweed]

FlybyStardancer, there is a chance that your hair didn't dislike soap washing in general, but disliked using a bar with a specific ingredient. Personally, I found shampoo bars with castor oil left my hair and scalp feeling gunky, but using a very plain, CO and palm based soap bar left my hair very clean, if a little dry. But that is easily remedied with a squirt of aloe and maybe honey in your vinegar rinse. I do use a vinegar rinse every time I wash my hair with soap, but you can also use a citric acid solution if you don't like the smell of vinegar.

Castor oil residue can also be very difficult to remove with shampoo. As some often say on this forum, ask me how I know...

 

[FlybyStardancer]

As an update... I tried making a sodium citrate rinse (100g baking soda and 75g citric acid, slowly mixed with just enough distilled water to get it to all react into a sludge-type thing, took about an hour to completely react, during which it needed to be stirred constantly so it wouldn't bubble over). When I got in the shower I took a bit of the sodium citrate and scrubbed it through my hair, rinsed, washed my hair with the SLS-based shampoo, rinsed, and then worked the rest of the citrate mix through my hair (most of what I had made), before rinsing it out. My hair did not feel awesome when wet and it certainly showed its natural dryness... But it got something like 60-70% of the gunk out! It was SO MUCH EASIER to comb. After combing I worked through a dab of my lotion (homemade) that I use as conditioner. I still haven't made my hair-optimized version yet.

Today should have been the next wash day, but in just a couple hours I'll be hopping in a pool, so I'm putting it off for a day. Instead I'm just LOADING my hair with the conditioner to help protect it from the pool water (I hope at least, since it has HO sunflower oil and mango butter that won't get absorbed by the hair).

Though trying to get the conditioner on my scalp is a real issue. My hair is rather dense, which makes it hard to work the conditioner between them down to the scalp.

 

[Saponista]

The lotion as conditioner worries me a bit, I know you said it has btms in it, but what else did you use in the recipe? If it has other emulsifying waxes etc, then they might be adding unwanted residue to your hair.

 

[Obsidian]

I was thinking the same thing. I tried to use some of my lotion as a conditioner once and it was terrible. I would suggest to stop putting anything in your hair except for shampoo and conditioner until you get the gunkies cleared up.

Since you have dry hair, this might be of some help but not until your hair is clean. Dumping any kind of oil/conditioner on gunky hair will just make it gunkier. http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/showthread.php?t=128

I also recommend joining that site, they will be able to really help you out with any hair issues.

 

[FlybyStardancer]

It has water, HO sunflower oil, mango butter, BTMS-50, FO, and liquid germall plus. Pretty darn simple as far as lotions go. The oils aren't exactly what I want for hair (which is why I normally only use a teeeeeny tiny bit of it, and rarely at that). When I make the hair conditioner version I'll be replacing them with CO, and lowering the percentage of it.

 

[Saponista]

If the oil percentages are high in that lotion then you may be leaving a load of mango and sunflower residue in your hair. I would swap to some specific hair conditioner and see if that helps.

I make a solid conditioner bar, but only use 15% oils and butters.

 

[Dahila]

I remember when I was a girl my mom always had rinsed our hair with ACV
We all know that people before us had a lot of knowledge

 

[kchaystack]

I make a conditioning bar with 60% BTMS 50, 18% avocado oil,10% cetyl alcohol, 10% cocoa butter, 1% tea tree EO, 1% preservative.

Never had a problem with build up.