Linda, the baking soda wash worked pretty well a lot of the time. Other times, not. There was the usual adjustment period as so many people write about, which was a pain, but as long I didn't travel, and the water softener at home was well stocked with softener salt. Hard water without the water softener seemed to play havoc with that regimen, at least for my hair & scalp, it did. My hair and scalp never did respond well to the ACV rinse, so I gave up on that part of it.
The worst trouble for me was that every time I traveled, and I do that a lot, the differences in water seemed to make a huge difference in how I responded to the soda wash. It was weird and made no sense to me, but the only thing I could come up with that was a common factor, was the difference in water from one place to another. Hubby thought maybe it had to do with eating differently on the road, but then why would the same thing happen at home if we ran out of water softener salt?
I still don't really understand the mechanics of how or why the different minerals in the different waters made such a big difference, but when I traveled, it was like going through that whole adjustment period all over again. Sometimes, it was so annoying, I'd just use hotel shampoo for the duration of the trip and then have to do the re-adjustment again when I got back home. It became such an annoyance, that eventually I just stopped altogether.
Besides all that, I have to say that making up the baking soda wash every time I wanted to clean my hair is something I don't miss. It's so much easier to get in the shower and see a bottle of shampoo on the shelf ready to go.