Eschew the poo.

My lovely friend Miriam and I aren't girlie girls. Neither she nor I take loads of time prepping to look our level best.

So imagine my surprise when Miriam called a few months ago, and she was uncharacteristically eager to tell me that her hair has never looked better.

Miriam has beautiful hair.

And she spiritedly let me know that she hadn't used shampoo in over a week.

Miriam always seems to be on the cusp of the cool. She'd read about the No Poo movement, and she decided to give it a try.

And she achieved fabulous results. She has thick, beautiful, curly auburn hair, and apparently implementing the No Poo method did nothing but good things for the sheen and loveliness of her locks.

Interestingly, right about the same time Miriam called with her No Poo epiphany, I had this weird thing happening with my hair. Bits of build-up were forming in my hair in the form of flaky ishy clingy things.

Nothing I did in terms of product took care of the problem. So I harkened to mind Miriam's No Poo solution.

And it worked.

I stopped using shampoo on a regular basis. And the little ishy flakes went away. My hair looked great, without using the 'cleansing' shampoo.

Here are some facts, which I'll attribute to their source, MSNBC, from last year. To be fair, there's a ton of information on the crazy computer box about the benefits of skipping the 'poo:

In recent years, "no poo" has become something of an underground beauty trend (despite being saddled with an unfortunate moniker) that's split into two camps: beauty mavens who believe they've found hair care's dirty little secret, and environmentally minded folks who want to use fewer plastic products and products with fewer chemicals.

“I think we’ve been so conditioned that you have to wash your hair every day ... that it’s just bizarre for somebody to think something otherwise,” says Lynch, who fits comfortably within the eco-friendly category of no-pooers. ...

"Modern shampoo has been around since the 1930s, and in the decades that followed, it became one of America's most heavily advertised products. The harsher formulas of those initial iterations of shampoo meant that most women were washing their hair only once a week (and telling unwanted suitors, "I can't go out; I'm washing my hair."). But as formulas got gentler in the 70s and 80s, daily shampooing became the norm.

But some wonder if we were sold a bill of goods. That trend toward everyday cleansing might have triggered a vicious cycle, some experts say — shampoo cleanses by stripping the hair of its natural, necessary oils, causing the scalp to produce more oil in response, making it impossible for some to skip shampoo for even one day without sprouting a gigantic greaseball."

So this sniplet of validation, combined with Miriam's first-hand experience and the fact that I've hopped on the No Poo train means that it may be something to consider. 

There's a lot of information about No Pooing. 

And it's not just all about how great your hair looks. As the segment of the MSNBC article indicates, it's about the chemicals, the environmental impact of the big plastic bottles, the lack of necessity for the entire idea of shampoo. I think we've been sold a bill of goods, personally. We really don't need shampoo as much as they'd want us to think we do.

But we don't hear much about the No Poo movement in the media. Not using a product is the beginning of the end of a bunch of big business.

I'd suggest you check out the no poo thing. Just google no poo.

Its unsavory moniker belies a world of possibility.

As for my poo plan, I do the baking soda/water thing one day, don't wash my hair the next day, go with conditioner only the next day, skip the hair washing the day after that - you get the idea.

I think we've been conditioned, so to speak, to believe we need to wash our hair frequently, using chemical-laden big plastic bottles of shampoo.

We don't necessarily need to slather our locks with hair soap every day.

It's a lot to absorb, in a manner of speaking. But I'd suggest you try it for a month.

Miriam and I, and a whole bunch of other people, think you'll be surprised.


And that's no poo.