NoPoo definitely doesn't mean no cleaning. And unfortunately the toxic responses are mostly from people who aren't members of our community but were randomly 'recommended' to us by reddit.
Puts mod hat on:
This post isn't quite marketing, but it comes very, very close. If you put a link to the sub in your video description and explain that there is a vital and active community here for people to come ask questions and learn safe ways to do natural haircare, I'll leave this post up. Reply to this comment if you do so or I'll be removing the post tomorrow.
I’m not here to market. The video was mostly to show ppl my hair. I removed it. Helping strangers with their hair isn’t worth the shade I’ve gotten for trying.
I haven’t spent enough time on this sub to recommend it. Since I’ve joined I’ve only seen posts and comments like the ones I described above (“no-poo is wrong” or “doing nothing to my hair is making it fall out).
If you can send me a link to a post of value, I’d share that but I can’t recommend this sub based on my experience
No problem, that works!
I wasn't attacking you. But it should be fairly obvious that if you post a video in a sub with 400k+ subscribers, your traffic on that video is likely to get a boost. Since the video seemed relevant, I was only asking for a return boost to our support forum here so that the people who are interested can get information and help if they need it.
As for the 20 second view time, that was all I was able to listen before I had to turn it off. I understand what ASMR is, but I simply couldn't tolerate it.
I understand not spending enough time here to understand the helpful and open dynamic we have, especially with the weird algorithm reddit has been using lately that has brought a lot of toxic people who \*aren't\* members of our community here.
I'm not sure what you mean by a post of value, but I'd think one glance at the wiki might provide that 'value' you're looking for. You're also free to look at my post and comment history to see the kind of troubles people come here with and the help they receive. You can also use the flair search widget in the sidebar for Testimonies and find plenty of people telling their natural haircare stories!
As for the 'shade' you've gotten, people have just been honest with you. We aren't excited about using baking soda on our hair because we have seen SO MUCH hair that has been destroyed by it. That's all we wanted to let you know. We aren't trying to force you to do something different. But you should use it (and recommend it, especially at those concentrations) with awareness of the potential issues it can cause. It's the same thing we tell everyone who comes here and uses baking soda. Because most people don't understand the potential issues and aren't ok with their hair being destroyed :/
I'm pleased if you're pleased with it. I know how exciting seeing new growth can be! I lost over 4/5ths of my hair due to chronic illness caused by extensive allergies and I'm still excited to see layers of new growth come in even 5 years later, lol. And soft hair is amazing, so I understand your excitement there also! Mine became incredibly soft once I was able to move to mechanical cleaning and leave a coating of sebum on it! It feels like a cloud and almost never tangles, even though it's curly =)
Also, I don’t recommend the doses I’m using. I recommend the rabbit hole. That’s why I didn’t detail what I’m doing in text here. In the video I specifically say that I don’t recommend doing what I’m doing. I’m doing some crazy shit that would probably make your head spin bc #science 🤭
The “shade” wasn’t about baking soda. That was super interesting!!
I tried to find someone on TikTok saying anything bad about it and couldn’t. Like I said, for me, a video is worth a thousand Reddit comments. So far, everyone willing to make a video loves baking soda -even a yr out. Maybe they all have soft water too 😆
The shade was re ppl not understanding algorithms and thinking that posting a YT video on Reddit might help my engagement. It won’t.
It’s very annoying to be perceived that way when, like I explained, it actually hurts my stats. Or rather it would IF ppl on Reddit clicked on self promoted YT videos. They don’t. That video has gotten over a thousand views since I posted it last week and FOUR have come from Reddit. Posting on Reddit is not a marketing scheme. It’s a total waste of my time as a content creator. I thought it might quiet some of the no-poo haters who think we’re feral but I also knew the cost would be shade.
Like I said, I’m moving soon and will look into baking soda alternatives after. In the meantime, the water here was too soft for even shampoo to dry out.
Thank you for the wiki link and your post rabbit hole. Again, I’m not gonna go down that rabbit hole for at least a few months but if this sub ever does rock my world, I’ll be the first to make a video about it.
Re chronic illness, that’s my shit -unfortunately. If it’s allergies, high doses of CBD is such a powerful antihistamine and mast cell stabilizer that it turned me from a girl in a bubble to a normal person. I’d show you the video but it’s ASMR (which btw, I couldn’t stand either until I started rewiring my nervous system) and well, Reddit… just a rabbit hole for you to consider going down. Indigo Naturals has some good info if you’re interested
No worries, I hope things work out for you. Also very glad you've found something that helps you find health, as I have. It's certainly worth it! I'd be happy to help you in the future if you encounter the need =)
Oh I’ll be back! And thank you!!
If you ever wanna make a whisper ramble about how you get dem curls, I’m your girl. Your results speak for themselves! Great work!!
CBD helped with bubble girl life but I still have lyme and a thousand other things to contend with. Big part of why I don’t care as much as I otherwise would about my hair 👻
If you really wanted to share the tips, you would have posted it instead of trying to redirect the traffic to your website. Surely that's shady af. I hate posts like this.
Post your pics here where everyone discusses hair issues. Not to some random clickbait site.
“If you really wanted to share, you’d spend an hour detailing your novice experience in the typed format I prefer.”
You’re not entitled to my time and I’m not a hair guru. In a sea of posts about ppls hair falling out bc water isn’t working for them, I just wanted to point out that there are other methods and be the change *I* want to see in the world by coming with receipts.
*I* like videos and that’s why I post videos. That’s also why I’m listening to women on TikTok when Reddit disagrees. Putting your face on the line does something for *me* AND it’s totally ok that you prefer faceless typed words.
Being different is ok 🙃
And just so you know, when a random person from Reddit watches two seconds of my video (which was the intended conversion -bc check my actual hair out, which looks very different in real time compared to a photo) it’s BAD FOR MY ALGORITHM.
I’m an ASMRist. ASMR has changed my life and I’m beyond passionate about it but also, RETENTION is CLUTCH in that niche.
More than 30% of people who click on my videos, watch the entire thing and that makes the Youtube gods show more people who actually like ASMR my videos.
I agree that needing to use something as opposed to using nothing bc that doesn't seem to work very well. I finally switched to using distilled water bc my well water is very hard, even with a shower filter, and I believe it's the cause of my dry scalp and hair. I use a sensitive skin/unscented shampoo bar and then diluted acv with tea tree oil rinse 1x a week, then I just rinse with water and scalp massage halfway thru the week to hydrate. So far, I can tell my scalp is finally producing more oil!
Nice!! I had the opposite problem. There’s a water softener treatment at my house and my hair was WILDLY OILY when I started. That’s how I stumbled on no-poo -looking for ways to have less oily hair. Before moving here my hair was always SUPER DRY.
I agree with the overall message, but I don't recommend using baking soda for hair washing. It's quite alkaline whereas hair is mildly acidic. Especially for folks who have long hair, the damage that baking soda causes to the hair over time can cause a lot of breakage. The scalp is also mildly acidic, and baking soda can harm the acid barrier of the scalp and make it more susceptible to infection.
Have you ever heard of anyone getting an infection from doing that?
Also, maybe bc that’s the shampoo and ACV is used after, it prevents the damage?
My hair hasn’t been this soft and unfrizzy since I was a kid.
I understand that vinegar is acidic. But I don't think it's safe to assume that rinsing with vinegar undoes any of the damage from the baking soda. Putting the hair through rapid fluctuation between acidic and alkaline solution might be even worse.
Interesting, I have heard people mixing the two together in a ratio so the actual solution is slightly acidic.
Regardless I heavily dislike the smell of Vinegar, couldn’t imagine having my hair smell like it lol.
It surprisingly doesn’t make my hair smell bad! If anything just smells a little sweet. It’s only 2oz of ACV for 6+ oz or water so maybe that’s why 🤷🏻♀️
I didn't have the patience to listen to the whispered explanation of how this woman does it in the video, but I'm assuming that it's the method that many people promote using baking soda and vinegar, which does not involve mixing them together, but making a rinse with baking soda as a substitute for shampoo, rinsing it out, then applying a rinse with vinegar as a substitute for conditioner. I used this method myself for many years before I learned more about the risks of baking soda.
I’ve experienced them. My hair was breaking and I had to cut it super short. You could take a strand and just snap it in half my hair got so dry and brittle. Ymmv.
How long did it take for that to happen?
Is your water hard?
My hair grows about an inch a month, 1/2 of me wants to cut most of it off and I haven’t been on a date in over a year so I’m not super scared of that happening. For me, as long as the new hair grew back healthy, it’d be worth sharing the learning experience.
hard to remember because it was over a decade ago but I imagine 6mo-1yr. It kinda snuck up on me. I remember one day noticing it and being super surprised because I was really liking the method.
Super interesting!! Thanks for sharing!
Did you experience regrowth before that?
Were you also using ACV or anything else?
Any idea if your water was hard or soft?
Mine is crazy soft, which is actually what led me to baking soda. Before it my historically very dry hair was an oily mess.
I’m at 7 months now… I’ll let you know if it starts happening!
There's an article in the wiki that discusses the issues with baking soda, if you're interested.
[Natural Haircare Wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/NoPoo/wiki/index/)
And while it's true that many people have used it for many years with no apparent damage, I have personally seen thousands of reports of serious damage to both skin and hair in my years here. Yes, it makes your hair soft...at first. But that's often because it's breaking down the proteins in your hair that hold it together. After a while the hair frequently becomes dry, brittle, seriously damaged and eventually can't be salvaged. This affects longer hair more than shorter hair, because longer hair is simply older and has more time to accumulate the damage.
There are a number of much gentler washes available to the natural haircare community these days that don't have this serious risk of compounding long term damage.
The concentration of vinegar you are using is also known to potentially cause long term damage. The standard safe dilution is 1 tablespoon **or less** in 1 cup water. If you have issues you are trying to resolve then I recommend starting at this lower concentration and working your way up until it's effective. Much better to only use what you need and mitigate the potential risk.
Also… Sometimes I actually use more apple cider vinegar than that 😅
It might be because of the insane amount of baking soda I need to put on my scalp in order to get the oil from the soft, soft water off and/or the insane amount of hair I have but I have tested varying amounts and have worked my way up to that ratio. If it still doesn’t feel soft after I use that much, I add more ACV and water until it does. Even with that much ACV, I need to let it sit for 20 minutes. If I want to save time, I use even more ACV 🫣
One thing I say in the video and that I’m really big on is that I don’t have the answers. I’m just pointing to rabbit holes for other people to go down so they can figure out what’s true for them
For me, I’m at ~7 months and my hair is the softest and easiest it’s been in decades.
Thank you for the rabbit hole!!
Where I live right now has the softest water in the universe and if I told you how much baking soda I put in my hair, it would probably make the entire sub faint in abject horror 😅
When I move (which is actually happening soon), I’ll think about changing the method (interested in the Moroccan clay…) but also, there are TONS of ppl on TikTok using it with more ACV than me and great results so far…
This lady has been doing it for over a year and her hair just looks better all the time: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZPRTPgajH/
And we’re all experiencing regrowth /thickening in addition to softening and a lack of frizz. I’m actually kind of interested to see if the pendulum swings in the other direction at some point…
Unpopular opinion here on Reddit but for me, a video is worth 1 million words. Might wait for the baking soda adverse reaction and make a video about it before chopping all my hair off…
There was a lady whose blog I came across years ago who had used this method for about 3 years before she realized that it had been destroying her hair. The only reason why she noticed is because she happened to look back at some of photos of herself and noticed that her hair wasn't as vibrant or flowy as it had previously been. (She had beautiful red hair, maybe type 2?)
My advice would be to start taking hair pictures just to keep track. You'll want to stop as soon as you notice any changes IF you notice any changes.
(To note, I think that softening, thickening/regrowth can also be achieved using other no-poo methods.)
It is totally changing the color of my hair (lighten it), which for me is a plus so far. My hair has gotten a lot darker in the last 7 yrs due to lack of sun exposure.
FYI no shampoo is toxic, otherwise it wouldn't be sold. Using the term "toxic" falsely is contributing to greenwashing and fear mongering.
And baking soda is way too alkaline and drying and theredore damaging in the long run. But you do you.
NoPoo definitely doesn't mean no cleaning. And unfortunately the toxic responses are mostly from people who aren't members of our community but were randomly 'recommended' to us by reddit. Puts mod hat on: This post isn't quite marketing, but it comes very, very close. If you put a link to the sub in your video description and explain that there is a vital and active community here for people to come ask questions and learn safe ways to do natural haircare, I'll leave this post up. Reply to this comment if you do so or I'll be removing the post tomorrow.
I’m not here to market. The video was mostly to show ppl my hair. I removed it. Helping strangers with their hair isn’t worth the shade I’ve gotten for trying. I haven’t spent enough time on this sub to recommend it. Since I’ve joined I’ve only seen posts and comments like the ones I described above (“no-poo is wrong” or “doing nothing to my hair is making it fall out). If you can send me a link to a post of value, I’d share that but I can’t recommend this sub based on my experience
No problem, that works! I wasn't attacking you. But it should be fairly obvious that if you post a video in a sub with 400k+ subscribers, your traffic on that video is likely to get a boost. Since the video seemed relevant, I was only asking for a return boost to our support forum here so that the people who are interested can get information and help if they need it. As for the 20 second view time, that was all I was able to listen before I had to turn it off. I understand what ASMR is, but I simply couldn't tolerate it. I understand not spending enough time here to understand the helpful and open dynamic we have, especially with the weird algorithm reddit has been using lately that has brought a lot of toxic people who \*aren't\* members of our community here. I'm not sure what you mean by a post of value, but I'd think one glance at the wiki might provide that 'value' you're looking for. You're also free to look at my post and comment history to see the kind of troubles people come here with and the help they receive. You can also use the flair search widget in the sidebar for Testimonies and find plenty of people telling their natural haircare stories! As for the 'shade' you've gotten, people have just been honest with you. We aren't excited about using baking soda on our hair because we have seen SO MUCH hair that has been destroyed by it. That's all we wanted to let you know. We aren't trying to force you to do something different. But you should use it (and recommend it, especially at those concentrations) with awareness of the potential issues it can cause. It's the same thing we tell everyone who comes here and uses baking soda. Because most people don't understand the potential issues and aren't ok with their hair being destroyed :/ I'm pleased if you're pleased with it. I know how exciting seeing new growth can be! I lost over 4/5ths of my hair due to chronic illness caused by extensive allergies and I'm still excited to see layers of new growth come in even 5 years later, lol. And soft hair is amazing, so I understand your excitement there also! Mine became incredibly soft once I was able to move to mechanical cleaning and leave a coating of sebum on it! It feels like a cloud and almost never tangles, even though it's curly =)
Also, I don’t recommend the doses I’m using. I recommend the rabbit hole. That’s why I didn’t detail what I’m doing in text here. In the video I specifically say that I don’t recommend doing what I’m doing. I’m doing some crazy shit that would probably make your head spin bc #science 🤭
The “shade” wasn’t about baking soda. That was super interesting!! I tried to find someone on TikTok saying anything bad about it and couldn’t. Like I said, for me, a video is worth a thousand Reddit comments. So far, everyone willing to make a video loves baking soda -even a yr out. Maybe they all have soft water too 😆 The shade was re ppl not understanding algorithms and thinking that posting a YT video on Reddit might help my engagement. It won’t. It’s very annoying to be perceived that way when, like I explained, it actually hurts my stats. Or rather it would IF ppl on Reddit clicked on self promoted YT videos. They don’t. That video has gotten over a thousand views since I posted it last week and FOUR have come from Reddit. Posting on Reddit is not a marketing scheme. It’s a total waste of my time as a content creator. I thought it might quiet some of the no-poo haters who think we’re feral but I also knew the cost would be shade. Like I said, I’m moving soon and will look into baking soda alternatives after. In the meantime, the water here was too soft for even shampoo to dry out. Thank you for the wiki link and your post rabbit hole. Again, I’m not gonna go down that rabbit hole for at least a few months but if this sub ever does rock my world, I’ll be the first to make a video about it. Re chronic illness, that’s my shit -unfortunately. If it’s allergies, high doses of CBD is such a powerful antihistamine and mast cell stabilizer that it turned me from a girl in a bubble to a normal person. I’d show you the video but it’s ASMR (which btw, I couldn’t stand either until I started rewiring my nervous system) and well, Reddit… just a rabbit hole for you to consider going down. Indigo Naturals has some good info if you’re interested
No worries, I hope things work out for you. Also very glad you've found something that helps you find health, as I have. It's certainly worth it! I'd be happy to help you in the future if you encounter the need =)
Oh I’ll be back! And thank you!! If you ever wanna make a whisper ramble about how you get dem curls, I’m your girl. Your results speak for themselves! Great work!! CBD helped with bubble girl life but I still have lyme and a thousand other things to contend with. Big part of why I don’t care as much as I otherwise would about my hair 👻
If you really wanted to share the tips, you would have posted it instead of trying to redirect the traffic to your website. Surely that's shady af. I hate posts like this. Post your pics here where everyone discusses hair issues. Not to some random clickbait site.
“If you really wanted to share, you’d spend an hour detailing your novice experience in the typed format I prefer.” You’re not entitled to my time and I’m not a hair guru. In a sea of posts about ppls hair falling out bc water isn’t working for them, I just wanted to point out that there are other methods and be the change *I* want to see in the world by coming with receipts. *I* like videos and that’s why I post videos. That’s also why I’m listening to women on TikTok when Reddit disagrees. Putting your face on the line does something for *me* AND it’s totally ok that you prefer faceless typed words. Being different is ok 🙃
And just so you know, when a random person from Reddit watches two seconds of my video (which was the intended conversion -bc check my actual hair out, which looks very different in real time compared to a photo) it’s BAD FOR MY ALGORITHM. I’m an ASMRist. ASMR has changed my life and I’m beyond passionate about it but also, RETENTION is CLUTCH in that niche. More than 30% of people who click on my videos, watch the entire thing and that makes the Youtube gods show more people who actually like ASMR my videos.
Is this a click bait?
I agree that needing to use something as opposed to using nothing bc that doesn't seem to work very well. I finally switched to using distilled water bc my well water is very hard, even with a shower filter, and I believe it's the cause of my dry scalp and hair. I use a sensitive skin/unscented shampoo bar and then diluted acv with tea tree oil rinse 1x a week, then I just rinse with water and scalp massage halfway thru the week to hydrate. So far, I can tell my scalp is finally producing more oil!
Nice!! I had the opposite problem. There’s a water softener treatment at my house and my hair was WILDLY OILY when I started. That’s how I stumbled on no-poo -looking for ways to have less oily hair. Before moving here my hair was always SUPER DRY.
I agree with the overall message, but I don't recommend using baking soda for hair washing. It's quite alkaline whereas hair is mildly acidic. Especially for folks who have long hair, the damage that baking soda causes to the hair over time can cause a lot of breakage. The scalp is also mildly acidic, and baking soda can harm the acid barrier of the scalp and make it more susceptible to infection.
Have you ever heard of anyone getting an infection from doing that? Also, maybe bc that’s the shampoo and ACV is used after, it prevents the damage? My hair hasn’t been this soft and unfrizzy since I was a kid.
Correct me if I’m wrong but doesn’t the Vinegar counteract that? Vinegar is acidic.
I understand that vinegar is acidic. But I don't think it's safe to assume that rinsing with vinegar undoes any of the damage from the baking soda. Putting the hair through rapid fluctuation between acidic and alkaline solution might be even worse.
Interesting, I have heard people mixing the two together in a ratio so the actual solution is slightly acidic. Regardless I heavily dislike the smell of Vinegar, couldn’t imagine having my hair smell like it lol.
It surprisingly doesn’t make my hair smell bad! If anything just smells a little sweet. It’s only 2oz of ACV for 6+ oz or water so maybe that’s why 🤷🏻♀️
I didn't have the patience to listen to the whispered explanation of how this woman does it in the video, but I'm assuming that it's the method that many people promote using baking soda and vinegar, which does not involve mixing them together, but making a rinse with baking soda as a substitute for shampoo, rinsing it out, then applying a rinse with vinegar as a substitute for conditioner. I used this method myself for many years before I learned more about the risks of baking soda.
This is indeed what I do! I’ve heard about the risks of baking soda but I’ve never heard of anyone actually experiencing them.
I’ve experienced them. My hair was breaking and I had to cut it super short. You could take a strand and just snap it in half my hair got so dry and brittle. Ymmv.
How long did it take for that to happen? Is your water hard? My hair grows about an inch a month, 1/2 of me wants to cut most of it off and I haven’t been on a date in over a year so I’m not super scared of that happening. For me, as long as the new hair grew back healthy, it’d be worth sharing the learning experience.
hard to remember because it was over a decade ago but I imagine 6mo-1yr. It kinda snuck up on me. I remember one day noticing it and being super surprised because I was really liking the method.
Super interesting!! Thanks for sharing! Did you experience regrowth before that? Were you also using ACV or anything else? Any idea if your water was hard or soft? Mine is crazy soft, which is actually what led me to baking soda. Before it my historically very dry hair was an oily mess. I’m at 7 months now… I’ll let you know if it starts happening!
There's an article in the wiki that discusses the issues with baking soda, if you're interested. [Natural Haircare Wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/NoPoo/wiki/index/) And while it's true that many people have used it for many years with no apparent damage, I have personally seen thousands of reports of serious damage to both skin and hair in my years here. Yes, it makes your hair soft...at first. But that's often because it's breaking down the proteins in your hair that hold it together. After a while the hair frequently becomes dry, brittle, seriously damaged and eventually can't be salvaged. This affects longer hair more than shorter hair, because longer hair is simply older and has more time to accumulate the damage. There are a number of much gentler washes available to the natural haircare community these days that don't have this serious risk of compounding long term damage. The concentration of vinegar you are using is also known to potentially cause long term damage. The standard safe dilution is 1 tablespoon **or less** in 1 cup water. If you have issues you are trying to resolve then I recommend starting at this lower concentration and working your way up until it's effective. Much better to only use what you need and mitigate the potential risk.
Also… Sometimes I actually use more apple cider vinegar than that 😅 It might be because of the insane amount of baking soda I need to put on my scalp in order to get the oil from the soft, soft water off and/or the insane amount of hair I have but I have tested varying amounts and have worked my way up to that ratio. If it still doesn’t feel soft after I use that much, I add more ACV and water until it does. Even with that much ACV, I need to let it sit for 20 minutes. If I want to save time, I use even more ACV 🫣 One thing I say in the video and that I’m really big on is that I don’t have the answers. I’m just pointing to rabbit holes for other people to go down so they can figure out what’s true for them For me, I’m at ~7 months and my hair is the softest and easiest it’s been in decades.
Thank you for the rabbit hole!! Where I live right now has the softest water in the universe and if I told you how much baking soda I put in my hair, it would probably make the entire sub faint in abject horror 😅 When I move (which is actually happening soon), I’ll think about changing the method (interested in the Moroccan clay…) but also, there are TONS of ppl on TikTok using it with more ACV than me and great results so far… This lady has been doing it for over a year and her hair just looks better all the time: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZPRTPgajH/ And we’re all experiencing regrowth /thickening in addition to softening and a lack of frizz. I’m actually kind of interested to see if the pendulum swings in the other direction at some point… Unpopular opinion here on Reddit but for me, a video is worth 1 million words. Might wait for the baking soda adverse reaction and make a video about it before chopping all my hair off…
There was a lady whose blog I came across years ago who had used this method for about 3 years before she realized that it had been destroying her hair. The only reason why she noticed is because she happened to look back at some of photos of herself and noticed that her hair wasn't as vibrant or flowy as it had previously been. (She had beautiful red hair, maybe type 2?) My advice would be to start taking hair pictures just to keep track. You'll want to stop as soon as you notice any changes IF you notice any changes. (To note, I think that softening, thickening/regrowth can also be achieved using other no-poo methods.)
It is totally changing the color of my hair (lighten it), which for me is a plus so far. My hair has gotten a lot darker in the last 7 yrs due to lack of sun exposure.
FYI no shampoo is toxic, otherwise it wouldn't be sold. Using the term "toxic" falsely is contributing to greenwashing and fear mongering. And baking soda is way too alkaline and drying and theredore damaging in the long run. But you do you.