Bubbles Are Back

You see all kinds of crazy shit on Pinterest. How to zombie-proof your house, clouds shaped like Bugs Bunny, recipes for bacon flavored ice-cream.

A few months ago I saw something on Pinterest about dry shampoo and started poking around. Apparently if your hair is a little limp you can just sprinkle in some baking soda and fluff it up and look just like a supermodel. If you have darker hair just mix some cocoa in with the baking soda. I guess if you have red hair mix in some paprika?

Then I saw something from a lady that said she never uses shampoo anymore. She just dissolves some baking soda in a glass of water and uses that to wash her hair. Just pours it on and smooshes it around a little, then rinses it out. After that she dilutes some apple cider vinegar in water and uses that instead of a conditioner.

It's called 'Going No-Poo' which is probably the most poorly thought out marketing buzz-phrase ever. There are a bunch of places in Pinterest and Facebook and all over the internet about this all natural alternative to the big industrial shampoo lobby, if there is such a thing. No chemicals, no additives. Well, technically I guess baking soda is a chemical, sodium hydrogen carbonate, but this is all natural, damn it. No artificial colors or fragrances or preservatives. Just me and good old sodium hydrogen carbonate, just like God intended.

I thought why not try it. I was almost out of shampoo anyway, and everybody on the internet makes this sound almost magical. You can practically go weeks without shampooing and still look great.

I don't know how to break this to you, but you can't believe everything you read on the internet.

The experiment wasn't a total disaster. Yes, you can actually wash your hair with baking soda. No, your hair won't look much different than if you used normal shampoo. You still have to wash your hair every couple of days, not once a week or so.

I gave it a good try, too. I went months with just baking soda shampoos and vinegar rinses. It didn't seem to be much of an improvement. As a matter of fact, I thought my hair was a little blah.

So last week I told Keith I was going back on the bottle. The shampoo bottle. I didn't want to spend a half an hour trying to decide which shampoo to get, so I got my first bottle at Dollar General. They only have about six or seven brands to choose from. Just so you know, I chose Pert Plus. I was going to go with Prell for old times' sake, but I'm pretty lazy. Pert Plus has shampoo and conditioner all mixed together so that cuts out a step, which is a big plus in my book.

Get it, a big plus? Pert PLUS? I'm hilarious.