Author: Cailin

We’re heading into month 6 of the global pandemic, and while Sweden has been notoriously less strict about quarantining than the majority of other countries, that doesn’t mean that everything has gone on as usual. Most services (barber shops, nail salons) have remained open, but many people have chosen not to go and have taken alternative measures.

For our family, that has meant I’ve become a bit of a hairdresser/barber. In these six months, I’ve cut my own hair, my husband’s, my mother-in-law’s, and my husband’s grandmother’s (does one say grandmother-in-law?). This means I’ve experimented with under-cutting, layering, simple side fading, and bangs! Most of these have been successful, and everyone has left satisfied in the end. I’ve even gotten some requests from my grandmother-in-law’s friends!

Not to brag, but I’ve gotten quite a few compliments about my own hair. I’ve been blessed/cursed with very thick hair. Not only do I have a lot of hair, but each strand is also very thick/textured. The upside to this is that it holds pretty much whatever is done to it with limited hairspray/gel/mousse necessary. The downside is that it has always been fairly tough to take care of. I’m a pretty low-maintenance person, and motherhood has only intensified this trait. The more mornings I can roll out of bed with my hair looking good, the better. 

So I am thrilled that I have finally found an easy hair care routine that works! It brings out my natural waves, leaves my hair looking soft but not frizzy, and best of all, it’s only two steps! 

Shampoo? Castile soap bar. Conditioner? Undiluted apple cider vinegar (ACV). That’s it. 

This is starting to sound like an infomercial, but it really does amaze me how simple (and inexpensive!!) it is. When I started my foray into DIY/more natural skin and hair care (read this post about how I clean oil with oil with my DIY face cleanser), I tried the No ‘Poo method (short for no shampoo), which generally consists of washing your scalp with a paste of baking soda and water, and rinsing it with ACV. While I know many people swear by this method, I never could seem to wash all the baking soda out of my hair, and the roots always felt gritty and rigid. So I went back to regular shampoo and conditioner. 

Recently I ran out of shampoo, and, without access to anything else, used my husband’s Aleppo soap, which he uses for washing everything from top to toe. It worked delightfully well, so I never went back to shampoo. 

Ditching conditioner was harder. I’ve always been one who uses gobs of conditioner every day, even though I only used shampoo maybe every 2-3 days. But this was the last plastic bottle left in our shower, and I really wanted to find a more natural solution. 

Remembering my experiment with No ‘Poo, I recalled that, while the baking soda left my roots feeling nasty, the ends of my hair, which tended to get mostly ACV, were very soft. So I bought the largest bottle I could find, and gave it a try. 

Okay, now this is really sounding like an infomercial, but the results were perfect! The first day, my hair was shiny and soft. And it remained that way nearly all week! I now can go about 5 days between washing (though I do use the ACV more like every third day). 

[Cue me, standing in front of a bluescreen holding a bar of soap and a bottle of vinegar] So take it from a (not even a little bit) professional hairdresser – when it comes to hair care, the simpler, the better!