If you use regular shampoo, you’re washing your hair with plastic.
How can you have healthy hair without lathering up with plastic? Try borax.
Shampoo is a greatexample of the pervasiveness of plastic.After all, its ingredients are as much petrochemicals as the plastic bottle it comes in.
I mentioned borax for shampoo, among other things, in How to Use Borax: a Versatile Cleaner and More. I decided to give it a try, and it seems good to report on my results.
The recipe
In case you’re wondering how people took care of their hair before commercial shampoos became available, this borax recipe is one common method. There can’t be anything much easier to make.
- Rinse out an empty one-gallon milk jug.
- Add 1 cup of borax.
- Fill the jug with very hot water.
- Put the cap on the jug and shake vigorously.
The hardest part is shaking the mixture. Borax does not dissolve easily in water. Using very hot water helps. Once the borax is completely dissolved, your shampoo is ready to use.
It helps to shake it some more every once in a while if the borax seems to be settling at the bottom of the jug.
If you like, you can add some apple cider vinegar or washing soda to the mixture. I never have, but I have seen it recommended. Actually it’s baking soda I’ve seen recommended. It’s cheap, but you can do better.
Washing soda is carbonate of soda, which only means that it’s no good in baking. Baking soda is bicarbonate of soda, which somehow makes it edible.
For general washing, cleaning, deodorizing, hair care, or any other use, washing soda works just as well. It comes in a much larger box (in the laundry section) and measure for measure, it’s even cheaper.
Using borax for shampoo
Admittedly, a gallon of a watery liquid is more difficult to handle than a smaller bottle of a thicker liquid that you have to squeeze. When the jug is full, it will be kind of awkward.
That said, you simply cup your hand and pour a little of the borax mixture in it. Then you wet your hair with it. Repeat until your hair is completely soaked. After that, you proceed exactly as you would with shampoo: you work it into a lather. Just don’t expect the rich, foamy lather you’re used to.
By the way, when you use soap, it’s the lather that does the cleaning work. You don’t need suds or lather for anything else. It just looks impressive.
I usually apply the borax while the water is heating up for my shower and rinse it out after I’m finished with my shower.
I have always thought that “rinse and repeat” is simply a way for shampoo manufacturers to encourage people to use twice as much as they need, but if you want to rinse and repeat, you can do it whenever you rinse and repeat with your commercial shampoo.
If you want to use a conditioner, try apple cider vinegar. Dry your hair as you usually do.
How borax gives you healthy hair
I can’t duplicate all those shampoo commercials. You know, the ones where lovely women with long silky hair toss their heads to show off how great it looks.
I don’t have hair like that. Most women don’t have hair like that. Even most white or Asian women in their 20s don’t have hair like that.
But whatever the length, texture, thickness or shine your hair has, it will be clean. It will feel fresh. It will smell wonderful, because borax is a natural deodorant. But wait! There’s more!
Borax is an effective dandruff shampoo. It eliminates not only the dandruff, but the itchy scalp that often comes with it. Tweet this.
People with thin hair have reported that borax actually thickens their hair over time. After a couple of months of use, it can even fill in bald spots leftover from chemotherapy. Here is the testimony of a cancer survivor, who has her own natural hair care recipes and recommendations.
Every advantage borax has as an antifungal agent, as an insect repellant, etc. in cleaning around your house also works for the good of healthy skin and hair.
And there’s nothing plastic about it except the jug you’re reusing to contain it.
