One of my smartest friends advised me to stop using shampoo. He said that shampoo dries out the hair and makes it necessary to use “hair product” in order to bring your hair to life again. I hated spending money on shampoo and hair spray, plus I didn’t like the look that contemporary hair care gave me, and so, being a perfectionist, I decided to embark on the No-Shampoo challenge. Here is the story of my hair’s journey.

Process: Daily shower. Once per week, a light sprinkling of baking soda to help clean out any major impurities and grease chunks. The amount I used was less than a dime-size of baking soda.

Note: You’ll have to forgive me in advance for the crappy resolution of my cell phone camera. I’m not into photography.

Week 0

This is my hair after a wash with shampoo and some product. If you notice, the hair is flat and lacks any sort of volume or texture. The bangs needed to be pushed to the side on the front because it fell down in chunks.  I was not happy with my hair at this stage. This would be the last time I used shampoo – after this, I did one more final wash to get the product of my hair and threw out my shampoo bottle.

Week 4

The first four weeks were the most painful part of the process. Grease chunks had taken hold of my hair in various places and made it thick to the point of of jungle, wild-like hair. It was a bit of a pain to manage as well because the natural oils that your scalp produces are only secreted from the base of the hair follicle – so while the tips of my hair became dried and frayed, from the lack of any moisture, the new hair growing out of the scalp was thick with oil.

Thankfully, baking soda once per week helped to keep my hair salvagable. I never had any odor but the baka soda did really do a number on the tips of my hair, since that part of my hair lacked any oils to begin with, and the split ends were quite noticeable and messy.

Week 7

By this point, I began to see results. A natural gloss and shine started to come through, and I noticed that I could finally see texture between all the pieces of my hair. The split ends had finally received some of the natural oils from the scalp, while grease chunks became less and less frequent. It seemed my head was adjusting to not receiving a nuclear bomb treatment of chemicals every day, and was producing less oils to compensate.

Even still, my hair was LONG by this point. I had a mullet and the bangs were so long I had to keep brushing them out of my eyes. Pretty much everyone I talked to assumed I was a pot head. Although I thought about getting innovative and doing some pothead game, I decided it was time for a cut.

Week 8

This was my hair on the day of the cut. My hair was a little raw and tender from the cut, and doesn’t look as good as it did before the cut. I partly blame myself because I did not give proper instructions to my hair stylist – even though I told him not to use any shampoo or product in my hair, I told him to cut my sides shorter than the front, so it looks a bit uneven. Also, this picture is a bit darker than the others – not sure what happened here, I’m guessing the lighting mechanism on my cell phone didn’t adjust properly for this shot.

However, the split ends, remaining grease chunks, and mullet was gone so things were in proper formation to grow out anew. You can still see a natural sheen and gloss coming out of my hair at this point. I was excited to see results after months of effort.

Week 12

 

The end result. A smooth, sleek, shiny head of hair with layered texture between all the pieces. My bangs flow like gentle waves across a clear lake. Styling is effortless. Because there’s no product, the hair is constantly re-adjustable  regardless of what happens to it. For example, this shot was taken after I had woken up from a nap – I merely brushed my hair around a bit with my hands and took the shot.

It’s great to have movie star hair. I had been avoiding going out at night, due to cold weather and a general dissatisfaction with the girls in my city, but I figured it would be a waste if I didn’t show the world my amazing hair. So when the first warm night came, I went out and every single girl I approached or danced with responded. Zero blow outs. One girl bought me a drink and invited me to another bar with her and her fat friend. I wanted more attention so I went. At the next bar I saw two guys in suits and complemented their attire. I told them I liked to suit up, but didn’t because I was planning on dancing. They responded that I didn’t need to wear a suit.

The girl I was with dragged me out of that bar and took me to another one. She told me she had a boyfriend and kissed me. We went inside and there was a birthday party going on. I approached the birthday group and the birthday girl came up to me and asked me to come home with her. She wasn’t good looking enough for that so I told her she looked young for her age and went off to talk to other girls, some of whom turned out to be terrible bitches.

The girls I came with gave me another drink and by this point I really needed to go to the bathroom, so I went to find the bathroom and the birthday girl was there and pulled me into the ladies room and gave me a blowjob. Then I went to the men’s room and took a leak. When the girls I came with asked me where I had been, I told them “there was a line” and she asked me if I had any weed, which I did, but the fat friend did a reverse cockblock* out on the street and prevented her from going anywhere else with me.

There’s really no substitute for a great  haircut – it easily increases your looks value by a point or more on the ten scale. The no-shampoo challenge has been an amazing success for me, and, so far, everyone I know who has taken the red pill on hair-care has loved the results – both men and women. However, it does take a bit of patience as it took me nearly two months before I saw any results. If you have longer hair, it will take longer before the hair transformation is complete.

That said – what do you have to lose?

Read Next: The Perfect Woman: Hair

* Reverse Cockblock: “Oh, you know what? Just go home with him. You should go. Have a good time. Just go. I don’t care.” <—- Most effective cockblock line in the world. Even if she goes home with you, she’ll still feel like a slut as soon as you make a move on her and the LMR will be insurmountable.