Emprace NoPoo

11 January 2023

I stopped shampooing my hair back in September. A lot you probably think I’m disgusting but hear me out.

Look at this guy, you’ve probably seen him in a history text book before.

This is a photo of Stalin in 1901. Look at that hair, it’s damn bangin. Shampoo was invented in 1927, I challenge you to take a look at photos of people before 1927. They probably all have hair that looks as good as young Stalin.

Anyways, I didn’t just up and give up shampooing entirely, it was a gradual process. I was a swimmer growing up which means that I pretty much shampooed every day after practice. The only thing worse than washing your hair is not washing your hair when there’s pool chemicals eating away at it. Trust me, I’m Asian, my hair is supposed to be black, but I had light brown hair for awhile from the damn pool chemical devil.

Then, in college I stopped swimming and grew my hair long. I got some tips from my mom and my girl friends and they all said not to wash my hair everyday. So I went from a daily wash to maybe 2-3 times a week. I think I looked damn swell. I kept up the 2-3 times a week even after cutting my hair short again.

Then, back in September, I just up and decided to completely stop washing my hair. Thus, NoPoo (no shampoo).

If you’re going to try this, be prepared to have greasy hair for a few weeks after starting. The body knows how much sebum (hair oils) it needs to produce. When I was constantly washing my hair, I naturally produced more sebum. At the beginning of my NoPoo journey, my hair was pretty greasy but now, it feels as good as ever.

And this is what I look like now. This photo is from three days ago in an ice cream shop in St. George, Utah. My hair feels healthy (not too greasy) and I’m able to give it some style without any product. I will still sometimes wash my hair after a haircut or a really dirty climbing trip, but for the most part, I’m going without the shampoo.

If you’d like some additional pointers, I’ve heared the NoPoo subreddit is a pretty good resource, although I haven’t looked into it too much. Johnny Harris made an interesting video on this topic this as well.

I realize that this probably isn’t for everyone, but I’m just here to say that it worked for me. That’s two minutes that I save in the shower now that I can put towards writing more of these posts.