I have now been using our Goat Milk Soap as shampoo for two and have since revisited this post. See the new post here!
I want to start by saying that I was truly skeptical about this. We have used our soap as shampoo on our children since the beginning, because it was the healthiest, cheapest option, but neither of them have a lot of hair and I wasn’t concerned about their hair “behaving”. I had fleeting thoughts about using it myself, but I have thick wavy hair that rarely behaves even with professional products, so I didn’t want to make my hair issues anymore challenging by using a product that wasn’t designed specifically for hair or my hair type.
A few months after we opened I started to hear about customers using our soaps as shampoo with good results. A little over a month ago Kevin took the plunge and ditched the store bought shampoo as well… of course he didn’t inform me of this until I bought him a new bottle of his shampoo. I guess it’s a good thing that I didn’t even notice he made the change. I finally decided that I needed to try it out myself. With my goal of getting rid of all my skin or hair care products that contain chemicals I would eventually need to figure out something else for my shampoo anyways. Why not start with something I already have?
I waited until I had a week when I didn’t have a lot of meetings or work outside of the house to conduct my experiment. The first time I washed my hair right after I used the soap, while my hair was still wet, it had that stiff sticky feeling you get after swimming. It wasn’t the slick, smooth feeling I normally got with my old shampoo. When my hair dried it looked pretty normal… until I had reached the 24 hour mark from my last wash. It was greasy and I’m not used to my hair getting greasy so quickly. Normally, I only wash my hair every other day or every two days because anymore than that and my hair would get super dried out and frizzy (Don’t worry. I shower everyday. I just don’t always wash my hair). All of my friends with a similar hair type have the same issues, so I just thought it was normal. Needless to say I was concerned with how greasy my hair was in such a short period of time, I didn’t have time to double my hair routine, but I decided to keep working with it. I did a little research and found what was causing my issue. Normal shampoos strip your hair of it’s natural oils. Much like normal store bought “soaps” strip the natural oils of your skin. So how our soaps balance the PH and oils of your skin it is doing the same for your hair. I often tell our customers that if they plan to use our soaps on their face then they needed to allow for about a week to a week and a half for their skin to adjust (skin elsewhere does not seem to need this adjustment time). I needed to allow my hair to adjust. So I washed my hair everyday, and as the days passed it took longer and longer to get greasy. After about 4 or 5 days I was able to go back to my every other day hair washing regiment.
Normally, my hair is out of control. It waves in every direction and I am in a constant fight against the frizz (one of the reasons I have always avoided washing it everyday). I don’t do much to my hair. I wash it, let it air dry, then straighten it to avoid the hair sticking out in every direction. I don’t use product. I really don’t have time for all of that. I figured I should maybe buy a hairdryer since I was going to have to wash it more often, yes I had committed to using the soap at that point, even if that meant I had to wash my hair more often (it takes my hair hours to dry), and no I did not own a hairdryer, so I ordered one on Amazon. After about 4 or 5 days of using the soap I noticed a nice change though. My hair maintained it’s body, but the frizz was non-exsistant. My waves waved in (mostly) the same direction. I haven’t straightened my hair since I started using our soap as shampoo. At first because I didn’t have the time to wash my hair everyday, let it dry for 3 hours, then spend the 30 or so minutes straightening it, but now it’s because I don’t need to! Before I wouldn’t dream of going out without my hair either up or straightened. I’m quite pleased with how it looks naturally now.
One more good side effect. I have been battling a dry scalp for months. It’s been driving me crazy. I have never had this problem in the past. Our soaps are great for healing dry and damaged skin…I guess the same goes for the skin on your scalp. It’s a much better option than medicated shampoos.
Here we are, two weeks later, and I don’t plan to ever go back to regular shampoo. I would call that a successful experiment! Now what do I do with the barely used bottles of shampoo and conditioner that we have?
I used our Castile Goat Milk Soap for this experiment
*** This is was a personal experiment and there is no guarantee that you will have the same results. Our soaps are designed to be used on the skin and we cannot claim that it will work on hair, but I do suggest you try yourself! ****
While planning the expansion of our soap line I knew I wanted to add some soaps that would appeal more to our male customers. We have many “gender neutral” soaps, but I wanted something that could be considered “manly.” With essential oils the wood scents are about as manly as it gets. This soap has the hardy deep smell of fresh cut cedar… I’m a fan.
