Going 'Poo-Free for the Environment
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(Photo by Daniel Berehulak, Getty Images)
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Instead of indulging in the rich lather and floral fragrance of store bought shampoo, people are "cleaning" their hair with baking soda. And "conditioning" with apple vinegar. Please say it isn't so!
But loads of people are doing it, and not just the ugly hemp-ghetto girls and dirty hippies. To my amazement, the No 'Poo movement was started by Lorraine Massey, a stylist. The blasphemy! She swears that swearing off shampoo is what helped her curls become the envy of the hair world, and inspired her to write the best-selling Curly Girl, a guide to managing your waves and ringlets.
Perhaps Lorraine's intentions were less about the environment, and more about her hair. But it caught on with the green crowd for several reasons:
One Less Plastic Bottle in Your Home
Those plastic shampoo bottles are exactly like water bottles, and we know where they wind up: Ground into particulate matter, floating in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, or piled two miles into the sky in a landfill. Anything that reduces plastic bottles is good for the environment, and for people.
In a Word: Cancer
Some of the chemicals in shampoo are seriously bad for you! Common cleansers such as octoxynol-40 and sodium laureth sulfate can easily turn into ethylene oxide and 1,4-dioxane and even formaldehyde. Remember that whole thing about triclosan last week? Getting clean is deadly!
No, Really, It's Bad for Your Health
If that wasn't bad enough, some studies also indicate that toxins present in common shampoo brands contribute to nerve damage and abnormal fetal development. And here's what I mean when I say common: a bunch of toxin were found in baby shampoo. Sigh.
Environmental Runoff
Again, like triclosan, shampoo goes down the drain and into water sources -- from drinking water to the ocean to lakes and rivers. And all of those chemicals hang around the environment, giving frogs extra eyes and killing native wildflowers. Plus we drink it! See above, "Cancer" and "Bad for Your Health".
Our Old Friend the Carbon Footprint
Also, those chemicals, especially ammonium derivatives take a lot of energy to make, so the manufacturing process creates an additional carbon load on the environment. Which probably means Al Gore would give No 'Poo the Green Thumbs Up.
Are you convinced yet? I'm on the verge of getting rid of even my greenest, most eco-friendly, refillable glass-bottle shampoos. While Lorraine Massey's version of No 'Poo permits conditioner, most of those have the same bad for you/bad for the environment chemicals in them, so a full, 100% green hair effort means (sob) giving it all up.
That might be more than I can do, but my label reading skills are getting yet another workout, that's for sure.
Can you do it? Have you done it? Is it madness to try, or selfish to hesitate for even one second? Have your say in the poll!
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