Going Wavy Again: getting rid of buildup with baking soda and vinegar

In my last post about my hair, I decided to set off down the road to waviness after years of flat-iron reign. Since I'm not mobile enough right now to go get a trim like the Curly Girl handbook suggests, I decided that my step 1 would be to try and get rid of the buildup from all the sulfate and silicone products I've been using. I stumbled upon a way to do that with just two ingredients from my pantry I already have: baking soda and vinegar! And it worked better than I expected.


Crazy, right? But do a google search and you'll find rave reviews for this method all over the internet.

Basically, you make a thin paste with baking soda and water and maybe some CG-friendly conditioner as well. (Start with the baking soda, because it thins out really fast). You get your hair wet with it and and rub your scalp with it. You let it sit for a few minutes while you do other bathy things. Then you rinse it out with a dilute (a few tablespoons per cup) solution of vinegar and cool water. Then rinse, preferably with cool water.

The first thing that struck me was that, as I poured the vinegar water through my hair and finger-combed it (I didn't use a comb this time), my hair felt silky and slippy like I was rinsing conditioner out of it! No joke! It was pretty cool. The fizzing in my hair was also fun. And I was surprised to find that I couldn't smell any vinegar in my hair after rinsing. (I would kind of like something nice smelling in my hair for boyfriend-cuddling purposes, but I'm sure I'll figure that part out later.)

A lot of websites will say to use apple cider vinegar, but all I had was plain white vinegar. Luckily, after some research, I learned that there is no difference in the effects, and some people actually have better clarifying results from the plain white vinegar. Plus, it's cheaper.

This is my hair after it dried. I was freakin' impressed! I really wish I had a before picture, because I usually don't have this much curl. And I put nothing else, no gel or anything, in my hair for this. I think it really must have taken a lot of buildup out.

That night, I took some more internet advice and "pineappled" my hair into a palm-tree-like ponytail on top of my head. In the morning when I took it down, the back was fine though my bangs needed help. A little bit of water, scrunching, and wrapping individual waves around my fingers did some good, but I still borderline looked like a crazy woman.

These next two pictures were of my hair around the middle of the following day. I really need to take pictures with a better camera, but you can see that my hair is 1) less wavy and 2) frizzier, especially in the front there.

Oh, also. Then there is the problem of my bangs. Since I don't particularly want pictures of my face here yet, I have illustrated for your pleasure.

Hope I've also adequately expressed the frizz, uneven ends
and funky curl-bumps of this awkward stage.
The jaundice is slightly exaggerated.

I have a big fat COW LICK! And it makes my head look egg-shaped. Eek.

Straightening those bangs is I think my only real option for now. They're fun with straight hair, but it looks like I'm gonna have to grow them out if I want the sexy-wavy look I'm going for here without the help of any heat tools.

Moving forward... it's the 2nd day since I washed my hair last, so I decided to wash it again so I could use the gel. This time, my hair wasn't slippery enough to finger-comb it very well. I learned that this baking soda and vinegar treatment isn't really meant to be used more that about twice per month. Oops. I did use gel, though! And they turned out pretty good-looking.

I can't wait until the new products I just ordered get here! I got some LA Looks gel, a trial set of DevaCurl products, and a wide-toothed comb for detangling.