DIY Updates

So, update on the DIY stuff, right?

Shampoo/Conditioner: Oh, this took a while after we moved. It was so slow I didn't notice it, but one day I looked in the mirror and saw that my hair looked... waxy. Not dirty or greasy, just weird. And it would not curl.

One of you lovely reader suggested boiling the water first, mixing a bunch ahead of time, and then just having it in the shower. Well, that worked the first time, but after it had cooled for a day, almost all the baking soda crystallized and plated itself to the bottom of the container. It was like rock salt. Great, if I want to exfoliate my scalp, not so great if I want to clean my hair.

So then I decided to run the bath faucet as hot as it would go before each shower and filling up with that. Magic! It worked again. Now my problem is my hair getting too clean. So I'm back to washing it every other day, which really is better for it, even if I hate it. I also mix honey in with the vinegar once a week. It was moisturizing too much when I used it every day, but it makes a nice once-a-week thing.

Dishwasher detergent: This works fairly well, compared to the commercial detergent. Again with the hard water, though (and Utah disallows phosphates in detergents). Residue and gunk on everything. Feh. So with the second batch I added half a cup of White King, a magical box of stuff that has solved almost all of our hard water problems and I can only find at WinCo. I also mixed it in with two cups of boiling water. It gelled very nicely. And then it turned to gritty, half-frozen butter. Next batch, three cups boiling water. It does work much better now.

Laundry detergent: It was a total waste of time until I discovered White King. I don't think it ever did mix properly, so I still only use it for things that never really get dirty. For diapers, I still use Charlie's Soap. Without our high-efficiency washer and with the special crap we have to buy to deal with the hard water problem (even Charlie's doesn't perform well at all with our water--ammonia burns, yay!), the money savings is not as substantial. It makes my skin itch. Sigh. Oh well. It's still worth it, if not AS worth it. We better not have any more babies until we're in a house with a water softener.

More DIY I've been thinking about: cloth diapers need special diaper rash cream. Many of the ingredients in most creams bond to the fibers, rendering them inabsorbent and smelly. Yay. No more Boudreaux's Butt Paste, which was magic, crafted by Gandalf himself. Both girls are prone to crazy diaper rash, no matter how vigilant we are about changing them frequently. The next person who tells me cloth-diapered babies shouldn't get rashes is going to get punched in the face. The only cloth-safe cream I've found in stores was a bazillion dollars. The ones online are not much better. So! I'm going to see if I can figure out a way to make some myself. This should be interesting.

What else can be DIY without sacrificing quality (or so much efficiency that it becomes far more inconvenient that it's worth)?

Shampoo

Dear sister, I know you will laugh at this post. But don't make fun of me too much until you see my hair.

I'll never have fabulous hair, but this is the most fabulous it's ever been in my entire life. It's kind of a pain in the rear since I have to rinse it forever and a day, lest I smell like vinegar. But I consider it worth it. My hair not only looks better, but it's softer, shinier, and it does the things I tell it to. It curls and stays curled, I pin it up, and it stays up, I leave it down, and it does not plaster itself to my head like a hungover eel.

So! Here it is.

Step One: Baking soda.

• Keep a cup (16 oz) in the shower. Before you get in, put in 2 Tbsp of baking soda. In the shower, fill the cup and mix until the baking soda is dissolved (I use the end of my razor handle).
• Pour in sections over your dry head. I'd like to get a squeeze bottle to do this, but so many of them have really narrow necks. This method is time-consuming enough that I really don't feel like bringing a funnel into the whole business as well.
• Rub into scalp, then rinse thoroughly.

Step Two: Vinegar.

• Optional: Pour about 1 tsp of honey into the cup. My hair comes out shinier and sweeter-smelling when I use this.
• Pour about 1/4 cup of your choice of vinegar into the cup. I use apple cider vinegar. I've heard of people using pomegranate vinegar and others. I'm sure just about anything would smell better than ACV (except maybe white vinegar). Fill the rest of the way with water and mix again.
• Pour in sections over your head, work into hair, and rinse thoroughly. Very, very thoroughly. And then rinse some more. If you're still unsure, rinse a little bit more.

I won't lie; it's a pain in the rear. But I find it's well worth it. No more money spent on expensive, clarifying shampoos whenever my fine hair gets tired of the buildup. No more greasy hair days. No more bad hair days, period (so far). And even though my hair will probably never be the type that can go for a day without washing, and I am pretty sure I will never be able to go vinegar-only (some people do! and I've seen pictures! and it looks good! I'm amazed; I tried it once, and I looked like something fresh from a Sunnydale graveyard), my hair is far, far less greasy than it ever has been before. By bedtime, it used to be showing already. Now it doesn't look terrible until at least the next morning.

To be honest, it's probably not much of a money savings. I have (used to have) a taste for expensive shampoos and conditioners, but I could make them last foreeeever. A tankard of Aveda shampoo and conditioner can last me at least two years. That's about two dollars a month. A gallon of apple cider vinegar lasts about two months, and the cost of baking soda is negligible. Honey is a bit pricier, but we use so little, and we buy it in the gigantic jugs (I use it in just about everything The Child eats that's sweetened). This gets us about three cents a day. Yaaay!

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This brings me to my next point.

For the longest time, it's been hard for me to get motivated to save money because I haven't ever thought to tie it to something concrete. We're only saving twelve dollars a year by doing this, but twelve dollars is a movie ticket. We love the movies! And we never get to go! Before, I would have seen that twelve dollars and thought, "Pssssh. Totally not worth the self-denial."

But it IS.

I love how I'm learning delayed gratification at 28.

(If you listen closely, you'll hear my siblings and parents snickering into their sleeves. Li'l Naomi done growed up. Kind of.)

Hair

I'm saving my hair to make pillows.

HAH! Just kidding. There are some things I will never do for the sake of a few dollars. That's one of them.

No, I've noticed since I started showering every day that my hair just doesn't get clean enough when I wash it. It gets all gunky in back, just below the crown of my head. I have three different kinds of shampoo that I use, I use very little conditioner (maybe a pea-sized amount), and I make sure I get shampoo down into my roots all over my head. And still, with all that, there's this spot on the back of my head that is just gross unless I shampoo twice, which kind of defeats the purpose of showering every other day. More time spent in the shower, using hot water and lights, AND extra money spent on shampoo.

So I decided to try something else today. I grabbed a bit of baking soda (maybe a couple of teaspoons) and plonked it on top of my wet hair, then I rubbed it in with my shampoo. And what do you know, my hair came out beautifully clean (but not stripped and dry, like it can when I shampoo twice).

I also used the extra baking soda left on my hands to scrub my face a little bit (I'd already washed it). I don't really need to exfoliate with the oil cleansing method (I know I sound like an infomercial with my OIL CLEANSING METHOD! evangelism, but I am telling you, it's that good) and haven't in ages. But lately my face has been feeling a little papery and oily, all at the same time. Probably the dry winter air.

Wow! What a difference! My skin feels extremely soft today, and it's practically glowing. I don't know exactly what the baking soda did, but my skin looks amazing right now.

Now I just need to figure out a way to keep some baking soda in the shower without getting it all wet and clumpy and gross.