So I've Been Washing My Hair With Rye Flour...

It being Plastic Free July and all I decided to attempt a waste-free shampoo solution. I have been wanting to try this for ages but couldn't find a recipe that appealed to me at all.. until now. Rye flour. Water. An apple cider vinegar rinse. This is so ridiculously simple I decided to give it a go. After all, I could just wash again with shampoo if it didn't work, right?

It worked.

I have been washing my hair with rye flour for a couple of weeks now, and my hair is happy in its own fairly normal, boring and going quietly grey kind of way. So how, you might ask, do you wash your hair with rye flour? Good question. I got all my information from Wasteland Rebel, but have played around with amounts, ie am using less flour than recommended, because, you know, thrifty.

First, locate some light rye flour. Whole rye flour has bits in it that are hard to rinse out of your hair..
I use two teaspoons of flour and enough water to make it into a shampoo-consistency paste. Apply to wet hair like shampoo and scrub through your hair. I rinse and repeat for the not very good reason that this is what I do with 'normal' shampoo. Anyway, it's fun and a good excuse to stay in the shower for another three minutes. Warning: rye flour in your hair feels like a mud pie in your hair. It feels not at all like shampoo, as you can imagine. Persevere. Rinse well. Now conditioner. I have been using one tablespoon of apple cider vinegar in a litre of warm water, and slowly pouring it through my hair while scrubbing my scalp again to make sure the flour is all rinsed out.  Now rinse out the vinegar. Done.

I washed my hair this afternoon and it is feeling soft and silky. I am going four days between washes. I think it took a few washes to get the shampoo residue out, and now I have completely odour-free hair that feels like, well, hair.

Photographic evidence:

Here is a photo I took a few weeks ago, while I was still using shampoo in plastic bottles:

Here is a photo I took a few days ago, a couple of weeks in to my rye-flour experiment:

Now, clearly my hair will never be glamorous because I am not a glamorous hair person, and my children complain that I make stupid faces when I am taking selfies, and also I need a haircut. Granted. However, I think you may agree that the hair just looks like, well, hair. I defy anyone to guess that it wasn't washed with something that came in a plastic bottle from the supermarket.

So hey, give it a go. Let me know if it works for you. It is so very, very simple. And cheap. And effective. And oddly satisfying. Another set of plastic bottles can leave the bathroom now.

Happy.