Vinegar!

    I love Vinegar.  Yes, it's amazing for chips and salad dressings, but that is not at all why I love it so.  This story starts several, dare I say maybe 10, years ago.  At the time we were living in Spain and one of the lady day talk shows was showing all natural recipes to make your hair gorgeous.  I remember them doing some form of a vinegar rinse and was mighty curious about it.  However, since at the time I was approximately 15 years old and did not have control of the kitchen nor of the grocery list, I couldn't try this rinse out.  
    Now fast forward to last year.  I was searching online for a quick easy way to clean shower heads.  I came upon this site.  Somewhere in the back of my mind I remembered the vinegar rinse segment from a decade earlier and went about searching for what has turned out to be one of my favorite hair treatments EVER.  It is actually located o the same page near the end.  Here it is:

* Remove residue and styling product build up from hair: After shampooing, rinse your hair with a mixture of 1/2 vinegar, 1/2 warm water to remove all the build up and get rid of that dullness.

    Sounds super easy, right?  And it is!  All I do is put a cup to a cup and a half of vinegar to about the same amount of warm water in a mixing bowl, take it in with me to the bathroom, pour the mixture in my hair and sit in the filled up tub for about 10 minutes to let it soak in.  I know that the directions tell you to use the vinegar mix AFTER you shampoo.  But I do it before I shampoo and condition my hair as I don't want my head to smell like a bag of chips or salad dressing when I get out of the shower.  I know that washing my hair after the vinegar mix probably makes it less effective, but at least this way I don't end up smelling funky or making my pillow case smell funky as I normally wash my hair before bed.
    A word of caution: if you have scabs or scratches on your scalp due to scratching, the vinegar will sting, A LOT.  I did the vinegar rinse for my sister once and she had a few open spots from scratching her scalp and when the vinegar got in the wounds it stung. 
    The overall benefits are worth the sting.  My hair ends up super duper incredibly soft after a vinegar rinse and completely clear of all the gunk that shampoo, conditioner, leave in conditioner and anything else that I put in my hair from time to time that gets left behind despite washing it regularly.  Also, as I understand it, vinegar balances out the PH of your scalp as well which for some people is enough to clear up dandruff problems.  I definitely recommend this treatment and just know that you'll be impressed with how soft your hair can be too!


*This is my own review of something I tried.  No one in any way asked me to or encouraged me or is paying me for this.*