Stiff hair

Hello everyone,

Ive been washing my hair with BS/ACV rinse for almost 1 month now. I found that my hair is pretty stiff after washing and drying it but didn't think much of it. However I've been reading some posts on the forum about how your hair should be soft and a few days back there was someone on the chat who mentioned his hair felt like a helmet. That's exactly what my hair feels like as well, being rather stiff/hard on my scalp. Any ideas on how to solve this would be much appreciated.

updated by @lone-walker: 01/13/15 09:54:02PM

Hi Lone Walker, sounds like you have a residue build up. This happened to me. If you have hard water, the BS does not dissolve properly, slowly building up a residue. To avoid this happening again, if you have hard water, boil the water first to mix the BS into. Boil water in a pot, let it start to cool so that the minerals in the water will settle to the bottom of the pot, then slowly pour out the 5 cups (1.18 liters) needed for the 1/2 cup (.24 liter) of BS. You don't need to do this for the ACV, only the BS.

You could also purchase a large bottle of water, I buy water cooler size jugs and use that instead of boiling.

To remove the build up you now have, purchase some Neutrogena Anti Residue Shampoo, only a small bottle is needed. Rub this on your wet sections and let it sit for awhile, then rinse out well, you will see the water a gray color. Try not to get it on your scalp if possible, for some it makes the scalp dry and itchy. You will notice a difference right away. Neutrogena should only be used 3-4 times a year, so only use this when really needed. After you rinse it out well, soak your hair in the tub for awhile to make sure it is all out, let your sections swim in the tub water.

When this first happened to me, I thought wow, my hair is so tight and is maturing qickly,,,ha ha ha,,,was I wrong....peace

Thank you for your reply Barrellady. Did not expect to read that. Had no idea the type of water you have can make such a difference. However I had this right after my first wash, can it still be build up if I got it after one wash?

If you did not get it all out, then sure. Rinse, rinse rinse. You got it after one wash? How long did you wait before your first wash after you started dreading? You are still doing the neglect method? Did you use wax or anything else?

It seems a bit odd that they'd be that stiff after just 1 wash. But if you have a soap that doesn't rinse out in your water type, it can happen fairly quickly. Also if you don't rinse out enough, it will happen. I had stiff hair even before I grew locks, just because I used to use a lot of gel and gunk to keep my mohawk up. If I didn't rinse out well, my hair could be stiff for days afterwards.

I did nothing but stop brushing my hair and replace my shampoo with the bs/acv wash. Did a first wash after about 1 week. I do think we have hard water here though, so that could be it. I'll try boiling the water first. Would I still need to use a anti residue shampoo first?

Thanks for all the help