(Cool Wellness Cafe LLC, founder and owner Bo Kim, LMT, herbalist, at her latest event 04/28/22)

It has been a year since I went so-called “No-Poo”. I am a very bold person when it comes to making decisions. that I basically fell in love with the idea of NOT using shampoos, the luscious chemical binded, Chemists invented. Home cookers and grandmas had to start fighting for their rights to keep making soaps and homemade “non-science” backed products from scratch, most of the time made from ingredients grew on the earth we live on.

So I have been living for a long time doing my own hair colors and styles ever since I was younger, I got that from my mother who is a farmer now, which I refer to as “creator”. Farmers create food and medicine from our very own earth. Where things should be coming from. The soil of earth. 

yeah. I hear you. It is hard to determine which soil is healthy and ethically cared for, “ oh nowadays, no one should consume natural Wildcaught salmons because of mercury level in the sea is elevated, blah blah.” 

So we make group of people to take care of the credentials. So we can trust and buy and consume. But the best way to do it is always growing your own food and medicine. 

wait! That episode “how my mom grew her farming business from scratch.” is airing soon. Just wait, we will announce and release the trailer soon!

So going back to me going No-Poo. It was not easy. The first week - two week I remember scratching my scalp like crazy, I had to wake up and wash my hair a few times with cold water to fight off the itchiness. I felt like worms were crawling on my head and face. 🤣

(Picture of the sticky foam of our Ginseng-ju soap made with Ginseng Soju)

I did not give up. I washed my hair with my handmade soap made with Ssuk, the South Korean mugwort. Then I rinsed my hair with citric acid rinse. It left my hair so soft I couldn’t help touching. My hair felt a different sense of silkiness and I still experience it everytime I freshly wash my hair with my soap and citric acid rinse. Then I dry them under cold or slightly warm on a blow dryer. My hair feels so silky, no locks. But my hair is thick, inconsistent wavy hair. For People who have curly hair, I cannot speak for your experience. Comment down below and tell us what your experience is like washing hair with handmade soaps. 

when I say handmade soaps, I mean, soaps made with only 3 ingredients; oil, lye, water. with a bit of twist of the traditional recipes, lots of hand-soapers make their unique soaps. 

Citric acid? What the heck is that, right? You can get that from a grocery store by canning and jar supplies. You will add a table spoon on about 2-3 liter of water and rinse your hair after washing hair with soap to make it silkier. 

After the rinse, you can rinse again with plain water or leave as-is. The vinegary smell will diffuse away so I did fine with my unscented soap and the rinse. 

I am still after a year, doing it. You may need to invest in some good hair brush if you are like me, and comb through the washed hair while blow drying it. It leaves hair really straight and nice shine.

If you follow me on our company Instagram, @cool.wellness, you will notice that I got my hair dyed about 3 months ago or sometime around there. I love the hairdresser but it did not turn out well so I decided to just grow it out without recoloring it because I saw the damage. My hair was thinning and I saw breakages.

now? My hair has restored. Thank God. My hair is definitely thicker each piece, and they have more strength individually. I realized that when I first started going No-Poo, I experienced some more hair falling out. But I didn’t feel much wrong about it so I stuck with it because I knew it was probably my old hair falling out which was feeding on shampoos since I was a baby. 

I don’t shed like that anymore. I am pretty sure YEARS of shampooing and conditioning my scalp and head probably need some major detoxing and withdrawing. I believe I am still experiencing withdrawals from all of the chemicals I have been using. But I am slowly seeing more results as I continue to be using them. So if you are like me, please continue and don’t give up. You will definitely be rewarded for going Natural and simple way. 

What I don’t see on my scalp after using no shampoo is that the red bumps or scabby stuff I used to find on some areas. Like dead scalp skin or dried blood. none of that anymore.

I do get itchy here and there because I don’t wash my hair often like I used to anymore. My hair doesn’t get as much oily or nor my scalp, so I actually went two weeks without a wash this recently. I still give my scalp water wash everyday though. I wash my scalp and hair with just running lukewarm water every day and I am good and feel fresh. I don’t notice any bad smell. 

But definitely “No-Poo” is not for everyone. People who spend time to take care of themselves and do hair like forever, this may come in challenging for you as it takes longer to take care of yourself once you go natural. You must take time when you want to look good and feel good and do it right if you decided you wanna try No-Poo. Because it means, ‘more ingredients, more steps, more time&effort researching & experimenting it yourself (rather than trusting someone else such as PE&G and buy commercialized products over homemade products people use themselves and sell) and more importantly MORE thinking. It’s required to execute “No-Poo” practice. Because people are too lazy or too cost-mindset that they disregard what is really important. 

For example, THC resides in our body once it enters up to 3-6 months. On the hair? Almost 2 -3 years or more. So I am confident to say that the things we put on our body everyday, regardless of food & cosmetics, we should be conscious and know that it will stay on us quite sometime and do it’s thing while it remains in or on our body.

To be continued..