Tips for going No-Shampoo – a 16 month update

Can you believe that it’s been 16 months since I’ve ditched the shampoo? Okay, well, I haven’t ditched the shampoo entirely, but I’ll get to that later. I have however made rinsing my hair with watered down baking soda my norm though and I have no regrets! I originally tried this whole baking soda gig out back in October ‘08 because I wasn’t happy with how my hair looked using shampoo everyday. It was just kind of limp and if I ever dared go a day without shampooing it would look oily and horrid. Plus I’m always curious about how to make things myself and liberate myself from having to buy more (like with my lotion and deodorant, even with our jams and canned goods).

I did go through some awkward weeks at first, but I realize in retrospect it was because I was experimenting with how to apply this baking soda to my hair. There are oodles of folks out there who have tried this and everyone gives different advise based on what works for them, so of course I had to try them all before I found out what worked best for me. Want to hear about it all? Oh sure you do!

First there is just pouring a tablespoon of dry baking soda on my wet hair in the shower and massaging it in, then washing it off. This method gave me the worst results and had I tried only this method I would have given up in a day. My hair gets really funky doing this. Kinda dry, kinda gunked up feeling. It doesn’t brush through well. It was awful! However I attributed this all to the ‘adjustment’ period everyone talks about. The kind of shampoo detox that your hair has to go through until it looks shiny and lustrous again. But there was no shine nor luster.

Second I tried putting a tablespoon of baking soda in a little ramakin, taking it into the shower and adding about a cup of water and stirring until dissolved. Then I put that onto my hair. Also didn’t work well. Better than the first method, but also, no good.

At this point, after a couple of weeks of bad hair, a normal person would probably just turn back to shampoo, however I have never been one to make life easier for myself, so I kept on going. This time I took an empty, large Dr. Bronner Peppermint Soap bottle and filled it with a more diluted version of baking soda to water. 4 Tablespoons baking soda in 5 cups of water (all which fit into the big sized bottle). I shook it until it dissolved and just put it in the shower to use whenever I needed to. At hair washing time, I’d just squirt a bunch onto the top of my head, massage around, flip my head upside down and do the same to the underneath section of hair. Then I’d rinse it all out and I was good to go.

This big bottle full lasts me about a month to 6 weeks, washing every two to three days, and I was noticing that halfway into the month, my hair would look really good after rinsing. Really good. Soft and with plenty of volume. Much nicer than it was with regular shampooing and yet free of that oily, dry gunky look I was sporting with that first method of baking soda washing. Hmmmm….. which is when I hit upon my baking soda hair rinsing secret! You need to let the baking soda and water combo sit for a week or two before using!

Now I’m no chemist, I have no idea what chemical process goes on while that baking soda sits and rests in the water. All I know is that it does a world of good for my hair. So now I keep two bottles going, which I fill every two or three weeks alternately. So I always have two week old diluted baking soda to rinse with.

A lot of people suggest rinsing with a diluted amount of apple cider vinegar but I haven’t seen any sort of advantage to doing this myself. There are all sorts of fancy hair rinses you can do after the baking soda wash, however I guess I’m just not creative enough to have tried them yet. Have you tried any that work wonders? The only drawback I’ve found is that the ends of my hair do feel a bit dry. Maybe that could be remedied with one of these rinses.

So back to the shampoo, it is okay (at least for my hair) to use shampoo/conditioner every once in a while. Some days I just want that lather and shampoo smell, so I go for it. Those end up being really, extra good hair days too. And I can go back to my baking soda rinse without any bad repercussions. Some days when I do the baking soda rinse, I’ll follow with a little conditioner just to help with any dryness I may be feeling that day.

One of the things I’ve missed about ditching the shampoo is the smell and lather, it is kind of a luxurious feeling. So to compensate, I’ve been buying lots of beautiful handmade soaps. Oakmoss’s soaps have been my most recent indulgence. I love her scents (especially Caravan) because they appeal to both men and woman. I share my bathroom with three other guys (one big, two tiny) and being that we only have one soap dish, I can’t get too floral with the soap smells without complaints. Her scents seem to keep us all happy.

I try to ‘wash’ my hair every three days, but sometimes I need to go to every other day depending. Other days I push it off for another day and learn a new cute braid or call it hat day.

Have you tried alternative hair washing techniques? What’s worked for you?

Rain, rain, go away (at least for a couple of days)

Has it ever been rainy around here! The past two days the sun has peeked out just a bit, just to tease me, but the overcast skies always come back. Looking in the paper this morning the future only calls for more rain.

Normally I don’t complain much about rain, I really do love it. But I admit after weeks of rain, I’m ready a break of sunny days now! How about you locals? Are you ready for sun too?

We Too, Made Homemade Butter

I know, I think I’m about the 400th blogger you’ve seen writing about making butter, but it is such a simple and amazing process, you really do have to try it. At least once. For me, attempting to make butter was not an economical decision (it’s hardly cheaper to make it yourself if you have to buy store bought cream) but it was just something I wanted to try. I wanted to watch the magical transformation of cream into butter because I’d never seen it before. How does a liquid turn into a solid, just by mixing? My dad grew up on a farm in southern Fremont and he remembers not only drinking raw milk, but joining in with his three other siblings to churn butter.

Being that I don’t have an old fashioned butter churn, but I do have my beloved KitchenAid, I gave it a shot. The key here, I think, is to let your cream come up to room temperature before you start mixing. Otherwise your poor mixer might blow a fuse from mixing SO long (as I worried mine might have done). But basically that is it. Just put on your whisk attachment, pour in the cream, turn it on and watch. I like a little salt in my butter so I did add an unmeasured amount of salt.

We’ve made whipped cream countless times, but we’ve never ventured further than that before, so I was curious. It stayed in a whipped cream like state for a good while, but soon I noticed that it was getting slightly clumpier and yellow looking.


Then I noticed a small amount of milky liquid in the bowl at which point almost immediately the whole thing separated out, yellow butter and liquid. It was quite fascinating to watch! The butter clung to the whisk, so I stopped it. Took it off and put the butter into a strainer and rinsed it with water while smooshing it around. Then I placed it into a plastic wrapped lined tupperware that was approximately the length of a standard stick of butter and refrigerated it.

I sliced it in half, lengthwise and put it into our regular butter dish. We did a taste test, my butter against Danish Creamery butter. Danish Creamery is much saltier and less creamy than my homemade version. Despite it’s good taste, I don’t know if butter making will become a regular event in our house. I suppose if I had a good source of fresh, inexpensive, raw milk here it would. But it is a great fun thing to try from time to time. And of course goes even better with marmalade.

Have you tried making butter yet? How did it go? Do you have a source for local raw milk?

There really are things growing out there!

(arugula)
Although we’ve spent much of our winter so far out of the garden, believe it or not there are still things growing out there. Even I am surprised to see it all when I walk outside. But there they are growing away, slowly, but growing all the same.

This is our first year growing turnips. They are as easy to grow as beets, which they sit right next too, and are a great addition to soups and other roasted delights we make. Plus the leaves, which have a spicy mustard like taste, are great stir fried with garlic.

(beets with carrots and bok choy behind)

Celery root, or celeriac, is also new to our garden. We bought this plant from the Sonoma Garden Park plant sale back in…oh, I think September….

We have more romanesco broccoli growing too.

Earlier in fall, the chard and the chervil were sharing this raised bed in a nice neighborly way. But now it seems like despite it’s delicate looking nature the chervil is taking over and leaving no victims.

What’s growing in your winter garden?

Rain & Marmalade Making

When you wake up on a Saturday morning and the outdoors look like this then you know it’s time to settle into house projects. It’s not that overcast days don’t make for good gardening days, sometimes they are the best, but we seem to be more into quiet indoor time this winter. Garlic and onions can wait for another weekend. Rainy day weekend mornings at our house are pretty slow and typically involve lots of coffee, newspaper reading, a fire, maybe some knitting, reading out-louds, and many block buildings.


While the boys and I went about our morning in the family room, Scott was busy in the kitchen making marmalade. I love marmalade. It’s my very favorite toast topper. While this is only the second time he’s made it, I have to say that this time was the best. It came out so delicious. And that is saying a lot because I’ve tried a lot of different brands out there. Homemade is obviously the winner. It’s easy too!

He peeled the zest off of about 5 or 6 oranges from our orange tree with a potato peeler and then cut them into thin strips. He cut off the rest of the pith and threw that away and cubed up the rest of the oranges, put them all into a pan with a healthy amount of sugar (varies depending on how sweet/bitter you like your marmalade). He added a cup of water and brought it to a boil.


The great thing about oranges is that, like cherry plums, they have natural pectin in them so it will thicken up by itself. After the orange/sugar/water mixture had come to a boil, he brought it down to a simmer and just let it bubble way. During this time, he noticed that the skin of the orange segments probably wouldn’t be very tasty if left in, so he pulled them all out with a spoon. In about 15 minutes, Scott put a few spoonfuls into a cup and refrigerated it to see if it had thickened up to a consistency we liked. Luckily it was, but if not he would have simmered it for longer. He tasted it to make sure it met his sweetness level (we like ours a little bitter) and then he canned three jars and left a little dish out for our morning and afternoon (and who am I kidding, late night, too) toast.


Not a half bad way to spend a rainy/overcast weekend. How was your weekend?

p.s. I left out some very important (to me at least!) gardening blogs on my list, so I’ve updated it. I’m sure I’ll think of more along the way too. Thank you so much for all of your comments and suggestions of other blogs!

A List of the Best Gardening Blogs

It has been gray and cold and all around dreary in this Sonoma Garden lately. While I usually don’t complain about cold or overcast, after a full week or more of it, I will admit defeat and say that I wish we could have a sunny day. Something to get me inspired and geared up for the upcoming growing season. Luckily the seed catalogs have started to pour in and along with those and this list of inspiring gardening blogs, I have been feeling the gardening bug again. Below is a great list of garden/natural living blogs, some I have been reading for a long while, others are brand new to me. Some I learn tons from, others I wish the authors were my next door neighbors so we could be friends. But all are inspiring.

I encourage you to check them all out and if I’ve left out your favorite garden blog, please add it in the comments below!

Farmmama

Compostings

Bella Madris

(not so) Urban Hennery

Kale for Sale

Down to Earth

Daphne’s Dandelions

Gardenmama

Throwback at Trapper Creek

The Family Garden

One Green Generation

Skippy’s Vegetable Garden

Homegrown

Limes & Lycopene

Suburban Sharecroppers

Viggies Veggies

Sicilian Sisters Grow Some Food

Sono-Ma

Flower Hill Farm

Maybelline’s Garden

Unfortunately Riana at These Days in French Life has closed her blog, but luckily you can keep up with her inspirational writing and photography on her flickr page.

Mushroom Hunting on the Sonoma Coast

This winter marks the ninth year that I’ve been going with Scott up to Sea Ranch on at least a yearly basis. Some years we got three times, other years only once, but we try and make the trip up there as often as we can find time to get away. And for those nine years the ocean is what always captures my attention. I could sit and stare at those waves coming in and out for hours on end and when that gets old, we make driftwood forts or go shell hunting or climb sandstone cliffs. But this year in the house we stayed in there were a few books about the Sea Ranch hikes and I discovered that one was right next to the house we were staying in. It was called the Monarch Glen because this is where Monarch Butterflies comes during their migration to seek shelter. While I didn’t see any butterflies, I did see all of these enchanting vistas.

Towards the middle of this short walk, there is a forest who’s floor was covered in all sorts of mushrooms. Scott is a mushroom hunter, as you may recall from last year’s porcini harvest. So I brought him back to help me identify some of these beautiful specimens. Below is my favorite an Amenita Muscaria, which you dare not eat! We also saw lots of coral mushrooms, Candy Caps, which are good for eating, and a whole slew of mushrooms that held names like Death Cap and Dark Angel and such. In fact as we walked and drove around we were astonished by all the mushrooms! They were everywhere, it was a bit like being in Alice in Wonderland.

Fueled by mushroom inspiration, when we finally left yesterday we stopped off at Two Fish Bakery for a loaf of sourdough and headed down the coast, very slowly and with frequent stops for woodsy mushroom hikes. We did find oyster mushrooms and winter chanterelles along the way. And just before we headed inland back for Sonoma, we stopped in Bodega Bay for some live crabs for our dinners feast.


Mushroom hunting is very fun, even just walking around looking at them, this year especially. However, as I’m sure you know, if you dare to pick and eat please do examine them closely and bring Mushrooms Demystified with you. Or better yet join your local mycological society for a group foray to learn what is good to eat.

Merry Christmas from this Sonoma Garden

Sending you Christmas wishes and many blessings to you and yours!

Last Minute Christmas Gifts

I hope I’m not the last one rushing around doing last minute Christmas making! These boxes for the boys teachers are filled with shortbread, chocolate raspberry brownies, chocolate coconut cookies, and my favorite spicy ginger cookies. I added my christmas labels at the last minute, and we’re out the door to hear the boys perform, just like last year!

Scott’s Apple Pie Recipe

Excerpt from Little Brother of the Wilderness: The Story of Johnny Appleseed.

I suppose December is a tad late to be talkin’ apples, but this past Sunday we were brought a peck full of fugi’s and two bottles of our favorite Apple Hill Cider by Scott’s mom. Every December weekend she helps out a close family friend at their Christmas Tree Farm, Harris Tree Farm, up in the California foothills. It’s gorgeous up there, if you haven’t already found the perfect tree, I suggest you head up there this weekend! Inside this barn below you’ll find all sorts of goodies including bags of apples, cider, homemade jam and tamales served pipin’ hot. It’s the perfect holiday experience. A mountainous drive, a little snow on the ground, the smell of evergreens and warm cider and tamales in the barn. You might even see my mother in law there!

For those of you who’ve seen this Rainbow Orchard cider at the Marin Farmer’s market, that’s owned by the same family as well. It’s delicious!

Apples are a passionate topic among members of Scott’s family, especially when it comes to apple pie. Scott’s mom grew up on a good sized ranch in the Sierra Foothills that had an apple orchard with all sorts of varieties of apples. With so many apples, you can see why apple pie baking soon became a competitive affair amongst family members. So it goes as no surprise that Scott won the Pie Baking Contest at the Sonoma Garden Park’s Harvest Fair in October. I had no doubt in my mind that he would win, after all look at his pie: And this one was baked in the barbeque on Thanksgiving day when we realized that the power was going to be out for a long time (oh what an adventurous thanksgiving! Did you know you can barbeque dinner rolls too, oh yes you can!).

His recipe was published in the local paper, I’ll share it with you here:

Grandma’s Apple Pie

This is my Grandmothers recipe(with a little altering). This can be a great communal
effort as everyone can help peel, core, and slice the apples. Things that can make it
especially delicious are local apples in season and the quality of the butter.

For the crust:

The amounts could be adjusted depending on the size of the pan. These amounts are
enough for a large pie.

3 cups of flour
2 TBSP of sugar
1/2 tsp of cinnamon
8 oz chilled butter
ice water (the amount varies)

Place the flour, sugar, and cinnamon in a bowl. Cut the butter up into
cubes about the size of a sugar cube and put in with the flour. Then using
two knives or a dough blender, break the butter up into smaller pieces. You
can do this with a food processor as well but doing it by hand is preferable.
You want to end up with pieces of butter about the size of small peas. Then
work in ice water a little at a time until you can bring the dough together
as one solid ball. Place in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.

For the apples:
Again the amount varies depending on the size of your pie. I really like to mound
them up high. I like using a combination of sweet and tart apples.

5 lbs of apples
1 heaping tsp cinnamon
1 cup of sugar
1/2 cup of flour
2 TB of butter

I fill a large bowl half way with water and add some lemon juice. This helps keep
the apples from turning brown while you are working.

Peel, core, and slice approximately 8 granny smith and 4 golden delicious apples.
Again the food processor can do the slicing but hand done inconsistent slices make
a more interesting pie.

Bring it all together:

Cut you rested, cooled dough into two and roll out one for the bottom of the pie.
Drain the apples, toss with the cinnamon and flour, then fill the pie. Cut up the
butter into 6 pieces or so and place on the top of the apples. Roll out the top,
place over the pie, crimp and trim the edges. Cut 3 or 4 slits in the pie so
the steam can escape during cooking. Place in a 350 deg oven for about an hour
and 15 min. About half way through I brush the top with milk and sprinkle a little
sugar over it for browning and additional texture. Let the pie cool for at least 30
minutes but it’s best served warm. Enjoy!!