The one change that worked: I tried the ‘no poo’ method – and it transformed my hair

In 2025 I’d not had a paid-for haircut in about five years, preferring to ask my ex to cut it with kitchen scissors in the bathroom. But now I was in my late 20s and single and I decided that it was time to look more grown up. Not knowing the first thing about looking after my hair, I felt that a trip to an establishment that offered something beyond a short back and sides – a trendy, gentrified place where a trim puts you back a cool £38 – was sorely overdue.

“You need to stop washing your hair,” my barber told me bluntly. As they ruffled through my shapeless, overgrown mop I was warned about using too much shampoo, which can leave your hair dry, lifeless and coarse. I sat in the swivel chair feeling a bit embarrassed. My barber’s words were less a caution and more a diagnosis. I was instructed to drop shampoo immediately for at least two weeks. The dry variety was fine if I got desperate for a clean and I could maybe use a bit of conditioner as a treat. But for the most part, water was my entire regime.

To my mum’s delight and my own teenage dismay, I have thick, ginger hair. Years of heckling and having a name that starts with the letter G have made me and my gingerness inseparable. For better or worse, my hair is usually the first thing someone will notice about me. I wanted to take some pride in my hair, and the knowledge that I’d unwittingly been sapping the life out of it was jarring.

Like most people, I found a daily squirt of shampoo to be as much of a ritual as brushing my teeth. It felt counterintuitive, then, to forgo it completely.

The first two weeks were the worst. Advocates of the “no poo” method – ditching shampoo for water or homemade concoctions due to claims that commercial products cause repeated, unnecessary damage to your locks – often tell you that it gets worse before it gets better. There is a sort of dirty threshold you have to pass before reaping the benefits of poo-less hair, they say.

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This was harder than I first imagined. I would step into the shower, dunk my head under the cascading water and immediately reach for the bottle without a second thought. A glob of apple-scented shampoo would ooze on to my scalp and then, suddenly realising what I’d done, I’d have to scrape it off. A few days in and my head was crying out for a lather. But I was determined to follow my barber’s advice.

I carried on, counting the days until I could wash my hair. But slowly I felt no need. Two weeks became three. Three became four. Eventually, I lost track. “I can’t remember the last time I washed my hair,” I said to my best friend, who thought it sounded a bit gross. But my hair had never felt better. It was wavier, bouncier, glossier. The dirty, itchy feeling that had lingered during the first fortnight disappeared, and suddenly I felt as if my hair was finding a natural balance after years of endless shampooing. Until then, I hadn’t realised just how dry my hair had been.

My scalp used to feel irritated, but it was one of those minor issues we all tend to leave unspoken unless they snowball into something more troubling. Shampoo seemed to have been stripping away the natural oils that were supposed to moisturise and protect my hair.

Obviously, everyone’s hair is different. I’m told people with fine or greasy hair don’t last long without needing to shampoo. But for people with my hair type, it’s really not necessary.

More than a year later, my hair is shinier and curlier than ever. A wash at my quarterly haircut does me just fine, and I could probably go even longer. The apple-scented shampoo I bought a year ago remains untouched on my bathroom shelf.