Going poo-less: No Shampoo/Soap in the Shower

We did the baking soda wash + apple cider vinegar conditioner thing for a hot minute. Also made soap nut juice a couple of times. Both work fine and all, but then we realized we can just literally wash with nothing but hot water and we look and smell fine. Here's proof: 2 months since anything but water has been in my hair. And I haven't combed it properly yet today either or it would be even nicer looking.

I have super wavy hair. It gets snarled pretty easily is my only complaint about being pooless, but it's a small price to pay to not be soaking myself and my septic tank in toxic gick!

Heather Scott wrote:I’m SO glad this discussion came up💕 I’ve been telling my Husband I’ve wanted to go more natural with all my products. We are def greenies with all of this as we are city dwellers soon to become mountain earth dwellers. Every part of my being is screaming natural. From detoxing my body via gut and down to a cellular level to my environment. I have Usnea growing on our mountain acreage and I desire to be just as pure as the air quality where we will build our circular  earthen home. Right now as city dwellers we have treated water.... once we get to the homestead we will collect rainwater and get from the waterfall stream (no icky foam..... happy dance as up in My area even the cleanest rivers and streams are polluted) we will only filter for drinking.... so going no poo....... could I start now, with the treated water we have, or wait till we get to our mountain land..... what type of results have you all had with different water types??

My reaction can be too late for you. Do you live in the mountains now?
No problem. It can be helpful for anybody living in cities or other places with 'treated' water.
Where I live the water is 'treated' too. But still I am a happy poo-and-soap-less person for many years now. I think different people can react different, but it has nothing to do with the water. Different people have different skin-types and hair-types. And i.m.o. what you eat has its influence also on your skin and hair.

I don't remember when I went pooless. Six years ago? Eight? It's been a minute.

I feel beyond ridiculous taking these pictures. I hope it helps someone, or at least gives someone a laugh.

Now you've done it.  I'm still new here, so I was forced to read just to find out what exactly you meant by going "pooless".  I had just read the other day about bucket toilets, and I can't remember what they were being called, waterless?  flushless?  I can't place it. You all know.   But then to thumb over an article about going pooless, and how it doesn't stink like you might think it does.  Just stop.   I'm still absorbing the terminology as fast as I can!

Michael Shwartz wrote:Now you've done it.  I'm still new here, so I was forced to read just to find out what exactly you meant by going "pooless".  I had just read the other day about bucket toilets, and I can't remember what they were being called, waterless?  flushless?  I can't place it. You all know.   But then to thumb over an article about going pooless, and how it doesn't stink like you might think it does.  Just stop.   I'm still absorbing the terminology as fast as I can!

Poo-it!

Oh, I mean, Doo it!

Another guy here with thick, shoulder length hair. I've been pooless for a few years, no-one has said anything.

It's cool there's some mainstream backing for this.

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/soap-dodger-meet-the-doctor-who-says-we-have-been-showering-wrong?utm_source=pocket-newtab-global-en-GB

marshmallow root pieces (1 tbsp) steeped in 1 cup of water overnight are good hair rinse for conditioning and doesn't smell like vinegar. Marshmallow root gel can be used as anti frizz if you have curly hair, or Flax seed gel for making your curls nice.

I've heard of rice water left to ferment for a day is a starchy rinse good for making hair grow faster and longer and retail color into old age but that's just a rumor and old wives tail that hasn't been studied.... Just japanese lore. But maybe I'll try it since I make a lot of rice.

I went no-poo over a decade ago. I have fine, stick-straight hair that was always prone to greasiness and tangling, and washing with a baking soda solution solved both of those problems. Before, I absolutely had to wash my hair every day; now I can get away with washing it every third day.

The vinegar rinse only made my hair go greasy even faster, so I didn't bother with it for a long time. But the alkalinity of the baking soda eventually leaves me with dry, split ends. Not wanting to cut my hair shorter, I've solved the problem by putting a 1:2 vinegar-water solution in a re-used hairspray pump bottle, and spraying it on the ends of my hair after towel-drying it. The only time I use it on my entire head is when I'm visiting family in SoCal; the water there tends to be much more alkaline than it is here in Western Washington State, and my hair doesn't like it. It's that, or buy bottled water just to wash my hair, and--no. Just no.

Can any of you experts  make some recommendations  on how to moderate greasy hair? I have been mostly shampoo less for several years I just do a daily rinse. Once I get to day 5-7 I have to do something to cut the grease. In the past I have used conditioner or a small amount of shampoo  on the really oily spots. I gave vinegar  a shot this morning.  I do think it helped but I would like a bit more advice.  I don't  want to strip all the oil, just keep it in check. We have very hard limestone water around  here.

Hi, everyone! I've been shampoo-free for about three years, I think. I have long-ish wavy-to-curly hair, fine-textured but lots of it so it's been described as "thick" most of my life. I actually don't even rinse it with water very often. Every month or two or whenever it seems to need it, I do, and then usually I use baking soda (with rosemary essential oil) scrubbed in and then herbal apple cider vinegar in the rinse (I steep rosemary, juniper berries, and mugwort in the vinegar and I also use this vinegar to soak a clean washcloth and place on my forehead to help relieve headaches). Lately that's left it a little too dry afterwards, and prone to static, so I think I'll stop using at least the baking soda and will likely stop using both even though I really like my herbal vinegar (leaves my hair smelling great). We exclusively use filtered raincatch for our water.

When I first started to decrease the frequency of washing with shampoo, and then stopped using shampoo altogether, my hair would definitely get greasy. But now it takes it at least a month to get greasy at all. So for those who've asked about how to moderate greasy hair, I would say just give it some time. Maybe stock up on cotton hair wraps (bandanas or whatever you like) to wear over a bun until things settle down. I still wear these to keep blowing dust and grease and things out of my hair when doing dirty work or riding a motorcycle or just being out for any length of time in the spring windy season.

Anyway, the main thing I do to clean my hair and keep it healthy is comb and brush it for a good long time once a day. I use a very wide-tooth comb (what they sell as a "shower comb") first because I couldn't get it through the tangles without a ton of damage otherwise, and once it's thoroughly detangled, I use a brush in sections so that I make sure to get all the way to the scalp. This removes dust and dirt and distributes the scalp oil all the way to the ends. For years I've used a nice wooden-handled brush with soft "natural-feeling" bristles, but I actually don't know whether they're boar bristles or plastic, and I sort of suspect the latter.

I just finally got myself a brush that I'm sure has good long boar bristles, and I'm excited to try it. Best of all, it didn't cost an arm and a leg, the avoidance of which had kept me from investing for this long. What I got was a Calcutta boar bristle brush with a pear wood handle from Desert Breeze Distributing, and because I don't care if there's an "odd grain pattern or flaw in the wood handle" -- in fact, I'd prefer it -- I got it for a discount, and threw in a cleaning kit, too. All three wooden-handled items (the brush, a cleaning rake, and a cleaning brush) appear to be very high quality. I have no affiliation with the company, but I'm a repeat customer, as I've also bought a very nice wool pad from them that I use for needle felting. So I'd recommend them highly. Here's a link to the discounted brushes.

We don't use soap, either, except on our hands and if there's some kind of actual grease or filth on us like if we've been changing the oil or otherwise working on vehicles or have spilled while cooking or have turned the poop compost or something. We've tried making our own simple coconut oil soap to use for that and dishes, but so far it hasn't worked -- can't get a trace, maybe because we're stubborn about using lye we make from the hardwood ash from our stove rather than buying sodium lye. So we use a simple shea butter soap for our hands and carefully-vetted liquid detergents for dishes and laundry that won't put too much sodium into our greywater. We do use just diluted potash lye for laundry sometimes, but I don't feel it gets clothes as clean (my partner swears by it).

My skin has been healthier these last few years since making this change than ever in my life before. Using one of those salt crystal deodorants is helpful at preventing armpit odor, although that also is reduced since I gave up coffee again last year. For dry skin I use various herbal oils I make with olive oil, and I use a lot of creosote salve (creosote herbal olive oil and beeswax) for cuts, scrapes, insect bites/stings, and especially any kind of early skin damage from the sun. (I'm bad about remembering to put on zinc sunscreen, and it took me a while to find a wide-brimmed hat I really like that does a great job now of blocking sun from my face.)

I will say that, doing this, it becomes much clearer what we each individually really smell like, without scented products that strip our natural oils, and these smells vary a lot from person to person. Luckily my partner and I both like each other's smells. Except when it's really hot or we've been working especially hard, these aren't strong smells, and then we bathe, eh? My partner likes the smell of my hair so much he actually gets a little miffed when I wash it and it smells more like herbs for a few days. But I can see problems arising if you start doing this when you're already in an established relationship and then you don't end up liking each other's smells... Check in with each other! It might reveal some interesting things.

It was an attempt to face no water that I decided me and my husband would forego bathing at all. I considered the homeless which most of us are headed for.  But we won't touch that third rail.  Let's keep the train rolling down this unprecedented track.

The first paragraph was a bi-product of learning to fast one week.  Then fasting for two weeks.  No masticating. We only drank hemp milk with sea weed gel, vanilla flavor, cinnamon, nopal powder, and burdock root powder as a shake.  Oh and agave for taste.  That's it every night before bed.  Even got my 80 year old mother to join us.  She was morbidly obese.  

At the end of each fast we slowly began eating only raw fruits and veggies from morning until 3pm. Then only garbanzo bean dishes from 3pm until 8pm. Soon I noticed we had no smell.  Whenever we sweat no foul odor. So I suggested we stop bathing at all.  I kid you not months went by and no odor. We might skin brush with a loofah periodically but that's it.  No soap no water no foul odor. We've gone one year with one bath.  As we continued taking the herbs I blended. Some of them chelation blends we began to have an odor.  I learned that most of the toxins reside directly in the adipose fat.  When you lose that adipose it stinks from the toxins. It comes through the pores that include the hair follicles.  The adipose fat is burned off from months of clean eating.  You clear out the toxins and also clear out the reasons you ever had an odor.  By giving your body a break from bathing with detergents you stop hiding through toxins and intestinal rot with shampoos, deodorants, and soaps. Something only the nobility could afford to do. That lye soap the poor used was nothing like today's flowery toiletries.

When my family has body odor we know its toxins nothing more nothing less. That they're either in our water, the air or the food and reside in our guts and fat.  To avoid contaminants we started growing our own food and bought a filter from boogiebrew.com called the boogie blue plus. It removes all kinds of contaminants like chlorine, chlorimine, heavy metals and interestingly detergents. If you decide to buy that it has to be the boogie blue plus. Worth every dime. We water our food with that filter.  I make compost tea with the water. We have a claw foot tub and added the filter to both lines.  We now bath in that water. It's made all the difference in the world. I drink water more often than not as I know it's filtered as much as possible.

Didn't mean to digress but you brought up a fantastic subject and dismissed a logical fallacy. That if you bath you will be as clean as the soap you use when in fact it's not even close to the truth. Not with today's environmental and food conditions.  Our pores indicate how clean our plumbing is. Fasting is an eu de toilet.

The very best deodorant I've ever tried in Nuud.
https://nuudcare.com/pages/i-want-nuud?_ke=eyJrbF9jb21wYW55X2lkIjogIlZQd2Z3dCIsICJrbF9lbWFpbCI6ICJjbGNAc2xhc2hjb25zdW1wdGlvbi5jb20ifQ%3D%3D

It comes in a small biodegradable tube and I use a tiny bit every few days. It seems expensive, but I bought my first tube in late May of 2019 and I'm just finishing up (I cut the end off to use every bit and it's surprising how much is in there when you can't squeeze more out). I probably have a couple of weeks left. I live in a hot climate and tried MANY other natural deodorants and NONE worked as well for me as this one! I can't recommend it highly enough.

As far as deodorant, I found a pinch of baking soda on a damp washcloth, which is then wiped on the pits, works fine for eliminating any odor for the day. I would expect it's a few pennies a month in cost but haven't bothered to check.

I had an allergy to soap in my early 20's. No jokes please, it was a real allergy, big red blotchy rash, that spread alarmingly.

So I simply didn't use shampoo, or soap for clothes washing, or any soap on my skin for many years.

And I didn't smell, because I did wash, with plenty of water, and kept myself hydrated on a daily basis. (it's usually dehydration that makes our sweat smell).

After a few years I started to use a very small amount of soap and shampoo on rare occasions, and it was fine, no reaction.

So now (30 years later), I tend to use soap and shampoo and washing liquid about once every few months.

I find my hair, which is lightly curly, tends to look awful, dry and frizzy, for a week or so after it is washed with shampoo, then gradually as the natural oils start to work their way back through, it gets manageable, soft and shiny again. If I leave it more than 3 months it starts to look dull, due to the build up of oils that are not totally brushed out, so then I use some shampoo again, but only a tiny amount.

Just to have a bit of a brag.. I am now 53, and my hair is waist length, thick, and I only have one or two slivers around my temples. So I can safely say, after a 30 year trial, that shampoo is bad for your hair, and only using it very sparingly, will keep your hair much healthier in the long term, and make it look better too in the short term.

As is most often the case for me  it wasn't one thing or one moment that led to a 360 change.

Looking back at our journey to becoming poo-less; in the beginning it was a combination of finding shampoo iritated my eyelids.  I would struggle with rashes on my eyelids.  I was also on a drive to become more natural and reading the ingredients on the shampoo bottle filled me with all kinds of dread. Plus I liked saving money.

I started by trying to make a bicarb shampoo.  And would use apple cider  vinegar to rinse.  It was a stop start affair in the beginning.  I missed the suds but was too lazy to make homemade recipes that promised suds. Eventually we settled on keeping a small tub of bicarb in the shower away from the water and sprinkle out into our hand and onto our heads.  I keep diluted apple cider vinegar in the shower. It is geat for up there and down there! :-o

My husband was supportive but it was not for him.  He suffered with dandruff and needed medicated shampoo.  His skull was always itchy.

But he eventually gave it a go on his own accord after I had been poo-less for awhile!  He became a convert.  The bicarb shampoo and apple cider rinse alleviated his dandruff and itchy sculp almost instantly.  

We stopped buying shampoo and conditioner within 6 months.  There was this one time when we stayed in a hotel and I thought goodie I can use the complimentary shampoo.  It was to my own detriment.  My hair is the fine greasy type.  The bicarb gave my hair body.  Using the shampoo dried my hair out and it was a fizzy mess.

Once we moved into our campervan fulltime it was advantageous that our grey water wasn't ladden with chemicals.  I could take a jug of warm water and wash my hair hair in the forest.

Now 7 years (? Wow can that be) on we main only use water.  We shower outside most of the year and just water is all our hair needs.  Every now and again I might dip my finger in bicarb and dry rub through my hair just before my shower.  I use apple cider vinegar on a whim occassionally as a hair tonic.  We also do head messages with coconut oil and the bicarb tskes the grease out if I need it to. Hubby doesn't mind looking like he has brill creamed his head.  Lol.

I have stopped trying to convince others.  I got bored of the many reasons they would shoot back as to why they couldn't do it.  

Either their hair is too long, too curly, too oily, too dry, too much dandruff etcetera.  The worst was when an ex colleague said she didn't want to stink like vinegar. And in case you are wondering the andwer is no you won't stink like vinegar.

As for the rest of our body a rough flannel face cloth, sponge, pummice stone and nail brush help remove grime.  If it sounds excessive it is because we are in the throughs of construction.

Briefed well, however all I got was oily hair and itchy pimply scalp. Yuck.

Went from (mild!) shampoo + conditioner + detangler once a week to 2/daily fine toothed comb over 10 years ago. Because with the shampoo thing i was itchy, dandruf plaque, straw hair and knots. So 2 options : medical dandruf shampoo stuff or none of that stuff anymore. Thanks too the BBC tudor monestary farm series where Ruth Goodman has a bit on hair care without shampoo and showers and the warnings already about backing soda becoming a skin irritant the nopoo method wasn't one that i favored either. So grabbed the clean fleacomb (metal with rounded tips) from my animal kit and used that. First week or so that meant cleaning the comb every 3-4 strokes, but it got rid of all the problems. Nice, easy to comb, shiny hair these days without the need for 3 bottles of stuff and a few days wait for it to actually look and feel good after washing, not to mention comb easy.

With no people to upset, deo use is rare, and with bees in the plans not an option then either (gets them agressive), so while for the moment i still have the stuff for when needed, i'll otherwise make my own again (mix 1tsp coconut oil descented, 1 tsp cornstarch/maizena, 2-3 drops essential oil like lavender (keeps bees away) or mint). Because this has no preservatives make a new batch every month.

After broken skin from washing with bought liquid soap switched to olive oil soap (aleppo), but being frustrated with the shape, cost and wanting to learn something new, i started making my own in oval molds that are comfortable to hold and thus wash with. Over saturated (4-5%) recipe means no more broken skin and with current situation (and hygiene needs due to livestock) makes it attractive to wash my hands as often as needed.

For bodywash i use what i still have, after i don't know yet. Going back to Ruth Goodman on the bodyhygiene in tudor/victorian times : scrubcloth if water isn't available, rub everywhere well till skin is ruddy/flushed and works better if you sweat a little first. Cloth absorbs the stink/scent.
Also natural fibres as against the skin layer and these where washed often. Anywhere from every day clean to for sunday and church you'd put on a clean linnen shift. So you'll still be using quite a bit of soap and water, just not directly on your skin.

For washing clothes however i use detergent, not soap. Soap sticks to fabrics and doesn't dissolve in water that well. That is why washing before washing machines (and detergent that does dissolve well in water and takes the dirt with it in the process) was such hard work and hard on the clothes not just due to the harshness of the soap it self. But soap mixed with the dirt would otherwise stick to the "clean" clothes. People making their own washsoap found this out after stripping the clothes and looking at pretty much black mud for water from clothes they thought were clean.
So detergent it is there. Soap works fine for skin since it is smooth non stick so soap and dirt get rinsed off in the water. Same reason it would work on dishes and hard/vinyl floors as well, but not fabrics.
http://butterbeliever.com/homemade-laundry-detergent-soap-diy/

I mostly rinse my hair and body with water. If I'm very dirty, I will use a quality handmade soap. I found Little Seed Farm's cream deodorant a few years ago after trying lots of natural deodorants. This one works and doesn't irritate my sensitive skin.

Funny that this came up in the daily-ish today as I was planning to ask a question.

I have never gone poo-less because I have a lifetime's worth of shampoo and I have not bought any in 6 years.  A bottle of shampoo lasts me several years.

Sometimes I use baking soda before using shampoo but not often.

As a teenager, I occasionally washed my hair with just water like I did last night.

A question I would like to ask people with long hair is:

If you are using just water (no baking soda or vinegar, etc) do you scrub your scalp?  It seems to me that having some shampoo or baking soda would make scrubbing the scalp easier.

I haven't used anything but water to bathe for years at this point. occasionally soap if I get grease on me. it works fine for me, but... I'm very smelly, both my armpits and my hair. doesn't bother me, but the folks around me do occasionally object.

I only mention this because people make a lot of sensational statements about this sort of thing. in my experience at least, I definitely smell worse than I did when I used soap. I never used scented soap or soap with anything but oils and lye, so artificial smells and weird chemicals weren't an issue. my skin is also just as weird if not weirder than when I used soap (mild dandruff on my dome and in my beard).

so why don't I just use soap? I don't know, really. I think I just decided I didn't want to feel bad about smelling like a human. maybe I'm doing my small part trying to counteract industries that have convinced many people they smell wrong without special products. or maybe I'm just bothering the people who have to be physically near me.

I switched to the crystal stuff instead of deodorant and, after about a week where the old crud was working itself out of my pores, I have no problems at all with being smelly. I love to go barefoot and have noticed that as I age I get problems with “ingrown toenails.” I have started treating the painful area with a single drop of colloidal silver, a couple of times and the pain is gone. Apparently, it’s not a problem with nail growth after all.

Anne Miller wrote:A question I would like to ask people with long hair is:

If you are using just water (no baking soda or vinegar, etc) do you scrub your scalp?  It seems to me that having some shampoo or baking soda would make scrubbing the scalp easier.

I have been using mostly just water for years (every now and then, a shampoo bar, to cut buildup). Scrubbing the scalp is a big part of having it work, in my experience. Personally, I haven't found it to be any harder than without baking soda, which I tried using at one point, but decided I didn't like it.
Usually what I do is make sure my hair is combed out before I get in the shower. This is crucial. Then, ideally, I massage my scalp to loosen up any dirt and/or oil and use my fingers to preen that through the length of my hair in small sections. Then brush it with a boar bristle brush to further distribute oils. A lot of the time I don't do all that and only comb it to detangle after a quick scalp massage, maybe the boar bristle brush. Then I run water over it in the shower, massaging the scalp and doing the same preening maneuver to distribute the oils to the end of the hair. This has worked pretty well for me and my hair doesn't get gross in between washings like it did when I used shampoo and conditioner all the time.

Hi (again). My photo is in the first post of this topic. I just want to say I am still very happy to be poo-less.
I need to wash my hair (with only water, while showering) less than once a week.
When I go on one of my bicycle-camping-tours I don't need to take shampoo or soap with me.
Every time this subject comes up somewhere (f.e. in Facebook groups) I can tell from my own experience of many years: this was one of the best decisions I made!

tel jetson wrote:I haven't used anything but water to bathe for years at this point. occasionally soap if I get grease on me. it works fine for me, but... I'm very smelly, both my armpits and my hair. doesn't bother me, but the folks around me do occasionally object.

I only mention this because people make a lot of sensational statements about this sort of thing. in my experience at least, I definitely smell worse than I did when I used soap. I never used scented soap or soap with anything but oils and lye, so artificial smells and weird chemicals weren't an issue. my skin is also just as weird if not weirder than when I used soap (mild dandruff on my dome and in my beard).

so why don't I just use soap? I don't know, really. I think I just decided I didn't want to feel bad about smelling like a human. maybe I'm doing my small part trying to counteract industries that have convinced many people they smell wrong without special products. or maybe I'm just bothering the people who have to be physically near me.

Maybe I do smell 'like a human' too. But never someone told me I smelled. So probably it isn't that bad ...

I have been interested in trying this for a while but didn't really go for it until after I had covid and even baby shampoo would make my hair like straw for days. I decided it was time. Of course, once I recovered from covid I did a thorough shampoo - didn't want any of those nasty germs hanging around on my hair to infect my elderly relatives . . . But then, shampoo-free. I lost about 1/3 - 1/2 half of my hair before it started growing back in - all white and very fine. Previously, I had had thick, luxurious hair that was mostly dark. Anyway, I went to have it cut since the Dr thought that might keep some of it from falling out and she shampooed my hair. Since then, more than a few months, I've only shampooed it once and that stripped it pretty badly but I had been working out in the heat and dust and felt it was necessary. I rinse it often but have no plans to go back to stripping, and then needing to artificially condition it so that I can live with it until the natural oils come back and give me my natural detangler back.

Jordan, how do you prepare the nettles for hair washing?

I have tried truly poo-less with vinegar and Bronners.  Not a huge fan.  I am semi poo-less now though.  I rinse my hair with water every 2-3 days.  Once every couple of weeks or so I wash with conditioner then probably once a month also with shampoo.  My son is a hairstylist and sells me Monat products.  They are a bit pricey but the only thing that doesn't make my scalp angry when it is cleaned.  My curls are happy, I smell fine and I am not itchy (the biggest plus).   Disregard the tired eyes in the pic.  It was after ' garden vacation' and I was happy and tired.  😊

PS coconut oil is enough of an anti- frizz moisturizer and I use it after every rinse day.

I use body wash only on pits and privates.  Scalp brush no shampoo in head, no soap on body unless covered in dirt or dust.  

I wash my hair maybe 4 times a year (give or take 2 ish). I have long thick healthy hair I get compliments on. I wash my body without soap, just hot water. Its a fast shower and I feel clean after.  Both are for most of my 6 decades of life (well lets say 4  decades as an adult). I don't know if being a vegetarian has an effect.  Oh and I use tiny amounts of toothpaste (healthy kinds) and only a few times a week.

I've been to this thread countless times now, and it has made me experiment a bit.

If we're going totally technical, I did go 'poo-less' for a while as I didn't use shampoo for most of this summer. I did use a bar of soap however on my head when things got oily. It's some homemade soap one of my mom's friends makes so it's all natural ingredients. I've never had long hair before, and it's neat how it changes things. The roots of my hair will get oily well before the ends. If I rub the ends between my fingers it makes that squeaky sound where there's no oil at all, where if I touch my roots I can feel some oil.

In terms of deodorant I have been using the usual men's stuff for quite a while now. Yeah the stuff with all the weird stuff in it. Last year though I rediscovered a deodorant stone I bought a while back. It's made of some sort of rock salt and it's made to be put on right after a shower or a pit cleaning. Instead of having a scent it just makes it impossible for the smelly bacteria to grow. It works very well! The only time I notice I smell is when I am very stressed out, and I think that's pheromones being released and not smelly bacteria. Other than those relatively rare times, I much prefer the stone because I just smell like me and not Icy Stream in the Rockies or Grizzly Bear Roar or whatever the men's deodorant smells like nowadays.

I found that a swipe with an alcohol saturated cotton ball under the armpits does the trick to reduce odors.  Odor comes from the bacteria that grow in moist warm paces, so alcohol kills the bacteria.  You then can sweat all you want and it won't smell.  Just don't use alcohol if you shave the armpit - at least don't do it right afterward.

I think these natural stones are made up of aluminum which would not be good to use on your skin as it might absorb thru the pores.  Aluminum can cause neurological issues like alzheimer's and other toxicities which would not be healthy.

Yes we find coconut oil a great conditioner. Use it differently to commercial conditioner.  Massage into head before bed.  

Three years pooless, never had any problem.
Highly recommended as a means of gick reduction,  $ savings and trash elimination.

Hi! Regarding deodorant: I, too, am a huge sweater and am somewhat poo-less, although I do wash with soap and or shampoo after I’ve been working with chemicals all day (surfboard repair). The only deodorant I’ve found actually works and doesn’t have all the icky stuff is a brand called trulys. It’s coconut oil, beeswax, baking soda, powdered sugar. So you could essentially make it yourself, although I have yet to take the time to do this.

Juliana mentioned baking soda as one of the deodorant ingredients.  It reminded me of the dry shampoo spray they sold many years back that was for use between regular shampoos.  I can't remember the name of the product.   It absorbed oils for it to be brushed out.  It really never all came out even with a boar bristle brush, just leaving a fine white coating on my hair with the dirt and made it more 'thick' which I didn't need since I already have thick hair.  It needed to be rinsed out.   Jenny also mentions that the baking soda gives her hair body and Heather doesn't like the results .  Another problem for some of us is having overly dry/frizzy hair - some oil is normal and hair needs to be brushed well to get oil distributed to the bottom of the hair shaft, especially if you have long hair, otherwise the ends will be brittle/dry.  Also massaging the head/hair by hand would distribute oil and be beneficial, but who has time nowadays for this?? Well, Jenny B and Heather S do! :) Kudos to them. They find it does work.    The excess oilyness or lack of oils, itchiness, dryness, rashes can all be signs of body imbalances such as when a person has auto-immune issues that can eventually lead to severe psoriasis, dandruff, eczema, etc. These show the body's reaction to toxicities that has overwhelmed it or is trying to eliminate through the skin/pores.   So, it seems 'different stuff for different folks' is the key here.  Use what your hair might need, whether baking soda (to absorb excess oil), ACV (to reduce bacteria under arms and to rebalance pH on the skin and hair which helps restore the microbiome), coconut oil to massage in hair or on skin (to help retain moisture and soothe while the natural oils are being restored/oil glands healed). We want to support the body in it's 'clean-out' work not suppress it/mask it (use more chemicals/toxins as in commercial hair & skin products) which only delays and impairs the process.  The healing may take time but the body will work to restore itself with proper support.  Issues in the gut and one's nutritional state will also contribute and should be considered.