Farewell Hair Clip, Hello Chignon.

My last plastic hair clip bit the dust recently and I am left with a challenge: what to do with my mane on bad hair days? (Bad hair days are rampant in NYC right now, what with the umpteenth day in a row of rain and humidity.) The Office Ballcap is a look that never had its day. Ponytails can look polished and grown up on some women, but not on me. Throwing it up in a clip was really easy, but that's just the way the brittle clip crumbles. If I want to avoid buying new plastic, I have to use the tools I already own: hair elastics, bobby pins, and metal barrettes.

Today's solution was a chignon. I taught myself the basics with a video clip here: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=709698n

...the result is a little Severe Librarian on me, but it worked and didn't fall out all day. I'll experiment with getting a more casual look.

Delaying my 'no poo' experiment

As you will see from my Plastic Tally (when I eventually post it!), I've used up 2 bottles of shampoo recently. I've been anticipating this for months, planning a "no poo" experiment. Going "no poo" means not using shampoo on your hair. Instead, you can use baking soda, or wash with conditioner, or even just rinse with water and scrub the scalp with your fingers. You can read about it here, here, and here.

My plan was to try the baking soda thing for at least 3 weeks. (My friends are already planning an intervention over this one.) Then, if I couldn't stand it, I would try a bar shampoo, like JR Liggetts or Lush. Another option to try would be just using conditioner, though if I'm substituting shampoo for conditioner, isn't that trading one plastic bottle for another? However, I might use less total product this way, meaning a little less plastic. Then, if all else failed, my plan was to reward companies like Aveda and Origins for thier recycling programs by purchasing their shampoo.

As it turns out, I don't need to try any of these things...yet. I found 3 more sample and partially used containers of shampoo in my under-bed toiletry stash. So for the time being I will continue what I have already been doing to use less plastic in the shower: wash my hair 2-3 times a week (down from 4-5 times), and use up what I already have.