So in my quest to become a minimalist traveller, I wanted to do something revolutionary: use one soap for everything! The same soap for washing my face, washing my hands, washing my hair, washing my clothes…

But the more I thought about it, the more normal and un-revolutionary it became, and actually the idea of having a different soap for everything seemed absurd.

One soap for everything!

Isn’t soap just soap? What makes this soap suitable for my face and this one for my body? I started looking at ingredients and seeing the same things pop up.
I started experimenting with using soap on my face and noticed -no changes! Have I been brainwashed (pardon the pun) into spending my hard-earned dollars on the same products with different labels?

Enough is enough, I committed myself to a new experiment -one soap for everything. And months later, I can confidently say it’s working a treat.

I was drawn to Dr Bronner’s magic soap. It’s marketed as an 18-in-1 product but it’s just basically a pure castile (olive oil) soap with no synthetic preservatives, detergents or foaming agents -so that means it’s safe to use on the face, body, hair, dishes, house, pets, laundry, you name it!
And it is super concentrated so you need to remember to dilute, dilute, dilute. When I used their liquid soap in the past I found it to be a bit drying, but that was because I didn’t realise how important it was to dilute- so please learn from my mistakes and don’t make the same fatal error.

Now, the biggest challenge was with my hair, I didn’t want the soap experiment to mean I would be destined to have lifeless, knotty hair. But never fear, I found the answer and it was in your kitchen cupboard the whole time!

My travelling hair care routine

So the secret ingredient is Citric Acid. Yes, you read that correctly, the same ingredient that your grandma uses to make lemon meringue pie. Take a quick look on your conditioner bottle, can you see the secret ingredient lurking in there?

The reason for this is because shampoo/soap is alkaline in nature which raises the hair ‘scales’ while washing your hair, and this is all well and good but you could end up with fuzzy, knotty hair unless you smooth it back down with something low ph (acidic). That’s where citric acid comes in; it makes the shaft lie flat, leaving your hair shiny, smooth and most importantly, tangle-free.
AND citric acid is so damn cheap! You only need to use a pinch at a time.

Step 1:

When you are in the shower, run the bar of soap along your head and rub/massage with your fingertips as normal and rinse out -if you use the liquid just make sure to use a really small amount or dilute it with water first. Repeat if desired.

Step 2:

Time to make a hair rinse! Put a pinch of citric acid into a cup or container of some sort and fill that with water (you don’t need much critic acid at all- the ph is relatively similar even if you put a really small amount in).

Now pour that over your hair starting from the top and be careful not to get it into your eyes! Repeat this with the lengths of your hair if you need to -I notice my hair instantly detangle and feel so nice after doing this.

Step 3:

To be honest, you could probably finish after step 2 but if you’re in it for the long haul -put a really small amount of conditioner on the ends of your hair AFTER gently towel drying. Yes I know, I’m breaking all the barriers down today -everything you thought about bathroom protocol is being smashed to smithereens. Think about it, you put huge globs of conditioner on your hair for 2 minutes then rinse it down the drain, how much conditioning goodness can your hair really soak up in that time, then of that -how much can your hair retain after the rinsing?

I’ve found through my own testing measures that putting just a really small amount on after towel drying your hair works even better! Plus you save so much money, and plastic!

And there you have it: my money-saving, traveller-friendly, one soap hair care routine. If anyone else is as enthused about natural hair care as I am, let me know!

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