watervole: (Default)
Judith Proctor ([personal profile] watervole) wrote2026-05-12 10:57 am

The Law of Unintended Consequences

Those who  love 'The Good Place' as much as I do will probably recognise the quote.

'The Law of Unintended Consequences' says that it's not possible to live a perfect life in modern society.  Everything we do impacts negatively on the environment or involves low-paid labour, unethical working practices, etc.

But there are some things we can do.

We can't win, but we can nibble at the edges.

Shampoo

Advertisers work hard to convince us that we need to wash our hair ever single day to keep it perfect, but our ancestors didn't have shampoo.  Shampoo didn't reach the UK until the eighteenth century.

I used to suffer from regular problems with my ears.  I thought it was earwax build up, until the lady syringing my ears said it was thin slivers of skin.

I wondered what was triggering it, and considered that shampoo might be a possible cause.

 

Taking a deep breath, I began cutting out shampoo at a week long folk festival - where so many people were camping that no one would notice if I was looking a mess.

My hair got greasy, but not as badly as I'd expected.  I carried on with the experiment...

After two months of not stripping all the natural oils in my hair and scalp, my body stopped over-producing them in an effort to replace them.

Over 30 years later, I still haven't gone back to using shampoo, and my hair isn't greasy.  I wash it with water, and that's all.  Brushing distributes the oils evenly and keeps it silky, but not greasy.

Another member of my family who went the same way, briefly tried shampoo recently, and promptly got dandruff (which they'd never had before).

Not saying this will work for everyone, but you can save a LOT of money, and reduce your environmental impact as well. (detergent kills fish).   If you do go for it, cut down gradually.  Reduce the amount of shampoo you use, and reduced the frequency of washes.  If you cut down gradually, then you'll avoid the greasy phase.  Maybe use some sort of tiny measuring cup to measure the amount you use?

 

 


Post a comment in response:

This account has disabled anonymous posting.
If you don't have an account you can create one now.
HTML doesn't work in the subject.
More info about formatting