I did it!!! Following up a year of writing a poem a day, I have successfully completed 365 days of no shampoo/no conditioner! Thanks to the renegade Paul Makepeace for the inspiration. I might add, much to the skepticsm of almost every person I mentioned it to who has never tried this, and the chagrin of new lovers who suspect I must be some kind of dirty hippie but can’t find the physical evidence.

These are the pictures of the shampoo/conditioner bottles that are still sitting on my shower ledge, bought in September 2010. My last day of shampooing was December 6th, 2010.

So, what are the results, you might ask? Mixed, for now.

Judging from this very recent picture of me, I’d say my hair is doing just fine! A little heavy at the roots, but healthy all the way through to the ends, and looks perfectly grease-less/dry whenever it’s curled or blow-dried.

Just in the past couple of months, however, I have noticed a bit of buildup on my scalp that comes off waxy on the hairbrush and starts to make my scalp itch. My hypothesis is that this is what happens when the hair is not brushed/scrubbed/rinsed with hot water every single day. When I skip a day, the buildup is noticable. It didn’t seem to be as much of an issue when my hair was even 2-3 inches shorter. Or, maybe it’s because it’s been colder and I’ve been wearing more hats lately.

Not only have I not been chemically stripping my hair, but I’ve been growing it out in the past year. I have a TON of hair, so I suppose it makes sense that the longer it gets, the more work it will be to distribute the oils all the way through and prevent yucky buildup.

Me in December 2010, one year ago, with brown hair:

Not sure how much longer I will continue this. My friend Kali Brothers has a great home recipe for a lavendar vinegar shampoo that I might just turn to if I can’t seem to religiously keep my scalp clear over the next couple of months.

It’s no wonder I find myself experimenting on my hair again. It’s a trait of a Leo rising astrological chart to have hair be of high importance to an individual. And by importance, I mean obsession. I am embarassed to admit that both my award-winning sixth grade science fair project (“How Strong is Your Hair?”) and literal last-minute copout high school science fair project (“How Strong is Your Hairspray?”, remember that Beth Lodahl? You should be ashamed too! Wait, aren’t you a hairstylist now?) were hair-centered. My 8th grade shop and history teacher unoffically nominated me for “best hair” for the yearbook, and during college almost-strangers remarked how my ever-changing hairstyles have bettered their lives. If that wasn’t a sign I was hair-obsessed perhaps the small patch of missing hair at the center of my scalp in the 8th grade should have been a sign, well at least it was to me! A trich was born. Friends tried throwing things at me to get me to stop picking at it (hard candy doesn’t work, Gunner!), strangers on airplanes give me unapproving head shakes, it’s a  bad habit.

I kept my hair short, pixie-short mostly, over the past 10 years. Pretty much for 2 factors: I am more efficient when I’m not obsessing over my hair. I can actually get stuff done and don’t spend hours picking at my hair for split ends or styling it, etc. Plus, my forever boyfriend liked my hair short. Thought it suited my face better or whatever. I think he might have secretly wanted me to look like a boy so he could own me, but, whatever. I’m not bitter or anything.

But, to signify an end of that relationship/era, and a return to my more feminine, longer locks, and to please a certain loverboy I fell hard for (ref. paragraph 1), I decided to grow, grow, grow my hair as l0ng as I can stand it. Mom is thrilled, so am I. I had recurring dreams of having beautiful, long, flowing hair when my hair was pixie short, guess that was a clue I really missed my long hair. It was just easier to manage short.

’nuff said for now. Will give another update in a couple of months!

So, I realized after re-reading the eyesight improvement guide I had been “following” for 30 days, that I had made a huge omission in the procedure.

I forgot most of the relaxation practice of the eyes, including taking 3 days off for every 4 days on.

It’s fitting that I should make this error. As I went along the experiment, I began feeling some strain as I looked into the distance without glasses/contacts. My instinct was to relax the vision rather than strain further, which seemed to produce a slightly more clear image. However, I became focused on the fact that straining meant I was somehow “exercising” the eyes and that would make them better, so I really focused more on the exercising than the relaxing drills.

Re-reading the document, more focus seems to be placed on RELAXING the eyes rather than EXERCISING the eyes, the premise being that the eyes under strain is what caused the poor vision to begin with.

This actually makes sense to me, and OF COURSE I wouldn’t focus on the relaxation piece. This reminds me of when I began taking yoga classes mid-way through college. I went into the classes with the mindset of “I”m gonna stretch farther, harder, and better than everyone in here, and withstand more pain.” What I learned over the next eight years was the importance of balancing effort with relaxation in order to produce long-lasting results and a healthy body.

Thanks to my friend Ajit for passing on this link to Sri Aurobindo’s eyesight improvement program: http://www.collaboration.org/centers/bureaucentral/Departments/eye_clinic.htm

I am going to develop a kind of hybrid of these two and give it another go I’m especially looking forward to eyes closed solarization move!

The eyes have been tested and…

NO IMPROVEMENT

Science sucks, haha. :-p

Contacts are back in today. I can see clearly now…

My 30-day experiment has unfortunately countered the claims put forth in this document: http://www.scribd.com/doc/4958881/Eye-Exercises-to-Natural-Vision-Correction-FREE

Not only did I not get a 1 point vision improvement per week, I got NO points improvement in 4 weeks.

So what did I learn?

• Improving eye muscle function by doing 10-15 minutes of eye exercises per day does not seem to have any impact on the vision over 30 days
• Not wearing corrective lenses does not contribute to eyes developing stronger vision on their own over 30 days
• Sharper vision gives more details of objects, therefore more to scrutinize for an over-analytical person. I found that my self-scrutiny decreased and my confidence in public generally increased when not correcting my vision. There may be some times in the future when I will purposefully not wear my contacts/glasses for this reason.
• I am even skeptical that focusing exercises will work now, given my zero improvement overall, when many of the 30 days were done with focus exercises that caused eye watering & tension headaches.

Time to start saving for laser eye surgery

Day 28: Did my exercises.
Day 29: No exercises.
Day 30: Flopped into bed after an exhausting 16 hours of work, mostly having to have worn my old full-prescription glasses (which did give me headaches!).

Today is the big day, my eye test is at 9:30am. I will find out if these darned eye exercises actually improved my vision or not! Did my eye routine one last time this morning, for good measure.

Day 26: Pretty sure I didn’t even do my eye exercises. I meant to, while lying in bed close to midnight, but went to sleep instead. Day 26 was a Monday, a start of a new daily routine for the fall which involved more work and it threw me off my priorities.

Day 27: With all the detailed computer work, reading, and cell-phone facebook/twitter/blogging/note-taking I like to do, my eyes feel doomed. Obviously I haven’t instituted my focus breaks yet. New plan: tomorrow, set phone timer to go off every thirty minutes while on my laptop to stop and do far focus exercises.

This could be my last hope!

I am excited for this experiment to be over in 5 days. The last 4 days I’ve been holed-up sick at home, with little energy nor motivation, and I feel like I’m making backward progress.

Mostly I’ve been working and playing on my laptop for 4 days, and my eyesight seems to have gotten worse when trying to focus on distant objects. The most useful focus exercises (and most frustrating) I have found to be going to a bookstore, grocery, or, today, going to a flea market and trying to find small items when you’re not even sure they exist. This is really trying on unfocused eyes and creates a tension headache within minutes.

If I were to continue (or re-do) this experiment, I would say that one should spend at least 15-30 minutes a day in such an environment to really exercise the eyes fully. It really sucks so it probably helps. And it probably should be woven into computer time usage on top of that, like focusing on distant objects for 1 minute for every 30 minutes on the computer, or something like that.

Will I dedicate myself to doing this over the next 5 days, for the sake of science?

Ug. I’ll try. My eye appointment is on Saturday and I’d love to tell my eye doctor my eyesight has improved because I am not wearing glasses/contacts anymore!

Day 20: Wore low correction glasses out-and-about today, for most of the day.

Day 21: Eyes felt super blurry after yesterday’s glasses-wearing. Don’t know if eyes got lazy in one day or if it’s just the contrast that makes me feel twice as nearsighted.

I also notice that the eyes seem to water more when straining to focus far into the distance. This seems like a sign of progress, or at least change! Otherwise, not feeling super optimistic that 20/20 vision can be achieved in the next 9 days. Also, more time spent on laptop makes distance objects appear even more blurred. Extra laptop usage today.

If it’s worth considering in this experiment, I’m coming down with a throat infection today. I can feel it, a little raw.

Did 1×100 near-far focus on each eye. Left eye bothered a bit.

The more time I spend with the laptop it seems the less progress I feel I’m making in the “real world” improving my vision.

Wore low-correction glasses for a couple hours today. I can see “perfectly” well when I wear them, must be the left eye is overcompensating. This may explain the headache I have today above the left eye.

Today I noticed that riding my bike to work I simply didn’t “try” to see objects in the distance. I narrowed my world down to what I could see around me, and accepted everything else as blurry. I had to coach myself to try to focus on a faraway object.

I think my right eye is getting lazy. I will try to do more with it tomorrow to wear it out a bit. Only 10 days until my 30-day eye exam!

Day 17: Worked a concert festival as a security guard all day. Borrowed housemate A’s glasses, which were about 1 point strong. They were strong enough that I could see perfectly well with both eyes, blurry but not terrible through just the right eye. I will be keeping these glasses with me for the remainder of the experiment for driving and necessary glasses tasks. I had forgotten about the experiment’s recommendation to wear glasses at least 2 points weaker than your eyes.

Day 18: Did my eye exercises as a lead-in to a full-body yoga routine which my body needed SO badly. Went the whole day with no glasses. No headaches. Still not doing any strict near/far focus exercises :-/

Day 15: sucked. everything felt fuzzier than usual. bad attitude. horrible headache. Eyes hurt. happens to coincide with a hormonal change?

Day 16: Still feeling really fuzzy, like no improvement in vision at all. Realized I had been leaving out 2 exercises the past week or so by not using my list when doing the exercises. I am also not doing the 100 near-far exercises in one sitting, I am mostly just trying to focus on distant objects when out and about. Not sure if being rigid about this exercise helps. Perhaps I will re-incorporate the rigid 3×100 near-far exercises again tomorrow.

Also was challenged by a colleague to learn to not only cross my eyes but make them both go to opposite corners at the same time. Now that is a challenge!