Last week, I was fretting about my scalp going crazy from over-shampooing, especially with this dry winter weather. My skin, except for my face, is dry and I have tried a number of things to calm it and my scalp.

Alas, reader Moni left a comment about using a yogurt, bentonite clay and apple cider vinegar (ACV) mix to cleanse my scalp and hair. It would be a lot less harsh than shampoo, but it wouldn’t remove any silicones… and I can’t lie, I don’t run away from silicones.

Y’all should know by now that I don’t shy away from anything — unless I’m allergic to it. If I can wash it out, I’m up for trying it.

I did some research and saw that other people had used a similar concoction without any horrible side effects. Supposedly, I am to use organic, whole fat yogurt.

Let me tell you guys something, I don’t have the time or the patience to run around looking for particular types of yogurt. If I had saw this organic yogurt at my local grocery store, fine. I may have purchased it (if I’m honest, I would have purchased it if it was on sale). While I like the idea of organic items, I will eat them, not slather them on my head. It just seems wrong to me… Organic bananas and avocado on my head? Yeah, no. So, I bought the regular, ol’ fashioned yogurt (all they had at the time was low-fat) and came home.

I mixed that with a clay mask I bought this past fall and used once after I realized it was for dry skin (my face is so not dry) and some ACV. I didn’t really measure — I used what I thought would be enough yogurt to cover all of my hair and scalp, squirted some clay in and poured the ACV in until the mixture was runny enough to get through my hair, but thick enough not to run all over the place. I believe that Moni’s mixture is more clay than yogurt and ACV — I’ll try this again when I finally get my hands on some bentonite clay.

This mix did not smell good — not in the least. If I thought mayonnaise and honey were bad, they have nothing on yogurt and ACV.

I massaged it into my scalp and throughout my hair and left it in for about 15 minutes. I rinsed it out and conditioned with Organix Revitalizing Pomegranate Green Tea conditioner (this stuff smells GOOD!).  When I started combing the conditioner through, I noticed that my hair was stronger — I wasn’t seeing as many hairs in the comb. As the wide tooth comb slid through, my hair was sliding through.

Yay!

I rinsed that and went to my Giovanni Direct Leave-in Weightless Moisture conditioner. Since writing my review, I’ve come across a bunch of comments from people hating GDL. REALLY!?! That stuff’s, like, holy grail for me now. I’m quivering, not knowing what I’m going to do because I’m just about to run out and all the places that carry Giovanni products don’t carry the leave-in. The biggest issue people had was that it had protein in it.

Who knew?

And this yogurt mix has protein in it.

Guess what? My hair loves some protein! I always thought that my hair was strong enough without it, but after seeing how strong it was with a protein treatment/cleanser, I’m on the protein bandwagon. The hair strengthening is a by-product of my scalp enjoying the moisturizing qualities of this yogurt mix.

Although I like it, I’m still going to have to shampoo — at least once a month. It’s a necessary evil, but this cleansing mix will definitely be in rotation, along with co-washing.