Why I Stopped “No-Poo” and Finally Washed My Hair

You can live clean and still have beautiful hair.

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I’ve been a crunchy mom since 2006.

I’ve been in all the groups: La Leche, WAPF, playdates and meetups, homeschool co-ops, Facebook groups, you name it, I was in it. And I can tell you one thing I’ve consistently noticed throughout all these years: a lot of these women had bad hair. Myself included.

Not that their hair is actually unhealthy, but you can tell when someone’s gone too far down the “no-poo” path. They’re either not washing at all or using something like clay or apple cider vinegar, and it’s obvious. Greasy, waxy roots laying flat against the scalp with no movement, and then the rest of the hair turns dry, crunchy, and frizzy.

As one of these women myself, I get it. You want to do what’s best for your body, avoid harsh products, stay natural. You start reading ingredient labels and suddenly regular shampoo feels like poison.

And to be fair, a lot of it kind of is.

Most mainstream shampoos are full of toxic synthetics, some of the worst too: PEGs, silicones, Formaldehyde Releasers & Other Preservatives (e.g., DMDM Hydantoin, Quaternium‑15), artificial fragrance, parabens, all the things we swore we’d never touch again. So you ditch it all and go searching for a better way.

Before you know it, you’re standing in your kitchen mixing clay, soap nuts, and matcha tea with filtered water, hoping it’ll give you glossy, goddess hair, and instead, you end up looking like you rubbed butter on your scalp and straw on your ends.

After a while, I started to realize what was really going on. Most of us weren’t actually nourishing our hair, we were neglecting it.

We’d stripped away all the synthetics but never replaced them with anything that could truly clean or condition. Our scalps were suffocating under oil, wax, and buildup, and the ends were wasting away.

I remember brushing my hair one day and realizing it didn’t even move anymore. It was almost pasted to my scalp, heavy at the roots and brittle everywhere else.

I remember my big aha moment when I had an event to go to and went to the grocery store and bought actual shampoo and conditioner, because I needed my hair to look beautiful.

Lots of folks from high school and old friends were going to be there, and I wasn’t going to show up as the dirty mom who let herself go.

This was actually really hard for me to do because I thought of all those months I’d spent “oil training” my hair, and how I’d have to start all over again.

Long story short, I washed my hair with regular shampoo and conditioner, and all night long friends and family who had seen me over the past few months and never said a word about my hair spent the evening complimenting me.

“Oh my gosh, your hair!” “Steph, your hair looks so good!” Even my kids noticed. Haha.

From that moment on, I stopped doing “no poo” and started washing my hair with regular shampoo. I’ve tried so many different clean and natural brands, most I hated and a few I loved.

The thing is, I’ll always be a natural girl. I’m always going to choose the clean and natural option because I know that toxic synthetics in our personal care products have an impact on our health.

These things bioaccumulate, and as women who use several different products from hair to skin to makeup, the exposure is heavy.

So how do we find that balance?

How do we get what mainstream shampoo can do for our hair without the mainstream ingredients?

From that place of realizing I needed more than “no-poo” but still wanted clean and natural, I formulated the Matcha Tallow Shampoo Bar.

It’s my answer to the question of how we can get what mainstream shampoo does for our hair without all the toxic extras. It’s not a bar of soap pretending to be shampoo. It’s a syndet bar, which is real shampoo in solid form. Because it’s solid, it doesn’t need all the extra ingredients liquid shampoos rely on, like heavy preservatives or fillers. Instead, it’s made with gentle, plant-based surfactants that cleanse without stripping, giving you that same clean, soft feel just in a more simple, and natural way.

Here are the ingredients and what each one does:

• Sodium Cocoyl Isethionate: A mild, coconut-derived surfactant that creates a rich, creamy lather and cleans without stripping.

• Coco Glucoside: A mild, coconut and sugar-based cleanser that helps remove dirt and oil while keeping the scalp balanced and calm.

• Cetearyl Alcohol: A fatty alcohol derived from coconut and palm oils that softens, smooths, and helps detangle hair.

• Stearic Acid: A natural fatty acid sourced from plants that adds structure and stability to the bar while supporting moisture retention.

• Tucuma Butter: Known as the plant-based silicone, it deeply nourishes and helps combat dryness and frizz while adding a natural, healthy gloss.

• Tapioca Flour: Improves texture and glide while giving the bar a silky feel.

• Suet Tallow: A nutrient-dense ancestral fat that deeply conditions and strengthens hair.

• Glycerin: A humectant that draws moisture in, keeping hair soft and hydrated.

• D-Panthenol: Also known as vitamin B5, it strengthens the hair shaft and improves elasticity.

• Matcha Tea: Rich in antioxidants that support scalp health and add shine.

Creating the Matcha Tallow Shampoo Bar was my way of finding that balance I’d been searching for.

It’s clean and natural, but it actually works. It gives your hair movement, body, shine, and softness without the buildup, without the waxy roots, and without the compromise.

Since launching it, the Matcha Tallow Shampoo Bar has become one of our best sellers, with tons of five-star reviews and an average rating of 4.9.

Women say things like, “This is such a nice shampoo. Makes my hair feel and look amazing. So glad I decided to try it.” and “It’s the best natural shampoo I’ve found.” Others mention how it leaves their hair “soft, voluminous, and totally clean.” Even husbands are getting hooked.

That kind of feedback means everything to me because it proves what I always believed: we don’t have to compromise between natural and effective.

What I’ve learned is that being natural isn’t about rejecting everything modern. It’s about choosing ingredients that work in harmony with our bodies instead of against them.

We don’t have to suffer through greasy scalps or brittle ends to live clean. We can have both: health and beauty, purity and performance.

If you’d like to try it, you can find the Matcha Tallow Shampoo Bar on Kossma.com. It’s been one of my proudest formulations, and honestly, the best my hair has ever looked.