Magical Baking Soda
Every time I look in the mirror, I smile a broad, hearty smile. And I’ve been smiling like this ever since the mandated Shelter in Place on March 17, 2020.
Something good has again come out of this Covid-19 disaster.
I’ve found a magic cure to stop my hair from thinning. Yes, my hair has stopped falling off by the handful every time I wash it. And, it costs me about a whopping nickel!
Oh, yes, indeed a miracle.
Here is how it came about.
For at least the past two years, I’d been quietly worried, but feeling helpless about my thinning hair. What else could I do? I was already using the fancy expensive Nutri-Ox for Thinning Hair Shampoo 1 and matching Conditioner 2 from the Sally Beauty store. And, once a week on Sundays after my workout at the Y gym, I faithfully washed my hair with the supposedly therapeutic shampoo and conditioner for thinning hair.
When the Y was force-closed by the Covid-19, my routine was interrupted. Now I needed to take my special Shampoo and Conditioner bottles in my gym bag out of my car and bring them upstairs to my 4thfloor condo home. No big deal, right? The problem is, after suffering a traumatic and chaotic childhood, I always get distressed when my daily routine goes out of order, even something trivia like removing my gym gear upstairs.
So, my brain went into overdrive, something I do best. One day, on my way walking to and from Ocean Beach, now my only daily exercise, I started thinking. Maybe I could find a new routine to wash my hair for the duration of the quarantine month and beyond without having to disturb my gym bag and leave it at peace in my car.
Then, my childhood memory popped up into my head.
I was about twelve years old, looking for some detergent to wash my hair inside my parents’ bare-walled two-room apartment. In the Cultural Revolution era of chaos and starvation, Shampoo was an unreachable luxury. And I never even heard of “conditioner” until I was thirty years old.
So, on that day, at age twelve, I couldn’t find any detergent to wash my hair with.
As a child, I learned to never ask my parents for anything.
My mother wouldn’t care one way or another. Her silent eyes and angry face made my heart tremble every time she looked at me. And she was never home anyway. For days, weeks, or months at a time she’d be gone taking my baby brother with her. None of us three who were left behind, my father, my middle younger brother, or I, knew where she was or when she’d be back. Every time she ran away was either because fighting with my father or escaping from her political enemies at work. They wanted to break her legs and bash her brains in. Mao’s Cultural Revolution (1966-76) had divided entire China into two bloody violent factions, with each side fighting the other to death, but both sides claiming their die-hard loyalty to Mao, China’s savior and supreme leader. And my father was unpredictable with an explosive temper. I avoided him like a mouse did a cat. He’d just glare and yell at me for bothering him.
So, when things ran out at home, it wasn’t just a simple matter of a trip to the store. I had to learn to make do without. Besides, my parents were always fighting about money. She’d call him an “iron rooster” – not a feather could be plucked off; and he’d accuse of her spending all her monthly salary, 40-yuan ($5 USD), on her “lazy no-good” brother, his wife, and their “ugly brood.” And, everything was rationed, flour, eggs, sugar, cooking oil, water, electricity, vegetables, salt, detergent, baking soda, cloth to make clothes with. Everything.
Without detergent, I couldn’t wash my hair. It was almost matted and smelly of a mixture of dirt and sweat. I only got to wash my hair once every several weeks. In desperation, my curious brain went into thinking mode. Baking soda popped into my head. If I could scrub the aluminum pan clean with baking soda, my 12-year-old mind reasoned, it had to be as good as detergent.
So, I experimented. Dissolving a spoonful of baking soda in the half basin full of warmwater, I started washing my hair in it. Oh, what a pleasant surprise! My hair felt silky in the slippery baking soda water. I also scrubbed my face clean in the silky water. After rinsing it, my hair remained silky, soft and shining after it was dry. I was elated. The baking soda did not make my hair fall off my scalp like it did the soot and grime off the cooking pan!
I was so happy I told my good news to my next-door neighbor and friend, Ya Ping. She and little sisters all laughed, looking at me like I was crazy, as if I’d just done something normal people wouldn’t do.
Unlike me, my friend Ya Ping was loved by her parents, respected by her younger brother and sisters. And their parents never fought. Theirs was a quiet and loving family. Everyone talked in a quiet gentle voice. None of their children had to be in my shoes to learn to fend for themselves. But I was so wrapped up in my excitement about the magical baking soda I didn’t think much of my friend’s laughing at me.
I couldn’t wait to wash my hair again with magical baking soda. Instead of waiting for another few weeks, I washed my hair again three days later. Then, again, in another three days. But, alas, this time I overdid it. I scrubbed my face so hard the skin on my cheeks was broken, looking like they’d been sandpapered raw.
I became scared. That was the last time I used baking soda to wash my hair at age twelve and quickly forgot all about it.
That is, until today, half a century later, living in America, when my childhood memory came back during the corona virus quarantine lockdown, ironically, caused by the totalitarian Communist China I escaped from.
I’m glad my memory, born out of the era of turmoil, came back.
So, on that afternoon, as soon as I came back home from walking to Ocean Beach, I repeated what I did at age twelve, a neglected child growing up in China’s blue-collar dirt yard.
I heated a pot of water. Putting a large spoonful of baking soda into my lovely made-in-Taiwan hardwood washbasin, I poured hot water to dissolve it, and mixed in some cold water.
My heart pumping fast in anticipation, I dipped my hair into the warm baking soda water, waiting for the same magic effect of baking soda on my hair. And, yes, in the slippery warm baking soda water, my hair felt silky smooth, just like I remembered decades ago when I was twelve.
I cried joyful tears when I saw no handful of my hair was in the baking soda water. Literally less than five! Yes, I counted it.
And I rinsed my hair twice, counting my blessings that I now live in my water paradise America. No longer do I have to be extra careful with every drop of water and only use water as absolute necessity. I grew up hand-carrying heavy buckets of water home every day for my family of five, from the communal faucet in the dingy dark grime-floored small room shared by dozens of families.
So, you see, that’s why I’m still smiling. I cured my hemorrhaging hair by washing it with baking soda once a week. No conditioner needed. Just wash, rinse and towel dry. When it’s naturally dry, my hair feels soft and silky smooth. Even better. No more chemical odor in my hair like before from the fancy expensive shampoo and conditioner. And, the best? No longer is my hairbrush covered with a thick layer of my hair but only a few strands.
I am still smiling.
From now on, I don’t plan to ever again buy shampoo or conditioner, cheap or expensive. No need. I love my magical baking soda just fine. For each 79¢-per-package good ole ARM & HAMMER from Safeway, it looks like I could do about twenty (!) washings.
Thank God. What a divine blessing.
My hair is saved, along with my money. (Sorry, hair product market.)
I can’t stop smiling.
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