Thrifty Thursday – Dry Shampoo … A Spoonie Necessity!

*I don’t know who has been around since my earlier YouTube days … I DEFINITELY want to get back into that now that I have my OWN LIVING SPACE (I had the aforementioned apartment but as I had mentioned before the “apartments” were just separated by pre-existing ceilings and walls; the other “tenants” could hear EVERYTHING I did and I could hear everything they did and said while they were right above me! At any rate, Beauty is an area of interest to me both as a “girl” / “woman” and someone who loves beauty products! It is also an area of interest to me because when my chronic disease / chronic illness(es) has/have been very bad, it is ALWAYS something I can go to to make myself feel better – something that is absolutely CRUCIAL! Even if it is just painting one layer of nail color on your nails, the slightest use of beauty products can really boost your mood – I know it has pulled me through in some really bad times! I know that might sound silly given some of the other posts I have written here, but I do mean it – makeup is very much the same! And ever since I did start losing my hair when I began taking methotrexate regularly, I started dying my hair different bright colors – every time I would start to lose hair I would “strike back” and dye it hot pink or turquoise or something like that so I felt like I had SOMETHING. It worked wonders for me as far as my feelings of self-esteem are concerned. So I want to devote this section of my blog to talking about products that I have found that are LESS EXPENSIVE – we all know most “spoonies” or people with severe chronic illnesses are those who are least likely to have extra money to spare (not all the time – I hate to generalize! – but often!), so I hope this section of this blog will help all of you both with and without chronic illness out in terms of saving some hard-earned dollahs!!*

Since my Behçet’s became systemic (actually before that, but more noticeably when I started having severe joint involvement and hair loss from the high “low-dose” methotrexate), I have experienced periods of time during which I have frequently found it difficult to shower. Hear me out with this one! It might sound gross, but I’m sure all of you “spoonies” out there know what I mean with this one – just the act of taking a shower, even a short shower, can drain you of quite a few of your spoons for the day, sometimes all of your spoons for the day. This is one big reason I tend to take showers at night and to split showers up into “full shower days” when I have more energy (i.e., I will wash my hair and deep condition it as well as take a regular shower) and then “body shower days” when I put my hair up or under a shower cap so I can get in and out in order to expend the least amount of energy possible. The heat from the shower (even a cool shower) bothers me terribly, affecting everything from my joints to my heart (I tend to get the “Jell-o” heart with any sort of moist heat); even just the time it takes to take a “short shower” can overwhelm me with exhaustion for the rest of the day – it is very difficult to shower when you have compression fractures in your spine and aren’t supposed to bend or twist without your back brace (which shouldn’t be worn in the shower!) and with one of your arms also affected by lymphedema (this is a long story and I promise it is one I will tell in time!). Although showers are difficult now, I have adapted the way in which I take them – I have a “shower stool / bench” as well as a loofah on a stick and a scrub brush on a stick; I have also found these amazing scrubbie shower gloves that have helped me TREMENDOUSLY (I will talk about those in another post as well!).

However tiring these “normal showers” may be, the worst showers are when you are VERY VERY sick; often when you are in the hospital or more or less bedridden at home. I spent several years of my life in this “condition,” and at the time, I used “Astronaut shampoo;” the kind of liquid in a bottle that you can pour into your hair, lather, and then dry out without having to rinse it out. This stuff is great, but if you’re not in the hospital and it is not provided for you, it can be both challenging to find and expensive to buy. Therefore, on my “body shower days,” I often resort to using dry shampoo – it has really been a lifesaver in my “daily” routine.

I have tried all kinds of dry shampoos, ranging from the very expensive to the very cheap – usually the price dictates the quality of the product. For a long time I was using Klorane Dry Shampoo (with Oat Milk); it worked the best out of all the products I had tried. However, it was on the pricier side, costing $20 a bottle (at Sephora) – I also found that even with the “Oat Milk,” if used for more than one day, the product dried my hair out terribly. So I went on a hunt for a new dry shampoo!

I was walking through Rite-Aid one day (Rite-Aid was one of the few stores I could walk to from my last apartment; I would often go just to get the steps in or to briefly escape the noise and nosiness of the upstairs “neighbors”) and this hot pink bottle with “CAKE” written on it caught my eye. I don’t know if you know this about me but I am something of an avid cook and baker – when I was younger, Good Eats was my favorite TV show (I’m talking VHS days!); later on, Anthony Bourdain became my hero and idol – I could relate to him on so many levels (God bless his family; the loss of this man breaks my heart to this day). I have always been a fan of the original Japanese Iron Chef series as well and I have trained myself to cook “homestyle” Japanese food as well as a wide range of vegan dishes – desserts are a particular specialty of mine (I have even had some hardcore “omnivores” jokingly propose to me over desserts I had made without any animal or animal-derived ingredients which I didn’t tell them about until after they had tasted my baking!). At any rate, I always joke with others that it’s often silly to buy a cake mix because making a homemade cake, in general, is not much more work than putting together a cake mix. I love cake, hands down (I don’t eat it often, but I do love it!). So I saw this dry shampoo, opened the top, gave it a sniff … and it smelled like a very light vanilla sugar-y scent! It wasn’t quite “Cake” scented, but it smelled delicious! And for the price, I believe it was around $7.99 at the time I purchased it (an Internet search shows an average price of $8.99), I thought it was worth a shot. I also grabbed the “matching” conditioner (I use Nioxin shampoo still just because I am still dealing from the hair loss associated with both methotrexate as well as long-term high-dose steroid treatment). I went back to the apartment and tried the dry shampoo out.

This stuff worked – and still works – GREAT! I was beyond pleasantly surprised – I often find that “drug store” buys and “cheaper” buys tend to be total busts. Not the case with “Cake!” If you spray it far enough away from your hair you do not get that white residue / patchiness (you do if you spray it very close to your scalp / head – not quite to the extent as other dry shampoos I have tried, however!) and I cannot tell you how well it worked with my hair without drying it out – and I received countless compliments on “how good” I smelled! WIN WIN WIN! I actually ended up selling the small stash of Klorane dry shampoo I had stockpiled during a “sale” – to find a better product that smells 1,000x better and doesn’t seem to dry out my hair as badly for less than 1/2 the price is something I couldn’t beat! And so I just wanted to share that with you!

If you are looking for a dry shampoo, please try the “Cake ‘The Do Good Volumizing Dry Shampoo!'” Again, I also recommend this for anyone with chronic health problems / chronic illnesses or disabilities because it is really a “must-have” item – especially for those of us with any sort of arthritic involvement (this also goes, I would assume, for those who suffer with fibromyalgia – I have been diagnosed with fibromyalgia, but honestly I am often in so much pain most of the time I don’t notice it except on days when the weather triggers it for me – yet another post!) or any other condition that might limit your ability to take a shower or to wash your hair regularly. I highly suggest that you give this “Cake” dry shampoo a try – it is by far the best dry shampoo I have found! As a bonus, it is listed as “cruelty-free” and vegan.

*I AM NOT AT ALL AFFILIATED WITH “CAKE” – AND I AM NOT GETTING PAID FOR THIS *GLOWING* REVIEW – I JUST REALLY LIKE THIS AND THESE PRODUCT(S)! PLEASE CHECK IT OUT AT THE CAKE BEAUTY WEBSITE:*

https://www.cakebeautyusa.com/products/cake-do-gooder-best-dry-shampoo

Thank you for taking the time to read this! I hope you are all having a great day! Have a happy and healthy day as well, wherever you are in the world! Keep that hair looking fly and smelling A+ deeeeelicious!!

❤ Always. Beth