No Feels, Only Reals: Rye Flour on Trial

–Introduction–

Sometimes I start to feel like a bit of a buzzkill at the Haircare Science and No-Poo parties.  I'd love to be sharing supportive, U-go-gurl advice and flipping my hair in the sun like a shampoo commercial with everybody else, but instead I'm crouched in my corner with notebooks of crabbed little calculations and "Don't do that!" as my mantra.

When I originally posted my explanation of baking soda and why dilution with water doesn't have much effect on its pH, a lot of people naturally asked, "So, if baking soda's no good, what can we use?"  I was embarrassed to realize that I didn't really have an answer to that.

So! Clearly the only thing to do is to get experimental.  Based on other people's comments, I've got a short list of shampoo alternatives that I'm planning to test.  I will use each of them for a month (unless they become unfeasible) and catalog their pros and cons using the following criteria: