Lucy AitkenRead had to survive the "stinky stage" but has no regrets about giving up washing her hair for two years.
The beauty blogger, who has moved to New Zealand from the UK, gave up commercial hair products as an experiment and found it snowballed into a cleaner, greener way of life.
AitkenRead, seen here with her husband Tim and their children Ramano, 3, and Juno, 16 months, blogged about her experience on Lulastic and is encouraging people to do the same.
In her book Happy Hair: the definitive guide to giving up shampoo she tells readers how to get cleaner, healthier hair and go beyond scalp and skin problems, and how to get through what's called the "stinky stage".
"I had kind of heard of the urban myth about the best way to keep your hair clean," she told the Herald on Sunday.
"But I wanted to try it out for my blog and as a little experiment to see how much money I could save."
The idea snowballed as she learned more about a chemical-free way of life and started applying age-old strategies in her home.
This year the AitkenReads moved from London to Thames, Coromandel. They met when she was a student at Victoria University before leaving for the UK.