Would You Wash Your Hair With Mud?

Mud beauty treatments are nothing new: We've been wrapping our bodies in detoxifying sea-mud wraps and slathering pore-clearing clay on our faces for eons. But, mud to wash your hair? There's one I haven't heard of yet — nor is it ever something I thought I'd try.

Shea Terra's new Mud-Poo (really, guys?) Hair Wash is a shampoo made from organic aloe vera juice, Moroccan mud, Kalahari mineral salt, and an essential oil fragrance — that's it. According to the brand, the women of Morocco have been washing their hair with this mud from the Atlas Mountains for centuries. The last time U.S. women were told about a product Moroccan women swore by, we singlehandedly bought their entire gross national product of argan oil. So, I get the appeal.

The benefits of washing your hair with mud (does this sound like an oxymoron to anyone else?), so says the brand, are that it leaves hair clean, silky, and smooth without any harsh cleansing agents. I decided to take one for the team and dump some mud on my head, in the name of beauty reporting.

To use this so-called "Miracle Mud," you're supposed to massage the Mud-Poo into your hair for a few minutes and then rinse. I pumped out the mud into the palm of my hand and was rewarded with a gritty, runny brown substance that smelled like creamy mint. I honestly hesitated for a good five minutes before taking a deep breath and running it through my hair.

As I worked the gritty goop into my hair, I was rewarded with a pleasant tingling sensation on my scalp. I have fine hair that's prone to grease, and I was sporting a 'do that was two days past a much-needed shower, so I was skeptical this mud was actually going to do anything to sop up that oil and dirt. But, I dutifully continued massaging.

Rinsing was a fun endeavor, as it was difficult to tell if I'd gotten all of the Mud-Poo out of my hair. I rinsed a few extra minutes longer than I normally do, just in case — I didn't want to jump out of the shower and find I had mud caked on to my strands. I used my normal conditioner (Shu Uemura Art Of Hair Muroto Volume Pure Lightness Conditioner), then towel-dried my hair and added a few drops of Privé Vanishing Oil to my damp locks.

As my hair began to air dry, the first thing I noticed was that the mud had definitely gotten all the grease and oil out. My hair felt clean, but not in a stripped-of-every-ounce-of-moisture way that some shampoos can cause. The second thing I noticed was that my strands were indeed silky-soft — like, belly-of-a-cute-fluffy-kitten soft. Finally, I was surprised to see that the mud hadn't weighed down my hair like I had expected it to, and that I had bounce and movement galore.

So, it looks like I'm now a girl who washes my hair with mud. I'm okay with it because my hair looks damn good. Plus, the brand says that I might even find I need to wash my hair less often the more I use my Mud-Poo. Yes, it's a little weird at first and takes some getting used to, but it made both my hair and scalp feel fantabulous. It comes in three scents — Clementine, Dark Amber, and Menthe Vanilla — and it's a helluva lot cheaper than the fancy shampoos I usually use, not to mention organic and eco-friendly. Ready to mud your hair yet?