Kelly Davio

I stopped hosting the holiday at my house, and instead of inviting a barrage of people over for face-stuffing, I turned Thanksgiving into a quiet day at home—just me and my partner—and yes, plenty of pie and mashed potatoes.

Maybe you were feeling a little too confident this week—a little too put-together or in control of your life. It’s okay, it happens to all of us from time to time. You take a break from fashion magazines and celebrity websites, and before you know it, you begin to feel like you’re a competent, productive, adequate human being.

Unfortunately, public restroom soap is a bacterial nightmare. It’s so filthy, in fact, that a recent study found that a quarter of all public soap pumps are so contaminated with fecal bacteria that washing with their contents leaves your hands more germy than if you didn’t wash at all.

I’ve been on a largely fruitless quest for good hair all my life. I’ve got thin, baby-fine, straight-as-a-nail hair that’s somehow both oily and prone to frizziness at the same time. Years of abusing my hair with heat and dyes didn’t help the state of affairs, either. So when I heard that women were cutting back on or even foregoing shampoo altogether and getting dream-worthy hair, I was game to give the shampoo-free lifestyle a try.