Questions regarding hair-oil.

**Lia_Vaumont** · December 4th, 2009, 07:18 PM

Greetings to everyone!

I just wanted to know whether any of you infuse herbs into your hair oils? It's very expensive in my country (The Philippines) to obtain essential oils, so I decided to infuse my hair oil, (which is basically just Virgin Coco-oil) with some herbs such as rosemary, thyme, basil, and sage, as well as green tea-leaves (which I obtained from McCormick's spices; as in the one you use for cooking, lol.) Has anyone ever tried it before? I'm just curious whether it would be as effective as adding essential oils to a carrier oil? So far, I'm letting the herbs sit in the oil for a week. Will the herbs imbue some of its properties in the coconut oil, or will it just make it smell like the herbs?

Thank you so much for reading. I shall await your replies. ^_^

**imposterpockets** · December 4th, 2009, 09:54 PM

I had never thought of doing that. I did a quick google search for infusing dried herbs in a carrier oil and several aromatherapy pages came up with instructions. Seems like it could work to add some of the properties of the essential oils, but that's just a guess.

**peachrose** · December 4th, 2009, 10:45 PM

Essential oils are made from very large quantities of the herb/flower and so I would think that the results from letting it infuse in the carrier oil would be not really comparable. But, it could probably work to some extent and would certainly leave a nice scent. That is based off my limited knowledge of how EOs are made, hopefully someone with more expertise will respond.

**Lia_Vaumont** · December 4th, 2009, 10:47 PM

Originally Posted by imposterpockets

I had never thought of doing that. I did a quick google search for infusing dried herbs in a carrier oil and several aromatherapy pages came up with instructions. Seems like it could work to add some of the properties of the essential oils, but that's just a guess.

I got it from the fact that if you slightly heat oil during cooking, and then add some herbs, it will then take on some of the herb's properties and scent. So, I decided to experiment with just letting the herbs sit in the oil. ^_^ I also googled it, and yep, it came up with other tips---for example, cold infusion rather than hot infusion is said to be best; and when heat infusing, it's best to use a double boiler... I still don't know if it'd work just as well as essential oils though, besides which I've never tried essential oils before.

**Henna Sooq** · December 7th, 2009, 12:08 PM

Very interesting. Let us know how it turns out (when and if you do it)

**Akiko** · December 7th, 2009, 12:35 PM

I tried infusing amla powder in coconut oil as well as fresh rosemary in olive oil.

Olive oil is too heavy for me. So I stop using. Smells nice with rosemary, though.

I also quit amla powder in coconut oil. It was difficult filter out amla powder since it's so fine. But that fine powder felt a bit gritty in my hands. I did not care for the smell much, either. I now use just coconut oil. It's simple, but works.

I wonder how some herbs go well with coconut oil in terms of smell. For example, coconut oil and green tea altogether smell weird to me. I think you need to experiment if they go well. You might find some good combination.

**melikai** · December 7th, 2009, 02:08 PM

I've done this a few times. It never ends up smelling as strongly as an EO would, but it can still smell very nice (lavender was especially good).

Here are some tips:

-Make sure the jar you have it in is very well sealed, otherwise it could get moldy.

-Add enough oil to cover a decent amount of the dried herbs. Using fresh herbs will lead to mold as well.

-Shake the jar at least once a day.

-Be sure to leave it in a warm place: in the sun or on top of your computer case, for example. Alternatively, and for faster results, you can cook the oil over the lowest heat on your stove.

Every few days, drain out the oil, straining out the herbs. Clean out the jar (or use a new one), add more new dried herbs, and pour back in the oil. You may need to add a bit more oil in order to fully cover the herbs.

You can do the above as often as you want to. The more times, the stronger your infusion will be. If you do it once, it is called a single infused oil. Twice; double infused, etc.

The oil will take on any benefits/effects the herbs may have.

**burns_erin** · December 7th, 2009, 04:00 PM

The best luck I have had with that was to put my herbs in a food processor with the oil, blend the bjeesus out of it, then let sit in a jar, shaking the jar at least once a day. Then I strained it using first a metal strainer, then a coffee filter. Not as effective as just using the EO's, but it did seem to do something.

I think it worked better because it increased the surface area in contact with the oil.