Oatmeal?

[ratgirldjh]

I've tried using oats for both conditioning and for cleansing.

What I've done is mixed ground oats in warm water til i got a paste and used it like shikakai or besan.

It was very hard to wash out of my hair!!! I mean really, the oats grabbed onto my hair and it took lots of washing.

I don't remember if I liked the results or not - I don't think it was bad - it just seemed to be too hard on my hair!!!

I did love the results of washing with besan (garbanzo been flour) and besan paste even got out heavy oilings.

The only problem with the besan is that I couldn't tolerate the smell of beans if left in my hair... I've used green split peas ground the same way and it worked well too - less beany smell - but for some reason I can't deal with the beany smells in my hair or on my skin for that matter and since oatmeal worked similarly on my skin I thought it would work on hair too...

Can't wait to hear about the rye bread hair washing! I can get 100% rye bread - actually I have some now - but I think it is 100% sprouted rye... wonder how that would work?

Or maybe just rye flour? I know that pretty much any type of flour will work... but I don't know how good...

[bumblebums]

I think the sourdough factor may be important. I don't know that there's anything magical about rye flour as opposed to other flours, but I can attest that it doesn't taste at all similar when rye is mixed with other flours, or when the leavening agent is a cultured yeast as opposed to sourdough starter.

Thanks for the feedback on oatmeal, ratgirldjh! I'll make sure to strain the oatmeal goo before putting it in my hair. The technique I use now with flaxseed is to strain it before allowing it to cool; it loses some of the mucilage but it allows the mixture to rinse clean out of your hair. (Learned it on the LiveJournal no' poo community, courtesy of westcoastred.)

[janiejones]

I guess I'm having a lovely relaxing oatmeal bath with a side of wine and chocolate tonight

...will dunk my head!

Ohh that sounds amazing, all of it! I'm definitely going to try an oatmeal bath/hair rinse whenever I get some "me" time, possibly tomorrow. Even if it doesn't do much for my hair, I really hope it will alleviate some of the horrid dry skin I get in the winter that feels absolutely horrible once I get out of a hot bath. I confess, I've put off bathing once or twice just because I absolutely hate hate hate dry itchy skin...

[Madame J]

Oats contain saponins (like aritha or soapwort), which come out in the soaking water. I soak my steel-cut oats in water with a dash of vinegar overnight, to improve their digestibility and cooking speed, and I've toyed with the idea of using the water to rinse my hair (so it doesn't go to waste!). I do like putting oats in my herbal bath sock and using that to scrub my skin when it's wet. Oats also have a high fat content compared to other grains, so they would have conditioning properties.

I'm not eating oat porridge this week (since millet is cheaper), but if I go back, I'll try rinsing with the soak water and report back.

[tiare_petal]

Oats contain saponins (like aritha or soapwort), which come out in the soaking water.

I'm not sure if it is the flakes or bran that have saponin in them. Google says sth about oat root and leaves. So I bought oat straw, which is supposed to be "rich in" saponin (haven't found what's the amount yet) and I'm going to try it as a shampoo in place of soapwort soon.

[bumblebums]

Okkeey... So I tried using colloidal oatmeal as the main ingredient in a moisture treatment. It was a total disaster, because I did not heed ratgirldjh's advice and neglected to strain the oatmeal before putting it on my head. I thought I'd be okay if I just ground the oatmeal in a coffee grinder before soaking it, but... well, let's just say, it's not fun washing clumps of oatmeal porridge out of your hair. [*smacks head*]

So whatever you do with oatmeal, don't grind it up, soak it, and put it on your hair. Soak water might work better, as would straining it out before using it.

[tiare_petal]

I don't know what I did wrong but my hair clumped together when I shampooed with oat straw infusion (no foam at all but somewhat refreshing). I experimented with flax seed wash before that; perhaphs that's why it came out like that...

[bumblebums]

I don't know what I did wrong but my hair clumped together when I shampooed with oat straw infusion (no foam at all but somewhat refreshing). I experimented with flax seed wash before that; perhaphs that's why it came out like that...

Nah, I doubt that flaxseed would make that happen. Flaxseed is very slippery and conditioning, so if anything, it would have made the oatmeal easier to wash out. I think oatmeal is just too cement-like to put straight on hair.