Dr. Bronner's citrus conditioning hair rinse

[Twitter]

Has anyone tried Dr. Bronner's conditioning hair rinse? It has shikakai in it, so I wonder if it could work as sort of a CO? I also wondered if anyone has tried to make something like that?

[LaCitoyenne]

I've tried it! I would never use it alone for CO - for me it's not conditioning enough. As a hair rinse it's OK. But to close the cuticle, I'm having better luck with citric acid and catnip tea.

[AmyJorgensen]

Does that Dr. Bronner's stuff have some wacky quotes on the label or what!? (I'm thinking of the shampoo) Are they serious or sarcastic do you think?:D

[LaCitoyenne]

The vendor seems quite religious, in an old-fashioned way!

[Sunshine69]

I have this and like to use it instead of a vinegar rinse. The Dr Bronner's citrus conditioning rinse is a concentrate that contains citric acid, and you use it by diluting a capful or so into water. It's much too strong to use undiluted and I don't think the watery dilution would work as a CO hair wash. It's great stuff, but just not for CO.

[Twitter]

Has anyone tried making something like this? It says it contains "fatty acids" I'm not really sure how that would work, just add a little bit of oil to it?

[may1em]

I saw this at the store today and was curious about it. I don't like the way my hair smells after vinegar, and I think I could use an acidic rinse, especially if I might start to experiment with soap-based stuff.

Is it better enough than a citric acid rinse to justify the expense?

[redcelticcurls]

I've been experiementing with acidifying rinses lately to seal the cuticle on my porous hair, especially with the higher summer dew points. I don't use soaps, but I just use this as part of hair/cuticle maintenance.

The Bronner's works very much like an ACV rinse on me, but it does smell better, lol.

With the summer humidity, it does help a lot with frizz.

I use 3 cap fulls in 2 cups of water.

I agree that it's not for CO.

[Neoma]

I hated this product so much that I returned it to Whole Foods and got a refund.

I much prefer a white vinegar/essential oil rinse after shampooing with a shampoo bar.

[chickpea]

I hated this rinse at first, but was using too strong of a dilution. I tried it again with 2 capfuls in 2 cups of warm water, and let the mixture sit while shampooing, to it a chance to dissolve. I poured the rinse over my hair, massaged it in for about 30 seconds, and then rinsed. This worked much better, and I only needed a small amount of leave in conditioner.

A word of caution - if you have any scrapes, cuts, or open sores on your body, the lemon juice in this rinse can make it sting like crazy! I found this out the hard way. :nono:

[pinchbeck]

Has anyone tried making something like this? It says it contains "fatty acids" I'm not really sure how that would work, just add a little bit of oil to it?

The fatty acids Dr. Bronner's and other companies that use this terminology for indicate Cetyl or Cetearyl Alcohols. Aubrey Organics sometimes uses this disguise if you will, in their ingredient list labeling it as coconut fatty acid which I suppose lessens its severity of what it really is; a chemical!

Despite the above information I liked the product, but found it stung my body as it traveled its way down. If required conditioner should be used afterward for detangling.

[ratgirldjh]

I've used this for a rinse and for CO washing. I found it worked very well for CO washing - surprisingly it left my hair soft and shiny and smooth and full of body.

As a rinse however I prefer ACV after soap based washes - this seemed to leave my hair too clean if used after soap.

It does have quite a bit of shikakai in it (it is brown) and this was what gave me the idea to try it for CO washing - I theorized that the shikakai and the citric acid would clean and the fatty acids perhaps would moisturize.

But it does contain glycerine and this eventually builds up on my hair and so I haven't used it often knowing that I will sooner or later end up with limp hair.

Also I can't find it anywhere local and had to order it and don't really want to like it too much (lol) because it is so expensive with all the shipping etc.

All in all I thought it worked great for CO washing. What I would do is wet my hair and squeeze out the excess water and pour out a glob and work it through like conditioner.

Then I would rinse it out scrubbing my scalp - it does not foam like conditioner but it still managed to clean my hair although it seemed a little TOO conditioned for my taste - kind of limp and not full like with soap... and definitely not dry!!!

Also I kind of worried that using something that acidic (shikakai plus citric acids and fatty acids (alcohols)) would eventually fry my hair...