Steaming Hair

[cm006j]

I was watching the Hindi movie Devdas yesterday and I noticed that the character Paro has her hair steamed by women in her married home. I've also seen that in another Indian movie that took place hundreds of years ago.

It seems to be a cleaning method. The women hold the hair over something that is releasing steam.

Does anyone know if this is an alternate way to clean hair?

[LoveMyLongHair]

I would be interested in learning about this, also. :)

[feb26]

I have an east indian girlfriend, I'll ask her if they do this & if so, if it works...any deets will pass along too!

[Shany]

I searched on internet and found this:

'' fter investigating the benefits of steaming and finally using it myself I learned that steaming in addition to opening up the follicles opens up the hair cuticle allowing the conditioner to really penetrate the hair shaft. Steaming the hair is a way of opening the hair shaft and incorporating moisture into the hair that helps to stop dryness and breakage. Steaming is great if you are experiencing drying & falling hair due to chemical abuse. It is even said that since the steamer is opening up the follicles in the scalp that it helps the hair to grow faster. I have even used my pre-poo hot oil treatments with this before washing my hair. Coconut, olive and jojoba oil are great for this, I have been using my Hairveda Vatika Frosting which I love. Hair steaming even makes the hair soft, I have found that my hair is as soft as a baby dolls. I have now been using my steamer for a while now and I am sold, I thought my hair was healthy already but it has definitely benefited from this.It is now a staple in my haircare regimen. ''

http://healthytextures.typepad.com/my_journey_to_healthy_hai/2008/06/healthy-hair-tr.html

After my workout at the gym, I will go in the steam room more often :)

[cm006j]

I'm going to try it. I might see if there's a way to replace washing with steaming, though nothing I've found on the Internet says that. I hate how my hair feels when it is drying from being wet, it feels brittle and dry no matter how much conditioner I use, then I end up over oiling it and looking greasy.

I don't think it's something as prevalent in modern India, all the movies I saw it in were based a few hundred years ago. But I can still get some idea of what they are doing, enough to try it.

[charalito]

I was reading Almond eyes, lotus feet and found a description for smoking that resembles the scenes you mentioned. Sounds like gentle hair drying:

"After the bath, our hair was dried with a thin muslin towel, then spread over a karandi, a sort of iron pot with a long handle. In the pot were burning coals with all sorts of herbs sprinkled on them so the smoke became very fragrant. We would dry our hair over this smoke. It was very mild, so the scalp didn’t get hot. It also dried the hair very slowly, so the ends never became brittle and it left such a beautiful fragrance."

[Curly Hermione]

Once when I was on holiday (or vacation, depending on which side of the pond you're on!) I rinsed my hair of the chlorine from the pool, doused it in conditioner and sat in the steam room for a while. I think it worked well.

[sakuraemily]

that wasn't steaming. That was drying with fragrant smoke.

[Amber_Maiden]

that wasn't steaming. That was drying with fragrant smoke.

I was thinking that too.

Also steaming would not clean the scalp, if it was a cleaning method.

[Amanah]

It seems like steaming your hair has the possibility of causing serious damage to your hair . . . frying it.

[ariesfairies]

When I thought of this I was thinking of vegetables :laugh:

I don't believe it would damage it if you got it at a comfy temperature. Have a bit of steam so the follicles will open, but don't cook your hair. They use heat to open up follicles with hot oil treatments so why not!
As to clean, well I dunno. What would hot moist hair clean? Maybe it will break off some of the oils and loosen a few dirt particles, but it'd be nothing a good scrub couldn't do. I think only if you have the stuff at a reaallly threateningly torrid level of steam pluming (plume? plooming?), you'd get the benefits of germs dying, but I wouldn't risk cooking your hair for that if you've got some shampoo on hand.

[maborosi]

It seems like steaming your hair has the possibility of causing serious damage to your hair . . . frying it.

Not really. It's good to help open up the cuticle of the hair, and can help during a deep conditioning treatment. Plus, a sauna/steam room has so many benefits for the akin, too, I wouldn't be surprised if there were many benefits for the skin.

~maborosi~

[jojo]

I don't know about steaming as a cleaning method, but I know when I go into a sauna my hair gets incredibly curly and not in a nice way!

[ratgirldjh]

I've used steaming but for helping oil soak in not for cleansing.

How I did it (I read about it on-line, also an indian technique called the indian turban method):

I would oil my hair well and then take a wet towel (wring out extra water) and put it in the microwave til steamy.

Then wrap around my hair until it cools off. I would do this several times.

It did seem like it made the oil penetrate better - but for some reason I stopped doing it. :shrug:

[MoonLover]

Some women with 4 type hair use a hair steamer (http://www.behuetiful.com/pages/reviews) with a deep conditioner regularly. I've never tried it but I'd like to! I don't think it's for cleansing though.

[Wildcat Diva]

I use a shower cap/ then an electric heat cap I got off Amazon for my oil treatments. I am sure that the heat kind of steams up the moisture in my hair. Feels pretty warm there inside the plastic cap. I wouldn't do this for longer than a few minutes though.
However, this is not the same as using steam.

Never did this to actually clean my hair, only condition.

[Mingle]

I found a post that goes into all the technical details of using heat (steam, that is) as an aid to moisturizing your hair. Great for low porosity hair, it seems.

Click here for the post. (http://cushblog.com/2012/04/19/hydrating-low-porosity-hair-its-all-about-the-energy-baby-technically-speaking/)

[blaketob]

I use a shower cap/ then an electric heat cap I got off Amazon for my oil treatments. I am sure that the heat kind of steams up the moisture in my hair. Feels pretty warm there inside the plastic cap. I wouldn't do this for longer than a few minutes though.
However, this is not the same as using steam.

Never did this to actually clean my hair, only condition.

I used to get my hair done like this. It does not clean my hair but it worked as a moisture/conditioning treatment. I think the steam deffinately helps open up the hair follicles to help trap in the moisture. Usually I sat under the steam/heat cap for 20 minutes at the salon. My hair always felt very soft after.

[MinderMutsig]

I'm a big fan of steam to help oils or deep conditioner soak in. I go to a sauna complex once a month and always bring an oil and conditioning treatment with me. After changing I heavily oil my hair and then put it in a french braid. The oil can soak in with the help of the heat in the different saunas and it protects my hair from the chlorine and salt in the swimming pools and float bath. The last sauna I go into is a steam room and before I go in I apply a deep conditioning treatment. The steam helps the treatment to soak in.

Before I started doing this my hair would be frizzy and feel dry after a day at the sauna but since starting this my hair feels wonderful, soft and moisturized after. If I had a steamer I could use for this I'd do it more often but until then once a month will have to do.

Unfortunately the sauna at my gym is a dry sauna and that doesn't work nearly as good. I love it because I prefer dry saunas but for my hair it would have been better if it was a steam room.

[midsummernight]

I am from India and I have never seen anyone using steam on their hair. But I have seen people using incense to make make the hair smell good. Is that what you mean by steaming?

[earthnut]

I've done saunas and a sweatlodge, and the sweating definitely made my skin feel clean afterwards. It's because the heat opened the pores and the sweat pushed out oil and rinsed the skin. Then I just wiped my skin dry and I felt very clean. Sorta cleaning from the inside out. I could see how that could happen on the scalp too, especially if you accompany the steaming with a good scalp massage to mobilize the oil.

[Fantak]

that wasn't steaming. That was drying with fragrant smoke.

sakuraemily is right, I'm Arab and we have a very similar tradition where you dry and perfume wet hair with smoke from fragrant wood. The wood works like incense and the smoke smells divine.

Wikipage for the wood: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agarwood

The steaming idea seems really interesting though, I actually came here looking for a way to steam curl my hair :D

HTH ^.^

edit: Oh my I just realised that this thread was started ages ago >.< sorry >.>

[HintOfMint]

Whether or not the characters in the movie were steaming or smoking her hair (not that her hair made me think of dumplings or anything), I can imagine steam is pretty moisturizing for hair. I do it pretty frequently with my caruso rollers and my hair is always very soft afterwards.