Trying this for my monthly rinse:
Catnip nettle tea/rice water wash, highly dilute vinegar rinse to condition
Will report back!
Due to allergies to coconut-derived products (detergents and fatty alcohols), I have been forced to create alternatives to care for my hair. I don't mind; I like to try new things. I am not anti-chemical; any ingredient I am not allergic to is fair game. I will be back later with my current cleansing/strengthening treatment.
No shampoo
No conditioner
APL to BSL come grow with me!
Trying this for my monthly rinse:
Catnip nettle tea/rice water wash, highly dilute vinegar rinse to condition
Will report back!
Here are my current experiments, from left to right, Oat Protein Treatment, Coffee/Green Tea/Blackstrap Molasses Soak/Rinse, Marshmallow Rooibos Leave-in Rinse
Oat Protein Treatment
This serves as a cleanser and protein treatment.
1⅓ cup of distilled water + ¼ cup for blending
1 oz oats
1 tbs chlorella powder
2 mL silk amino acid
Put oats in water. Heat, covered, until boiling; reduce temperature to low. Add chlorella and cover for a few minutes, or until soft. Blend the mixture while still warm, adding the ¼ cup of water to replace the amount lost in cooking, if needed.
Blend in SAA. It let cool down, blending several times before working it through a fine-mesh strainer.
Place in applicator bottle and apply root to tip. After applying to each section, I twisted it up and turned each twist into a bantu knot to minimize the drippies. As you can see, my hair ate half of it right away:
Can be stored up to five days in the fridge. A hot-water bath will warm it up in a few minutes:
Passed with flying colors: My hair turned into plastic thread, pliable yet hard to break while dry. The inner leaf aloe gel and avocado oil soften it up some more.
Marshmallow Rooibos Leave-in Rinse
The addition of the marshmallow root is to reduce some of the astringency of rooibos tea.
2 tsp rooibos leaves
2 tbsp marshmallow root
17 oz of distilled water
Put the dry ingredients in first and slowly pour the water over them; make sure they are submerged. I let mine sit, covered, for a few hours and got some color but not much mucilage:
Simmered, covered for about 15 minutes:
And strained it while it was still warm:
I do it this way to reduce water loss, which worked:
I will use the 4 oz later this week and froze the rest in a tray and later bagged. I tried to freeze my leftover coffee rinse, but I forgot that blackstrap molasses is worse than sugar at lowering the freezing point of a water-based liquid. The bag is a mess, LOL.
No shampoo
No conditioner
APL to BSL come grow with me!
Oooh great idea for a thread Nymphe! I'm not anti-chemical either, I just have sensitive combination skin and I enjoy experimenting.
Here are some recent ones:
Passes
Indian herb wash with shikakai, methi, amla, hibiscus, and honey brewed to a gravy consistency (flying colors all around)
Coconut+castor hot oil treatments (too rich for everyday use but made my hair incredibly soft and supple)
Rinse-out end treatment of honey and olive oil (I don't need to do this every wash any more since I added methi to my mix, but it's great for when my ends need some extra hydration)
Fails/Undecided
Rye washes (still on the fence about this... my hair looked great--clean and tons of volume but very tangly which is not normal for me... may try again followed by an ACV rinse)
WO washing only once a week (not enough cleansing for scalp)
Things I'd Like to Try
Gloss/deep conditioning treatment with coconut milk and a cassia-based blend from Henna Sooq called Sukesh Ayurveda (cassia, amla, neem, aloe, tulsi, brahmi, bhringraj, and shikakai)
Will post more if I think of them!
Short... SL... APL... MBL...Waist... Hip... Tailbone... Classic... Knee...
Well I have a fail to post...
I decided to wash my hair with the following:
Shampoo:
-1 egg
-1 egg yolk
-1/2 cup of black tea
-1/4 cup honey
+
"Conditioner"
-1/4 glass apple vinegar
-water
I mixed it all, and washed, with cold water of course...
After removing the egg mix I rinsed with the diluted vinegar.
After, I put a bit of oil in my hair and proceeded to let it air dry.
It seemed okay, and clean. Only thing is it took forever to dry... It was like that the whole day, and this morning I decided tu comb and see what's up. It was damp but a nasty damp, like "not drying more than this" damp, flaky, with lots of dust and tiny white dots (not egg remnants but things I seem to get when I don't wash my hair for too long).
Eugh. So I decided to just wash it again with regular products.
Don't you know this tale
In which all I ever wanted
I'll never have?
Yeah, an egg wash is a "soft wash", mainly meant for drier scalps.
I was trying to find something environment-friendly, you know? But this was a fail
Maybe aiming for organic brands is my safest bet, because I haven't had much luck with home made experiments involving food. The lack of foam and slip that regular shampoo and conditioner give me just makes my hair tangle, the ends dry but the rest of it doesn't, it stays oily, and the dirt just stays in the damp part and never makes it to the ends while I wash or comb. And later, it's impossible to remove it because the damp part is sticky and the ends dry and I'd have to run my fingers through every strand to remove all that crap. -end of rant-
Don't you know this tale
In which all I ever wanted
I'll never have?
I should rename my mane "Lady Grease of the Order of the Stubborn Strands"
Don't you know this tale
In which all I ever wanted
I'll never have?
I have used eggs, mixed with other stuff, as a prewash treatment. Rinsing it out with cold water first is a must. My understand is that the egg whites are better for oily hair, while the egg yolks are for moisture. The last time I used it, I added an extra egg yolk and removed some of the whites. Hair felt great.
Right now, I have been using aloe inner leaf gel on damp hair with oil on top. Oh my goodness, my strands are not only soft, but smoooooth; the cuticle layer laid all the way down. I want a huge aloe plant!
No shampoo
No conditioner
APL to BSL come grow with me!
I want a huge aloe plant too! I use it for all kinds of skin issues but more poor little plants can't keep up with the demand.
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