Rosemary!

[dancedance]

This is definitely not where the idea that rosemary is good for your hair came from; this paper is only from 2015 and they talk about how rosemary has been used historically and they are hoping to take advantage of things rosemary supposedly does.

They used rosemary lotion, which appears to be the rosemary oil mixed into lotion, presumably a cream that is the same/similar to the one that Minoxidil is used in. The 1,8-cineole is referring to a particular compound that is found in essential oils--they used this to standardize so that the lotion should all have similar amounts of the "stuff" in the rosemary oil (accounting for batch to batch variation of extraction, etc).


Rosemary is approximately 44% 1,8-cineole so my guesstimate would be that there is some 4.8mg which I think should be somewhere around 0.005mL of rosemary oil per mL of lotion. Math isn't my strongest suit so if I lost zeros or something there someone please correct me lol. Going with my own numbers, .5% rosemary oil.

They had people put 1mL of lotion with massage twice a day, 12 hours apart. Washing off is not mentioned.

Thank you mochichichi! This is super helpful

[Reyn127]

I'm also generally curious about the whole rosemary thing. I remember reading somewhere on here that there was no scientific evidence that rosemary actually does anything to promote hair growth/thickness, but I did used to use it years ago, and during that time my hair was the healthiest and thickest it has ever been (but I also had a handful of other things in my routine that could have definitely been the cause of my overall hair health during that time.) More recently, I've seen it get super popular on tiktok/instagram/reddit, and have seen a few people insist that there was a study that proves that rosemary DOES promote hair growth (I'm not sure if it's the same study that was linked here, and I also didn't read it).... But I figure it can't hurt to try using again, so I think I'll do that and report back here every so often. My plan is to put a couple drops of rosemary essential oil into my shampoo on wash days - rosemary water sounds nice also but it's a little inconvenient and doesn't sound like it would remain on the scalp for very long, and I'm not a big fan of oiling my scalp, so adding it in as I lather my shampoo sounds like it may be the next best option.

And I figure, even if it does nothing, I already know from previous use that it doesn't irritate my scalp, and at the very least, it smells pretty nice.

[angel-baby]

Been using rosemary water each day for about two weeks, in between my usual twice weekly pre-poo scalp oiling. It hasn't been enough time to see results, but if nothing else it feels really refreshing! I've only added rosemary oil to my shampoo once so far -smelled good and didn't seem to irritate my skin so maybe the shampoo is a good enough carrier. It feels kind of like a hat on a hat, though, doing it right after a rosemary scalp treatment.

[Obsidian]

I can't handle carrier oils on my scalp so I rub rosemary EO directly on and it never bothers my skin. Sometimes I add a little peppermint EO too, its really refreshing. Most essential oils I don't trust using straight but these I do.

[Reyn127]

I never use carrier oil personally but I also can’t oil my scalp (it causes some irritation, whereas essential oils never have for me). So I guess if it works for you, why not!

[stardust lady]

Somehow I've been able to oil my scalp again, which for a long time I was unable to do because it would cause insane burning and irritation. I think I was either leaving it on too long, or not shampooing it out well enough, or both. Now I have been able to mix together some olive oil, rosemary essential oil, and peppermint essential oil, and massage that into my scalp for about 10 minutes before a shower, and then shampoo twice with T-Sal. This is doing the trick, for now. I'm hoping it helps with the hair loss I'm seeing at my crown & hairline. I will try to continue doing this before every wash (usually 2x a week) and report back after 6 months if I manage.