Sunday, February 22, 2009

Kicking the Bottle Habit

So after publishing my 'hair routine' I have completely changed everything. As I said in that post, I wanted to learn how to make my own conditioner. And about a month ago, I decided to just stop buying conditioner and force myself to figure something out. I just couldn't justify all those plastic bottles coming into my house.

So... since then, my hair has not quite been the same. First I tried a recipe out of Organic at Home. It was an egg, 2 drops of castor oil, 2 drops of lavender essential oil and 2 drops of rosemary essential oil mixed with enough powdered milk to make a paste. Well... no. That didn't really work. My hair dried to an enormously huge 'big hair' state and it felt like there was something in my hair. (later my hair dressing friend told me that the milk protein is far too large to be absorbed by hair).

In the meantime I simply rinsed my hair with baking soda and then sprayed it with apple cider vinager. Which does get it clean but has no humectant for happy curls.

The next thing I tried was a recipe from this website - the avacado homemade conditioner. Although with my previous experience, I only mixed up half a recipe - half an avacado and 1 egg yolk. And I rinsed it according to the instructions, with apple cider vinager and the juice of one lime. My hair was really shiny and very soft.... but stringy and I had to brush it a lot to get rid of the stringy-ness. So I poured a bucket of baking soda and water over my head followed by a bucket of apple cider vinager and water... And we are back to square one. Although I might try that recipe again sometime when my hair needs deep conditioning - like in the super dry summer.

Next I am going to try this one. Although the problem I have found with most of these recipes is that they call for you to wash your hair with shampoo after you have done the treatment. The other problem is that most of the ingredients are definitely not available in a 100 mile radious - most being tropical fruits.

I'll keep you posted... Suggestions welcome!

1 comment:

Ms. M said...

Ok, here is my suggestion. Cut it short! LOL - I know you would never do that - but I'll tell you, my hair problems are all gone now that I have short hair. I use a shampoo bar when I feel like it (not every day) and that's it. Ta-da!!