Tag Archive | hair

Some Ayurvedic Plants that I Use for Hair

So, if you’ve been reading the past few entries, I guess you’ve probably picked up on that I’m crazy about using Ayurvedic and plant-based stuff for my natural hair care routine.

Here are some of the plants that I use and their main properties:

Amla: Emblica officinalis or Indian gooseberry, is a round green fruit with antioxidant properties. Ayurvedic practitioners swear by this plant and not only use it on the hair and skin but also eat it. I don’t eat it because it isn’t sold here as a fruit where I live. It softens hair and helps to fix the dyes of henna and manjistha to the hair. I personally don’t like to use this plant too much because it darkens my already almost jet black hair, and I don’t want that!

Brahmi: or Bacopa monnieri, is considered THE herb par excellence for hair care. Like amla, brahmi is also antioxidant. It thickens the hair thus making it stronger and less prone to breakage. It also strengthens the follicles, which prevents hair fall. I use this quite a bit and always put some in my henna mixes.

Bhringraj: Eclipta alba is supposed to be a real tonic to help your hair grow and you are supposed to be able to use it if you are having hair fall or getting bald spots. I also add this to henna. And I also make a hair oil using this. I simply put one spoonful of Bhringraj into a large glass jar, along with a spoonful of Brahmi, a pinch of dried rosemary and another spoonful of Alkanet Root, then top the jar up with olive oil. I take a little bit of this oil to use every time I oil my hair.

I like to nickname Bhringraj, Brahmi and Amla as the sacred Ayurvedic triumvirate haha. Just the 3 of them alone are so potent, you can do almost anything even if these are all you have. So Popeye’s spinach, move aside!

Shikakai: Acacia concinna contains saponins, which are like a natural soap and actually do foam up. I originally wasn’t too sure about using this in a hair mask and I also didn’t really believe it could really wash well. But after adding Shikakai to the hair mask, when I was rinsing it out without using any other products like shampoo, I noticed that the water was coming out foamy and sudsy. So it apparently helps to clean and purify the hair and scalp and lathers up really well too.

Hibiscus: I add powdered hibiscus to my henna, but I make the hot infusion that I mix henna with using dried hibiscus flowers. Hibiscus grows in wonderful tropical places like southern Spain, where I live. It also grows in Hawaii and people there use it to make garlands. Hibiscus imparts red hues to hair and also softens it.

Reetha or Aritha: also called soap nuts. You can buy them whole, as soap nuts. Or you can buy them powdered. If they are powdered you can add them to your hair masks. But they wash things really really well. I do my laundry with them — with the whole soap nuts, I mean, not with the powdered ones. You can use Aritha alone or combined with other plants to wash your hair.

Manjistha: Rubia cordifolia is one of my favourite plants because it imparts my all-time favourite ruby red shade to my henna mixes. It really does turn my hair ruby red.

You have to dye release it separate from henna because it doesn’t work with acids the way henna does. I was releasing the dye using baking soda, which is alkaline, but I might stop doing that because they say alkaline substances dry hair out. But it’s been working fine for me.

Alkanet Root: Alkanna tinctoria is a little-known secret plant that is supposed to turn your grey hairs back into coloured hairs. I’ve been using it for a while, now I can hardly ever find any grey hairs on my head anymore. But since I also henna frequently, I don’t know whether this is because I don’t have any grey hairs anymore, or because I henna so often there isn’t time for the grey hairs to grow long before I cover them with henna again, so you just never see them hehe. It also grows in the Mediterranean, so you’re not shipping it over from the other side of the world. I put a spoonful of Alkanet Root in a large glass jar along with a spoonful of Bhringraj, a spoonful of Brahmi and a pinch of dried rosemary, then top the jar up with olive oil. The Alkanet Root turns the oil a gorgeous shade of deep red. But if you try to dye your hair red with it, it won’t work unfortunately. I take a little bit of this oil to use every time I oil my hair.

Sidr: I tried washing my hair with Sidr or Ziziphus Jujuba once, you can read about it here. Like Aritha and Shikakai, you can use Sidr to wash your hair. I found out you can also use it like Cassia, to combine with henna to make it a bit lighter. But for that purpose I personally prefer Cassia, because it’s easier to get a hold of, it’s a lot cheaper and it doesn’t suds up. After all I don’t really fancy sudsy henna.

Cassia: I like Cassia obovata, which scientists now prefer to call Senna italica just so that they can get us all mixed up and boast about how they know Latin and we don’t harhar. (Believe me they do like to boast about it, my parents were scientists and in their day science students were forced to learn Latin at university. So after all that hard work trying to master a language that no one speaks today, how would you not boast about it?) Cassia is great to combine with henna to make the shade lighter, which I do all the time because when you have jet black hair you always want to pull towards lighter, and lighter, and lighter. But if you don’t want red hair and you want the conditioning properties of henna, you can use cassia instead. It will give your hair all the shine, strength and thickness that henna does but without the colour. If you dye release it, it might stain your hair a little bit yellow, if you want to go blonde. But I don’t mean like canary yellow hehe, more like a golden blonde shade.

Henna: Lawsonia inermis. If I had a personalized T-shirt it would boast a pic of a henna leaf and the logo “Henna till the end of my days” haha. Because that is how much I love my henna. My house is filled with boxes of henna. I thought I was a weirdo but then I saw a video of a woman who was about to henna her hair and her cupboards were filled with bags of henna too! When you get into the henna culture you just can’t get enough of it. I apply henna once a month and halfway through the month I apply a henna gloss too. So you can imagine I use up a lot of henna.

I thought I’d mention 2 more plants as well, rosemary and nettle. Because I wanted to know if there were any locally available plants that could help with hair growth, as it’s more sustainable to purchase local plants rather than get them shipped over from the other side of the world. Well I could never find any local alternative to henna, but rosemary and nettle are pretty mean locally-grown alternatives that could probably put up a good fight with Bhringraj to help get your hair to grow.

I bought dried nettle as well. Well you certainly don’t want it fresh, it stings! I haven’t tried it yet though. But you can use it the same way as rosemary, that is, infused in oil to use as a hair oil or in hot water to add to your hair masks.

So these are the plants that I use on my hair. I might add that I don’t spend the whole day every day brewing up plants for my hair care, even though from these posts it might seem that way. Most of the time I use store-bought hair products filled with artificial chemicals because I’m lazy and busy.

But I try to put plants on my hair once a week or if I’m busy, once every 2 weeks or at the very least, once a month.

So how about you? Do you use plants on your hair or in your skin care? Don’t hesitate to leave me some comments below, I lurrrve (positive, non-spammy) comments.

And while you’re at it I’d also love it if you’d check out some of my thrillers. You can find out more about them here: Thrillers by Moi.

If you enjoyed this post (I really hope you do!), maybe you will also like:

Daily Supplements

DIY Catio for Cats

On Christmas Day in the Morning

Castile Soap and Coconut Milk for Hair

Daily Supplements

Dec12

Everyone is always talking about the superfoods and daily supplements they take. I imagine the ones that work best for you would depend on what you are like, what health problems you suffer from, what health problems you’re more likely to develop and therefore would like to target the most, your age, etc.

I’m constantly changing around the daily supplements I take. But these are the ones I’m using as of this writing.

I discovered hydrolysed collagen from a video during lockdown so I started taking it. I also read some hysterical reports of people warding off COVID with massive amounts of vitamin C. So I started taking that too.

Eventually, when the panic died down, I realized I was taking just too much vitamin C! So I switched from the heavy duty brand I’d conjured up from Amazon to a more reasonable tube from the supermarket (Mercadona brand actually, if you’re here in Spain and you happen to be interested).

I’ve found it really helps me to take vitamin C. Since I started taking it I don’t get hungry as often and I have more energy. So I have no intention of giving this up!

I like to take the vitamin C with some fruit juice. I don’t really know if it makes any difference but I figure vitamin C is an acid so I s’pose it can’t hurt to take it with some acidic food like fruit juice.

I also take a multi-vitamin with the juice. Truth is I haven’t really noticed any effect from taking these multi-vitamins, but I figure it can’t hurt.

(I’ve since stopped taking these, because I didn’t feel any different from taking them. But I read a report on the news that multi-vitamins help to prevent Alzheimer’s. And my son still takes them.)

I like to put chia in my morning drink but I usually forget. So now you know, if you remember, throw a spoonful of chia seeds in your morning drink. And remember that chia seeds need to either be ground up or soaked in your drink for a few minutes for it to take effect.

After my second son, “Lucrecio”, was born all my hair fell out. Well, not all of it. But it seemed that way. But the worst thing was that it never grew back!

So I started a vigorous hair-growing campaign a few months ago and started bombarding my hair with every kind of daily supplement you can imagine. I upped my natural hair care routine and you can read all about it here.

But of course, I couldn’t improve my hair routine without taking hair vitamins. So I started doing that too.

I began by taking Phytophanère. You can get that at some pharmacies. They are little brown pills with a smooth coating and they taste just so delish, like chocolate candy. I think they’re mainly a vitamin B complex.

I didn’t notice a huge increase in the thickness of my hair but I did seem to get some moderately extra baby hairs. What did happen was that my nails started growing a lot stronger and faster.

I then switched to biotin, 5000 micrograms of biotin and 500 mg of niacin. That did make a difference!

My hair started falling out a lot less. I can’t really tell if a lot more has grown out because I only started taking these vitamins 8 months ago, so if more hair has grown out it’s not really long enough to notice yet. But I think it’s a tad bit thicker on top. Maybe?

And finally I also throw in some omega 3 capsules and a spoonful of brewer’s yeast in the morning drink. Don’t really know if it’s doing anything, but omega 3 is always good for ya, isn’t it?

Since writing this post a few months ago, I’ve since switched to a multiple-B complex. I got it on Amazon. It contains the complete range of all B vitamins, folic acid and a couple other stuff thrown in as well. This makes a huge difference in my life! I now have a lot more energy. Almost as much as a normal person hehe.

I’ve also started taking Lutein, after my ex sister-in-law praised the wonders of lutein to me. She’s selling herbal and vitamin supplements now since losing her job during Covid.

Incidentally, she started selling these vitamins when she found that she was suffering from “long covid”. That is, side effects that just wouldn’t go away.

A neighbour recommended vitamin supplements. She took them, and all her covid symptoms went away!

So now she sells these supplements herself.

So I looked lutein up on the internet. Turns out some sort of study somewhere — I didn’t take note so I can’t cite it — seems to show that people who took lutein after a certain amount of time were 100% free of degenerative eye diseases such as macular degeneration.

On the other hand, the control group, who didn’t take lutein, by the end of the study about 1% had developed some degenerative eye illness.

Degenerative eye diseases are fortunately not very common. Even if you do nothing at all, the chances are great that you will never develop such an illness anyway.

But it never hurts to give your probabilities a little push in the direction that you want, right, heehee?

So I started taking lutein as well, about 10 mg per day.

You can also get lutein from tomatoes. I don’t eat a lot of tomatoes, I’m not particularly fond of tomatoes (or anything acidic, I’ve always been known as the acid girl because I’m so acidic naturally I turn silver black within just a few minutes) and I don’t prepare pasta with tomato sauce nearly as often as I should. So I figure maybe I could be low on lutein.

And finally, because my cat is allergic to pollen, I started taking pollen too.

So, you say. If your cat is allergic to pollen, why do YOU take the pollen? Are you and your cat one and the same?

Well, since affirmations appear to be all the rage these days, we can all go around chanting — and I encourage you to do this every day:

“I and my cat (or dog, if you have a dog) are ONE! I and my cat (or dog) are ONE!”

If you do this every day you will probably start to find that slowly, day by day, you and your cat (or dog) will probably start to merge together into one single being.

Many people swear by this fix. Do try it out.

Well, as I was saying, since my cat is allergic to pollen, I started taking pollen every day.

The reason is because I started giving pollen to my cat, and then I tried it out and I loved the stuff!

(Dunno if it’s helping my cat, some days he appears to be free of allergies and other days he still wheezes. I don’t know if the pollen is doing anything or it’s just simply that some days there is less pollen in the air.)

So now I add half a spoonful of pollen to my morning smoothie every day.

And that basically is what I take every day.

I also try to sneak in some veggies into my diet, a little bit of yoghurt. You know, the usual kinda stuff that your mother was always preaching to you about.

And while you’re on this post, do check out some of my thrillers. You can read all about them here: Thrillers by Moi.

So, do you take supplements? Have you noticed any effect from them? Don’t hesitate to leave me a comment about this down below. I LURRRVE to receive (positive and non-spammy) comments.

If you enjoyed this post (I really hope you do!), maybe you will also like:

A Month at the Gym

Natural Skin and Hair Care Routine

Anti-Vaccinations

Currywurst

Trying Out Solid Conditioner for the First Time

Jan17

As I mentioned in the last post, I’ve been trying to transition to a more ecological, natural, zero waste (or at least low waste) lifestyle.

So today it was time to try out solid conditioner for the first time.

Solid Conditioner

I went no poo and have been using solid shampoo bars and all natural handmade soap for several years now. So I tried to create a zero waste routine with solid shampoo and solid conditioner.

Last week I discovered we actually enjoyed the great good luck of sporting an eco-friendly, zero waste shop right here in my city. So I bought a solid shampoo and a solid conditioner there.

I already have several solid shampoos, so in this case it was just sort of like a matter of trying out a new shampoo, the way most people do every once in a while.

Just as you might at some point wish to try out a new conventional shampoo — say Pantene, for example, or Elvive — so for me getting a solid shampoo was the same. Except these were shampoo bars instead of liquid shampoos in plastic bottles.

However it was the first time I’d ever used a solid conditioner.

So first impressions, what did I think?

Well, I liked the shampoo but it was nothing to write home about, a typical solid shampoo. I’m used to using solid shampoos so it wasn’t anything out of the usual for me.

However the solid conditioner was…….. an experience, let’s say.

I rubbed it on all over my hair like I saw in videos. You can’t just splash a little bit onto the ends the way you would with liquid conditioner. You have to rub it painstakingly into your hair from root to tips.

It certainly is time consuming, it’s not like slapping a liquid on quickly. Perhaps if you have thin hair or short hair or not tangly hair or greasy hair it would be quick. But if you have coarse, long, dry self-tangling hair like me it just does not work. I NEED about 5 litres of liquid conditioner every time to get enough slip to get a wide-toothed comb through.

I did eventually get it detangled. But I think solid conditioner only works for people with short, fine, greasy non tangling hair.

I do admit my hair is by nature more tangly than the average. Because the average person doesn’t need as much liquid conditioner as I do either.

Once I got it detangled my hair did feel good, soft and silky.

But after that I NEEDED styling product. Because if not my hair would be dry and flyaway and staticky.

And I don’t have any all natural zero waste eco styling products. I made flaxseed gel last week and I put it in the fridge but it still went bad. So that really isn’t going to work for me unless I make tiny batches and make up a new batch every time I wash my hair. Because I only wash my hair once a week.

So I just grabbed any old styling cream.

So I dunno. I think I will keep using the solid conditioner, see if I get the knack for it. But if not I will use it up and then I won’t get any more.

Update: After my hair dried I was absolutely BLOWN AWAY by how my hair looked with this new solid conditioner. It was soft, silky, shiny, with shiny, bouncy curls.

I might add that my hair is naturally coarse and thick, rough wiry and very rarely ever looks shiny or silky.

But the most incredible thing about the conditioner was the SCENT!

My hair smelled like perfume.

And not like some chemically, formaldehyde-filled perfume from the department store either.

It smelled fresh and sweet and natural. Like I’d picked up flowers in a field and stuck them into my hair.

The scent lingered.

I don’t know how long the smell will continue to last. But at least for one day, that’s for sure.

Hair After Solid Conditioner

But no, it’s not so shiny and well-defined without help. Here in addition to using solid conditioner I also used a gel.

So I thought I’d give you the details of the solid conditioner I used.

It’s a local brand, so if you live in the US or the UK you probably wouldn’t be able to get it. But then again in the US and the UK you can get about a gazillion other brands that aren’t available here in Spain. One brand I’ve heard good things about (but never tried) is Ethique. It’s from New Zealand I think.

But at any rate, the name is Balsámica Natural Cosmetics.

This conditioner in particular says it’s made with ashwagandha, amla, coconut oil, cocoa butter and essential oils of cedar and rosemary.

Its other ingredients include cetearyl alcohol (an essential ingredient for making conditioners, if you don’t include this the oils won’t wash out of your hair and your hair will be greasy). It’s not a drying alcohol like ethyl alcohol.

So yeah, I would defo try out other solid conditioners by other brands and maybe even other products in this particular range. It’s a Spanish company. They do have an online store, but when I tried to get onto it it was offline. They also have a Facebook page which doesn’t really seem to offer a list of their products anywhere.

However their prices are very reasonable. I don’t remember how much the solid conditioner cost at the store but it was somewhere in the range between 5 and 9 euros.

So how about you? Have you tried solid conditioner before? Or experimented with the zero waste lifestyle? I’d love to hear about your experiences. Do leave me a (positive, non-spammy) comment about it down below.

And if you enjoy reading, especially if you like fiction, I’ve got some exciting thrillers you might want to check out, here at Thrillers By Moi.

If you enjoyed this post (I really hope you do!), maybe you will also like:

Homemade Soap

Bentonite Clay for Hair

All Natural Skincare

Fried Aubergines Lite (Because eating is still fun)

Castile Soap and Coconut Milk for Hair

Oct8

I’d read about using castile soap and coconut milk for hair, and I wanted to give it a shot.

I’ve been on a no ‘poo craze for the past few weeks. Now three weeks since I last dropped a drop of conventional, commercial shampoo on my hair and counting.

I’d recently tried shikakai and bentonite clay for washing my hair, you can read about the results here: Shikakai and Bentonite Clay for Hair.

I was very happy with bentonite clay (not so much the shikakai, but you can read about why in this post on shikakai) but, just as people who use ordinary shampoos have a grand variety of hundreds of shampoos to choose from, why couldn’t we no ‘poo-ers also enjoy that luxury? So I wanted to try out new methods.

I’d used natural, handmade shampoo bars before, but they are hard to get where I live and I have to order online from the US. Well, I’m sure natural, handmade soaps are available online from Europe as well, but I wasn’t going to go to the bother of thumping about all over the internet for them. (I know Lush have them, but some of them contain sodium lauryl sulfate which is a chemical we are definitely trying to avoid.)

I could occasionally find some at handicraft or medieval fairs, but those only come by about once a year and then what will you do to get natural handmade shampoo bars in between?

So I turned to castile soap and coconut milk.

Now, I might add that the famous Dr Bronners castile soap is NOT available here in Spain. Or at least not in my city. Perhaps if you live in Madrid you can find it, you can get anything in Madrid.

But I live several hours away from Madrid, so going shopping there is not an option for me.

However, I could easily get a hold of natural soap bars, castile soap bars. Local housewives here make them with olive oil and sell them to local drugstores for a very low price.

And Jabón Lagarto, another natural choice for those of us who live in Spain (although it’s made from beef tallow so vegetarians might want to avoid it), can be obtained for literally pennies (or, well, cents) at any bazaar or supermarket.

So I decided to melt Jabón Lagarto (but it could have worked just as well with the local handmade olive oil soaps—which, when you come right down to it, is indeed the original pure olive oil soap that gives its name to castile soap (Castile being a region in Spain)) in hot water.

I chose Jabón Lagarto because it is available in soap flakes, whereas if I were to use a bar of local handmade all-natural castile soap, I would have had to grate it by hand, since I don’t own a food processor.

I used a proportion of one cup of soap flakes to one cup of hot water. That turned out to be too much, since it’s a strong soap, and next time I will use only ½ a cup of soap flakes to 4 cups of liquid (taking into account that coconut milk is a liquid too).

When you use too much soap, the resulting liquid soap is not liquid! It’s solid. Hence the need for the right proportion of soap flakes. But if you use too much, just add more liquid.

I boiled 2 cups of water on the stove. Then I poured in the soap flakes and stirred and stirred and stirred. I took the water off the stove, but the soap didn’t melt and in the end I had to leave it simmering on the stove on low heat.

When all the soap had melted, I poured in a can of coconut milk. The can contained 2 cups of coconut milk, thus making a total of 4 cups of water and 1 cup of soap flakes. When it cooled down, it was solid, and I needed to pour in 3 more cups of water to get it to the consistency that I wanted. Hence, the correct proportion, at least for my soap, was ½ cup of soap to 4 cups of liquid.

The original mixture was a semi-transparent pale yellow liquid, sort of like thick apple juice. But with the addition of the coconut milk, when it dried it turned into a thick white liquidy thing.

I poured it into empty shampoo bottles that we happened to have lying around.

You can also add in a few drops of oil or essential oils for added benefits and fragrance. I’m too lazy to do that haha.

However, you can read up on a few of the natural, plant-based oils that I use in skin care in this post:

Last night I washed my hair—just my scalp, not the length—with a few drops of this natural liquid soap. And the results?

Hair Castile Soap Coconut Milk

I love my hair! It’s soft, bouncy, doesn’t feel or look in the least bit greasy and my curls are well defined.

Castile soap with coconut milk is definitely going to form a regular part of my natural, no ‘poo hair care arsenal.

And in addition, I’m now getting my kids to wash their skin and hair with the natural liquid soap that I made, so we get the additional benefit of weaning the whole family off of chemicals.

And while we’re at it, not to sound like a sleazy saleslady but I’ve written a few thrillers so, if you’re into creepy, scary, suspenseful novels, I’d love it if you’d check them out, here: Thrillers by Moi.

So what about you? Have you tried the no ‘poo method yet? Are you also weaning your family off of chemicals? What results have you been getting? Do tell tell! As you know, I LURRVE to receive (positive, non-spammy) comments!

Hair Castile Soap Coconut Milk

If you enjoyed this post (I really hope you do!), maybe you will also like:

Henna

Bentonite Clay

Thrillers by Moi

Anti-Vaccinations: Dying To Be Natural

Bentonite Clay for Hair

Sep10

I’d been trying a few no ‘poo methods, and bentonite clay was my latest.

As I explained in this post, Going No ‘Poo, I’ve recently been on, as you can gather, a no ‘poo craze.

In previous posts, I’ve described a few of the other methods I’d tried, and clay was up next.

I’ve already been hennaing and oiling my hair for ages. But I was still using regular shampoo and conditioner.

Well, to tell the truth, I’d tried natural shampoo bars for a while, but although I was quite pleased with the results, they were fairly hard for me to get a hold of, as they are (surprise! surprise!) not sold in physical shops here in Spain (or at least not in my city, which might surprise no one since I don’t live in a major, large city).

So I started doing research on the internet into no ‘poo methods. Of course, in addition to bentonite clay, one of the first suggestions I encountered was baking soda and apple cider vinegar. The classical no ‘poo panacea.

However, I’d tried that once for about three weeks and my hair ended up a dry, tangled, straw-like, birds-nest mess. (Nope, no oily transitioning period for me, just dry dry dry!) So I gave that up.

(I’ve since read that often curly hair just doesn’t agree with baking soda. Of course, that is not the case with everyone, but it clearly does not agree with me.)

Looking into the internet a bit more, I discovered posts which explain that baking soda does indeed have a tendency to dry your hair out due to its extreme alkalinity. Now, our skin and scalp are naturally acidic, so extreme alkalinity is, needless to say, absolutely no good for us and just the opposite of what nature intended for us.

I figure, baking soda would probably still work for people with oily scalps and hair, but my hair is naturally thick, coarse, wiry and dry as a whistle (or perhaps a thistle hehe). So it only stood to reason that it wouldn’t work for me.

Then, I read about bentonite clay and rhassoul (pronounced grrrassoul, like a growl deep in your throat). (Just showing off that I once studied Arabic for a few days haha.)

I couldn’t find any place to get a hold of rhassoul (or ghassoul as some spell it) here in my city, but I wandered into my friendly neighbourhood health food store, where I usually buy my henna, and lo and behold! was I ever in luck! They just happened to carry a huge, transparent plastic sack full of bentonite clay.

Needless to say, I immediately made off with it.

Bentonite Clay Hair

(Okay it just turns out to be the same colour as the wall behind it but not much I can do about that, our walls are all this same colour!)

Since I’d just hennaed my hair a few days ago, and henna can be drying (although I didn’t find that to be the case with me), I decided to oil my hair. But since I was going no ‘poo, I needed something strong enough, but that would still be natural, to get out all the oil.

Would bentonite clay do the trick?

Well, I tried it. After all, mud (because, when you come right down to it, that is just what clay is: mud) is famous for getting off all the oil from a place. It just sucks it right up.

Bentonite clay also sucks up all the toxins, lousy chemicals, toxic heavy metals, dirt and filth in your hair, so it serves not only for shampooing your hair but also for deep cleansing it.

That is why sometimes people on a detox regime will take bentonite clay internally (that is, they swallow it). I haven’t tried that yet, but it probably wouldn’t be a bad idea. After all, I’m sure one of the main factors contributing to the development of cancer is all the toxins we are surrounded by and eat.

So, I stuck several spoonfuls of clay into a plastic bowl (use more or less depending on how much hair you have) and mixed it purely with apple cider vinegar.

Don’t use a metal bowl or metal utensils, since I’ve just mentioned that this clay sucks up anything metallic, such as heavy metals, and you don’t want it getting activated by your bowl. You want it to get activated by the metals in your hair.

I made a paste a bit thicker than yoghurt, because I don’t like it to drip. I let it sit a few minutes and took it with me into the shower.

I wet my hair. Then covered it with the muddy bentonite clay mixture from root to tips and let it sit five minutes. Be sure not to let it dry out, so it will be easier to wash out afterwards.

It was the same as what I do when I henna my hair, but much faster and easier, because I didn’t have to worry about drips or staining my skin/the bathtub/the shower curtains etc.

After that, I just rinsed it out thoroughly with warm water. And that was it!

I didn’t even need to condition or detangle, since my hair came out naturally untangled. Just a bit of finger-combing was all that I needed.

Now, I do have to add, my hair is usually the ultimate self-tangling, birds-nest Medusa locks that twist around by themselves like snakes and tangle themselves up all by themselves. But with the bentonite clay, as with the shikakai, it didn’t tangle at all!

So, did it work to get the oil out? Well, see for yourselves:

Hair Bentonite Clay Henna

I am definitely incorporating bentonite clay and rhassoul (when I can get a hold of some) into my regular hair-care routine.

Well, what about you? Have you tried clay, rhassoul, baking soda or any other no ‘poo methods? Do tell tell! As you know, I LURRVE to receive (positive, non-spammy) comments!

Hair Bentonite Clay Henna

If you enjoyed this post (I really hope you do!), maybe you will also like:

Shikakai: My Recent Experiment

Going No ‘Poo

All Natural Skincare

Thrillers by Moi

Shikakai: My Recent Experiment

Aug27

This is my recent experience with shikakai.

No, Shikakai is not the name of an exotic new boyfriend (although I wish it were haha, not only am I in the mood for a boyfriend but if, in addition, he’s exotic too, that would be really icing on the cake haha).

It’s the name of an Indian herb that is used a lot in Ayurvedic medicine as well as for natural hair care.

I’d just henna-ed my hair, and I was so thrilled with the results once again—as I always am every time I henna my hair, which I don’t do often enough—that I got into a completely natural hair care craze, and started looking up all sorts of ways that I could care for my hair in a more natural manner, and avoid carcinogenic, toxic and aging chemicals.

I’m pretty natural in my hair care routine already as it is. I frequently oil my hair, as I describe in this post on hair oiling. But I was still using all these chemical-laden shampoos filled with sodium lauryl sulphate and silicones, that you can buy in any drugstore or supermarket.

I was looking to reduce the amount of chemicals that I was using even more. Then I discovered Indian Ayurvedic herbs.

I already knew about these herbs and was in the habit of using them when I lived in Barcelona. There they have a large Indian/Pakistani community, so there are several Indian grocery stores where they sell Indian products. There I could buy amla, shikakai, brahmi, aritha and any other Indian herbs that I liked whenever I wanted.

But when I arrived here in Malaga, I found it was impossible to obtain these herbs here as there are NO Indian or Pakistani people, hence no demand for Indian products, so they are not sold here. (I’ve been told there’s an Indian food store in Fuengirola, on the Costa del Sol, but that is far from where carless-me lives.)(And if I did have a car I’d be discouraged from using it to go to Fuengirola by the hassle of trying to find a parking space haha.)

But now I am in seventh heaven and have started to use these Ayurvedic herbs again, because I’ve now discovered that I can buy them online.

There are several shops that sell them on the internet now here in Europe. One I discovered fairly recently is called Bazar Al-Andalus. They have a huge array of products and an amazing blog as well, in which they describe in detail about all the different uses of Indian and North African natural cosmetics.

Their service is also THE MOST ASTOUNDING I have EVER encountered EVER in any online store in my whole entire life. I recently ordered a few vegetable-based, lead-free kohls from them, an experience which I hope to describe in a future post.

WITHIN LESS THAN 24 HOURS AFTER MAKING MY ORDER, I was already holding the products in my own hands, having had them delivered personally to my door.

Okay, I suppose maybe it helped a bit that they are located in Granada, which is only an hour’s drive from Malaga.

But even so, no one is obliged to send you your order with such unheard-of expediency.

So due to that, I would highly recommend this online shop to anyone who happens to be living in Spain (they deliver nationally and internationally with very reasonable shipping rates) and would like to live a more natural way of life.

However, I’ve now discovered a site that sells Indian herbs—and also a larger variety of them as well—at a much more reasonable price, called Aromazone. I haven’t tried them out yet, but I may put up a post about them in the future if I do.

(Edited to add that Aromazone has quite a high shipping rate to Spain, 8 euros. So I think Bazar Al-Andalus will still be my natural and ethnic online store of choice for the moment, especially for smaller orders.)

All right, so on to my experience with the herb “shikakai” in particular.

I just washed my hair with shikakai, even though it’s only been 2 days since I’ve hennaed and you are supposed to wait 3 days before washing, in order to give the henna more time to bind to your hair. But I just couldn’t wait any longer hehe. I was so impatient to try out shikakai and see how it made my hair look.

This is what the box I bought in Barcelona looks like. It’s from the brand name Hesh, a very common brand in India. But you can find it from many brands on the internet.

Shikakai Hair Indian Ayurvedic Herbs

In many sites on the internet they tell you that regular use will strengthen the roots, make hair grow thicker, stronger and shinier, and nourish it with minerals. It looks like carob beans.

Shikakai Indian Ayurvedic Herbs

It’s very easy to prepare a paste with shikakai. You simply take some of the powder and mix it with warm water in a non-metallic dish, such as a porcelain, glass or plastic bowl. This is what the powder looks like.

Shikakai Powder Hair Indian Ayurvedic Herbs

Shikakai turns into a very dark brown paste like dark chocolate and it smells a bit weird, but not a bad weird. Similar to henna, a sort of plant-y, earthy, black tea smell.

You let it sit for about 5 minutes, then take it into your shower with you. Wet your hair. Then cover it all over with the shikakai paste, working it in with your hands.

Let it sit for 5 minutes (during which time you can be doing your face, your toes, your fingers…… whatever it is you usually do in your shower haha). Then simply rinse out. Conditioner is not necessary after that.

I don’t think I will be doing this too often, though, because it takes too long for me to do it. I need to use a lot because I have a lot of hair and it’s long.

So what is my verdict and what are my impressions now that my hair is completely dry and styled? (Ie. it has styled itself haha, as I never style it, just let it dry and it falls into its own style by itself.)

Hair With Shikakai and Henna

The hair LOOKS great. It’s very shiny and bouncy, much better looking than when I’ve used a drying chemical- and sodium-lauryl-sulphate-filled shampoo. It has more volume than just after I’ve washed with a shampoo. It does FEEL nice and soft and silky, which is always a plus since my thick, coarse, wiry, straw-like hair never feels silky.

However, it also feels drier than after I’d hennaed. After I hennaed I just used conditioner. However, the roots look great, with volume and oil-free.

So maybe shikakai is better for oilier hair and not as good for dry hair? Maybe for me conditioner-only washing (co-washing) is better since I have dry hair?

Or perhaps I should only use shikakai on the roots, and use conditioner on the lengths. My friend has been only washing her hair with conditioner for several months and she is delighted. The trick is to use the very cheap, large-format conditioners since these have the least ingredients and therefore less chemicals.

So I am not that impressed with shikakai, mainly because of the smell. It smells horrible!

Well, okay. It doesn’t smell that bad. But it’s not what people would call fragrant either. It has a scent of black tea, and that’s not something you want to walk around smelling like all the time. And this when I’d rinsed it out well, too, and the water was even coming out clear.

At any rate, I don’t think I’ll be using shikakai that much in the end, mainly because of the smell. Maybe I’ll use it once every few washings. I don’t wash my hair very often, usually only twice a week, as it’s long and dry.

Maybe I’d just use the shikakai when I do hair oiling, to remove all the oil instead of using shampoo for that, as it seems it would indeed remove all the oil.

(I’ve since discovered that bentonite clay is much better for that. And it doesn’t leave a funky, horrible smell the way shikakai does.)

Another natural alternative I was thinking of was to use Jabón Lagarto to remove the oil when I oiled my hair, but in the end perhaps shikakai would work for that, as it seems quite astringent.

So how about you? Have you ever tried Indian herbs or other natural hair cleansers in place of shampoo? What have been your experiences? Feel free to leave me a comment about your experiences. As you know, I LURRVE to receive (positive, non-spammy) comments!

If you enjoyed this post (I really hope you do!), maybe you will also like:

Going No ‘Poo

Henna

Proper Hair Oiling For Long, Drop-Dead Gorgeous Locks

Thrillers by Moi