Tag Archive | natural lifestyle

My Henna Mix

Continuing on the subject of hair care as I’ve been doing for the past few months, I thought I’d share the current henna mix that I’m using these days.

Of course, when you mix up your henna you can always just use the pure powdered henna leaf all by itself and that’s just groovy.

But I like to enrich my mixture with other Ayurvedic herbs as well. I think it really helps to strengthen the hair more, make it thicker as well as conditioning the scalp and stimulating hair growth.

But I wouldn’t know if that’s really true. However you can read up about how I’ve grown my hair back after postpartum hair loss…….. that never recovered.

I do experiment a lot. So three months from now I might not be stirring up the same mix anymore.

But today, these are the ingredients of my henna mix:

I have long, thick hair. So I need a total of about 300g of powder.

200g pure henna
50g cassia obovata

I use cassia because since my hair is black you can’t see the henna in it at all. Nope, none at all. Cassia helps to lighten the colour a bit, I don’t know how or why it works but it does.

I also use cassia so the henna doesn’t loosen my curls, because I love my curls!

50g manjistha

Manjistha is an herb that dyes red. It turns my hair a brilliant ruby red. I love it!

spoonful of brahmi
spoonful of bhringraj
spoonful of powdered hibiscus
dash of apple cider vinegar
a good squirt of aloe vera gel
hibiscus infusion
few drops essential oils

I mix all the powders together in a non-metallic pot except manjistha. I squirt in the vinegar and aloe vera gel.

In a saucepan I infuse hibiscus petals by boiling them in hot water. I can find these at any herb shop.

When the water is hot (but not boiling) I pour it into the henna and, using a plastic spoon (but any non-metallic spoon will do like bamboo, wood, porcelain etc.), I mix it up until it’s a smooth, dense paste.

Then I let it sit for dye release.

Different types of henna require different dye release times.

My trick for obtaining intense ruby red hair is to dye release for about 8 hours, then store the henna in the fridge until I’m ready to use it.

This seems to bring out intense tones.

Dye releasing for shorter periods of time seems to bring out a lighter, more coppery shade. Which is also cool, sometimes one does feel like a change after all.

An hour before I want to apply the henna, I pour manjistha into a small bowl. I like to add a pinch of baking soda, they say it makes for a bluer red. I don’t know if it’s true but it never seemed to hurt.

Then I add more of the hibiscus infusion I used in the henna. Manjistha only needs to sit for about half an hour to release its gorgeous, scintillating colour.

When I’m ready to apply the henna I mix in the manjistha and stir it all up together. Add a few drops of whichever essential oils I feel like.

I don’t use essential oils for the fragrance. Personally I enjoy the smell of henna. I’ve learnt to associate it with anticipating beautiful hair haha.

I use essential oils to help the henna stick to the greys which I unfortunately sport now. Fortunately, though, I don’t sport too many hehe.

And now henna is ready to apply.

And here is the result:

Oh and by the way I purchase henna and Ayurvedic herbs from one of the many online shops that have sprung up since covid began. It has become a lot easier thanks to online shopping now to find these products than, say, 5 years ago.

You can just do a google search for these herbs. Or if you are in the US I have heard that Henna Sooq is a really neat online store where they sell everything mentioned in this post. I’ve never purchased from them before, after all I am not in the US. But if you are, I’ve heard that they are good.

So do you have your own favourite henna mix? Don’t hesitate to share it with me in the comments down below.

And while you’re sitting around waiting for the dye to act in your hair, why don’t you read one of my thriller novels? 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:

Natural Skin and Hair Care Routine

B entonite Clay for Hair

Andalucía cuatro de la tarde

Currywurst

How to Grow Your Hair Back

Mar6

Look at what a wonderful hair part I’ve got now.

I look at it and I’m so surprised myself.

For years and years and years I had such a sparse part. It was sooo wide and bare and bald and there was just a little bit of hair and the hair was soooo thin.

I think I’ve grown the part hair back so nice and thick and dense in just the short time since covid began, because that’s when it occurred to me to get proactive and actually actively do things to try and get my hair back, after sitting around watching hair vids all day long since I didn’t have to go out to work anymore.

So this is what I think helped me the most to grow my hair back:

I think what was most effective was taking hair vitamins.

If you want more hair and you only have time to do one thing, I would definitely recommend you take HAIR VITAMINS.

I shuffle my hair vits around all the time. I started with Phytophanère and it was good.

Then I changed to biotin and niacin and it was even better.

Then I started taking a vitamin B complex that has all the B vitamins and that is even better.

I remember as a child I had suuuuch thick hair, and I took multivitamins every day.

I guess no matter how well they eat the average person just doesn’t get enough vitamins in their diet.

I’ve developed a habit of regular hair oiling.

Before, I did oil my hair occasionally. I knew it was good for hair but I could never find the time to do it. Sometimes I went months without hair oiling.

Now I do it every week.

I have a whole article on hair oiling. Basically I have my own homemade scalp oil. It’s made from macerating a spoonful of brahmi, a spoonful of bhringraj, a spoonful of alkanet root oil and a pinch of dried rosemary in olive oil. I combine that with castor oil and some essential oils and massage my scalp with that every week.

For the lengths I like to use just olive oil and coconut oil. Nothing fancy. I don’t go out of my way to dig up exotic oils I can’t get from my local supermarket.

I try to do this every week. Since I’ve started doing henna glosses I now oil my hair every 2 weeks. And the week I don’t oil my hair I either use a henna gloss or I henna my hair.

And finally I’m crazy about henna and I henna my hair a lot.

I see most people who henna their hair regularly usually have lots of hair. Even older people who would normally have thinning hair, frequent at their age, if they henna regularly they always have lots of hair.

Personally, I was always hennaing my hair regularly and still I suffered from the bald, thinning part. So I don’t think it’s the henna by itself that made the hair thicker.

But I’m sure henna helps. And combined with everything else I’ve been doing, well, it works.

Other than this I’m really not hiding any other secrets on how to grow your hair back. I’m still using the same solid shampoos I’ve been using for years.

And I almost always use a hair mask instead of conditioner after shampooing.

I do use leave-in’s and curling products, but that’s probably not necessary if you don’t have curly hair.

I started applying Ron Quina (more about this miracle product in a future post…… maybe) but I only started recently, maybe a month ago when I discovered it from a video. And I rarely ever remember to apply it so I don’t think it’s been able to do too much so far to help my hair grow.

I did also start carrying out regular scalp massages, almost every night. I’m sure that helped. I don’t use any oil or products, just a massage. When I remember to apply Ron Quina I do the massage with Ron Quina. But I don’t apply Ron Quina very often.

My son Ermenegildo also uses Ron Quina, he hopes it will prevent male baldness.

Ron Quina has been around for about a century and many men swear by it, they say they never suffered from male baldness thanks to Ron Quina. So I think it is worth a try, if you are constant and consistent to use it.

So do you have any hair growth tips you’d like to share? Don’t hesitate to leave me some comments, I lurrrve (positive, non-spammy) comments.

And if you’d like to read about something more exciting than plain old hair, I’d love it if you’d check out my thrillers. You can do so at this website: Thrillers by Moi.

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

Daily Supplements

My Thoughts on the Zero Waste Sustainable Lifestyle

The Meaning of a Friendship

Photographs From a Typical Day In a Life

Life is Complicated When You Use Natural Products

Dec26

I wish my life could be as simple as that of “normal” people, like my ex.

Natural Red Flowers and Natural Products

My ex doesn’t use anything natural or ecological. He just goes to the supermarket and buys what everyone else buys.

He washes his laundry with any generic brand (supermarket brand) of detergent, whichever brand is cheapest, and uses generic brand fabric softener which in addition smells good. He doesn’t complicate his life.

He showers with regular shower gel and washes his hair (what little he has left) with regular sulphate shampoos. He doesn’t use conditioner, but then again he doesn’t have much hair to condition. (Har har I’m so mean aren’t I hehe?) He doesn’t use henna or colour his hair and it’s peppery hair.

But then again as they say I guess once you wake up (become aware) you can never UN-awaken again or become unaware again.

Unaware of all the harmful synthetic chemicals that they put in all the products that we use like in laundry detergent, fabric softener or shampoos.

Unaware of how harmful these synthetic chemicals are both for your health as well as for the environment. Unaware that going as natural as possible is the best thing you can do both for your health as well as for the world.

And you can see the results in the health of both my ex as well as his father. Ex has hardly any hair left. Of course I realize that is hereditary.

But maybe a healthier diet, lifestyle and healthier hair care might have made him go bald more slowly or even stopped him from going bald. I certainly know I DEFO have more hair and thicker hair since I started doing things to take care of it.

My hair has certainly come a long way since it was strawlike and fried years ago from monthly hair dyes dyeing it red. Before I discovered henna, I used to use a home hair dyeing kit in a box that was supposed to be more “natural” since it was supposed to be herbal. Well there was nothing herbal about it it was full of harmful chemicals. Maybe it had like a drop of herbs in it haha.

It just seems to me that my life is so much more complicated than my ex’s. He doesn’t wash his clothes with soap nuts, nor put baking soda, washing soda, ammonia and soap flakes into his laundry. He doesn’t wash his hair with solid shampoo, spend hours oiling it and whole days hennaing it.

I’d like to be able to live like him. I’d like to just throw the clothes into the washing machine, dump in some detergent pods and pour a bit of fabric softener into the fabric softener compartment and then just forget about it.

But I can’t do that anymore. Now I know all the junk that’s in laundry detergent, and that’s getting on your skin every time you put on your clothes washed in laundry detergent, and now that I know how bad laundry detergent is for the environment and how it’s killing fish and birds, I just can’t do that anymore.

I wish I could. It would make life so much easier, but I can’t. I wish I could continue to live in blissful ignorance.

But once you become aware you just can’t become UN-aware anymore.

Of course you could also not care. Ex probably sometimes hears about how laundry detergent is bad for lakes and fish and stuff, but he probably just doesn’t care.

I’ve been using soap nuts now I think for about 6 months. And it’s not as simple as using laundry detergent. I have to put the soap nuts in a jar of very hot water for about half an hour in order to activate them before doing the laundry. You can see already it’s more complicated using soap nuts than laundry detergent.

Then after half an hour, when the soap nuts have been activated and have started releasing soap, I throw the sack of soap nuts into the washing machine and also pour in the hot water that was in the jar with the soap nuts. Then I pour in a ton of water into the washing machine because I have a high efficiency front loader — the most popular type here in Europe I guess — and the reason it’s high efficiency is it hardly uses any water. But soap nuts need water to activate. So I have to manually pour in lots of water.

After that I just let wash as normal. But if the load is quite dirty and greasy then I do another cycle with ammonia before the soap nuts. Because soap nuts don’t work well with very greasy clothes. So you can see already that it’s more complicated than using laundry detergent.

But I think the results are worth it. Because then after that I know we are wearing clothes that have no harmful chemicals in them that can get into your skin. We didn’t throw anything down the drain that will later kill fish and birds. And it’s very cheap to boot.

And nothing feels like clothes that have been washed with only soap nuts. Clothes have a softness, mmmmmmmmmmmhhhhhhh, like you’ve never felt before not even with fabric softener. They feel like LIQUID CLOTHES that is how SOFT they feel.

But once again if you are a normal person you probably don’t care if your clothes are soft or not. And you’re probably not thinking too much about wildlife and all these strange and unknown plants and flowers out there. After all, animals and plants you never see have nothing to do with you anyway, right?

I read somewhere that if animals died, humans would die too. Because we depend on them in order to stay alive.

And I’m not just talking about how some people can’t live without steak or lamb chops either haha. But I’ll get off the soap box now. I’m sure everyone already knows all about this stuff.

Moving on to the category of hair care. My ex has hardly any hair left, but you really can’t tell how much of it is due to heredity and how much is (slack) hair care and lifestyle. I told him there are things you can do to not go as bald but he said he’s just given up.

I know there is some medicine you can take that prevents going bald even if you suffer from hereditary baldness. I used to work at a hair clinic and the doctor told me that. He said he himself takes that medicine and he has some of the thickest hair I’ve ever seen on a man his age.

And I told ex that. But he said he’s given up on his hair.

And then people say when women get old they lose their hair too and it gets weak and fragile and thin and breaks easily and falls off. And so I am fighting against that. Genetics helps, I’m blessed with very thick coarse hair so it doesn’t get as fragile and thin as easily.

But you still have to WORK to have great hair, especially after a certain age or certain life events (ie. pregnancy haha).

I still look at the hair I have today and the hair I had before my oldest son “Ermenegildo” was born and really, there’s no comparison. It doesn’t even look like the same hair.

I did have pretty thick hair before Ermenegildo was born too. But it was so strawlike and dry and damaged and fried from using hair dye every month. It had no shine at all and it looked stiff and hard. It did have a nice colour, it was redder than it is now because you can get a stronger colour on dark hair with artificial dyes than with henna.

But it was so stiff and dry. Today I have such soft hair and it’s shiny and has big bouncy curls.

But I do have to work harder than my ex to have that kind of hair. I have to henna every month because I do have grey hairs now, and also it is what I have to do if I want red hair and I am not a natural redhead.

I do try sometimes to go back to a simpler routine of just throwing in some laundry detergent into the washing machine and some fabric conditioner.

But then I KNOW all the gunk that is in the clothes, even if they come out soft thanks to the fabric conditioner and they smell nice. But I still KNOW all the gunk that is in the clothes and that will then go into your skin and then into your blood.

Laundry detergent is full of chemicals that can cause cancer and even if they don’t give you cancer they can still contribute to all kinds of medical conditions like heart probs, diabetes, high blood pressure, arteriosclerosis and a long list of etc’s.

Now that I KNOW what laundry detergent does to you when you wear it, well I mean when you wear clothes that have been washed in it, you just can’t NOT know about it anymore. And I KNOW what is in clothes that have been washed with laundry detergent.

And so on with everything else in life.

Which makes life complicated when you use natural products.

And I’d always wanted a simple life. But I guess we do not live in a simple world.

If you’d like to read about more complicated things in life, such as complicated and twisty plotlines, I’d love it if you checked out some of my thrillers. You can read about them here: Thrillers by Moi.

So do you use natural products? Do you find it complicates your life? Do leave me some comments down below. I LURRRVE to receive (positive, non-spammy) comments.

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

The New Mask-Filled World to Come

Soapmaking

Rain

Harira Makin’