- Natural Hair - Get Creative With Homemade
Recipes
- by Elle Paris
Do you wear your hair natural?
No lye? As many will tell you, once you make a change to go natural
your hair regimen must also change. This frequently includes
an adjustment to the types of products you use on your coils.
A number of your old stand-bys may no longer lend you the same
results on your kinks as they did on your straight hair.
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Product junkies will agree --
you can spend hundreds of dollars testing out the numerous products
available on the market, many of which are supposedly intended
for natural hair use. However, breaking the bank is really not
necessary for a healthy, strong and shiny natural. You already
have key ingredients in your own kitchen and bathroom!
Creating your own hair recipes
not only saves money, but allows for a more intimate relationship
with your hair -- you can gain a much better insight as to what
your hair craves, prefers, or rejects with your at-home experiments.
Get creative! There are a few
simple rules to follow to find your perfect concoctions:
* Don't mix too many things at
once. Start out with simple recipes, say, mixing one main ingredient
and adding a small amount of another. It's much easier to determine
what worked and what didn't when your ingredients list is limited. |
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* Create two-ingredient mixes
and try them until you find a mix that works well on your hair.
If it's a "perfect" mix, continue using it! If it's
a "pretty good" mix, retry the recipe with the same
main ingredient then alter the secondary ingredient until you
reach perfection. You may find you need to reverse the amounts
used, making the main ingredient the secondary ingredient.
* If there is one particular
ingredient you find most always works well on your hair, make
it a staple for your hair recipes, adding it as a standard part
of all your recipes.
* Alter the way you apply the
mixes to your hair. Try dousing your hair with your Super Yogurt
Surprise while your hair is drenching wet in the shower. Does
it work well this way? Try another time by making it a bit more
liquidy and spritz it on your dried hair with a spray bottle.
Perhaps your hair responds better to this application.
* For ingredients, a general
rule of thumb is if it's ok to ingest, it's probably ok to apply
to your hair as well. Pureed fruit, honey, apple cider vinegar
and many more items are great additions to homemade hair recipes.
* Take note of what works for
you and how it worked. Some recipes may be better for clarifying
while others make for great deep conditioners.
* Search and compare! If you're
a little timid about applying egg whites to your hair, make use
of resources available to you before doing so. Search the Internet
for your particular ingredients. You just may find others who
have tried the same type of recipe and enjoyed success or experienced
a nightmare.
* Go beyond your kitchen! Many
cities have well-stocked health food and natural stores with
a huge selection of ingredients to boost your hair recipes. Experiment
with essential oils (a few drops go a long way!), xanthum gum
(a thickener, also known as xanthan), as well as conditioners
and leave-ins you won't likely find at department stores and
drug stores.
Remember, a recipe failure is
a good thing. It lets you know what your hair simply does not
respond to well. The worst likely thing that can happen with
the use of your homemade products is the need to wash your hair
again, so get creative!
Note: Use of homemade mixes for coloring of hair is
not recommended. |
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