Okay, for a long time, I’ve slowly been trying to go green. While there are still a lot of things that need improvement in that direction, when I clean I now make my own green cleansers, and I use green dish detergent for the dish washer, and a green dish soap. I make my own facial cleanser, and use baking soda with spearmint oil to brush my teeth. I am using the greener alternative to the laundry detergent and spot remover, but I had old shampoo and conditioner I was using up. (And I’ve been using it up for a LONG time since I had purchased a very big bottle before I decided to go green in Kansas City. I had purchased a HUGE bottle of Aussie Moisture Shampoo when I was living in Prescott, WI which we moved out of in Jan, ’09. So as you can see I was using that bottle a LONG time.) I really liked how the Aussie shampoo worked with their 3 Minute Miracle Conditioner. I liked how the combination of them kept my long hair (okay it’s now below my waist in length when I leave it down) feeling healthy while cleaning them.
But even the Aussie shampoo had ingredients that really aren’t that great for you. So I had decided that when I finished the bottle I attempt to make my own shampoo. Well I finally finished the bottle, so it was time to live up to the promise to myself. For one shower/shampoo I found myself in too much of a hurry to find a recipe I liked and use it. So instead I used the Sauve shampoo and conditioner that my husband prefers which were on hand. I quickly remembered why I liked the Aussie 3 Minute Miracle Conditioner much better than the generic ones. My straight hair felt rough and almost frizzy like. It was also harder to comb and brush; I just really didn’t like how it felt. So I knew next time I would have to something different.
Online searching doesn’t yield many varieties of recipes, in fact I think there is only about a half dozen that are repeated on many, many websites. So I went to the library and picked up a couple of books again. I have used a few recipes by Janice Cox before and I liked them so I picked up a couple of her books, Natural Beauty from the Garden and Natural Beauty at Home. Inside I found a recipe that to me didn’t seem like a shampoo at all since it didn’t use any soap. The recipe was called Old-Fashioned Rosewater Shampoo, and instead it had something which I had heard for a very long time is a good conditioner for the hair, egg. Basically it uses rose water, apple cider vinegar and egg. (To see the actual portions please check out Natural Beauty from the Gardenby Janice Cox.)
I wasn’t sure how my hair would feel when I used the recipe. It sounded so strange to not have any type of soap in it. It certainly didn’t make any lather like most of us are used to when washing our hair. I massaged it into my scalp as directed and worked it through the rest of my hair. It makes enough so that you massage it through your hair twice, and I followed the suggestion of leaving it on 15 minutes the second time for more conditioning. Now I’m not sure if it was exactly 15 minutes. I just did my normal routine, wash my hair first and wash the rest of me in the shower while my hair is conditioning (this time with the egg mixture), then a final rinse just before I exit the shower. The only other thing I made sure to do was to rinse my hair with cool to warm water instead of hot. (I certainly didn’t want to end up with pieces of cooked egg in my hair, which I didn’t.)
While I wasn’t sure if my hair would feel clean after massaging this egg mixture into my scalp, it turns out that my hair/scalp does actually feel clean. I also like the feeling/texture of my hair after using this concoction. it was easy to comb out, and once my hair was dry it brushes easily. Now to see how long my hair feels clean after using it, since I just used to yesterday. I usually try to go 3 or more days before washing my hair again, so we’ll have to see how long this lasts. I’ll also have to see if I like how things work repeating this shampoo again and again. Sometimes you do need to switch up your cleaning routine, but I’ll know more later. I guess I’ll have to keep eggs on hand to clean my hair now….