Find Your Real 'Do With Homemade Shampoo!

Since June 5, I have been making homemade shampoo from olive oil soap, water, and herbs.

My hair took to its natural state with great success after only about a week of experimentation with my foolproof potion. Now I'm convinced that the world as we know it would explode if all women started making their own shampoo. Think about it:

• Making shampoo means not buying shampoo. Shampoo corporations go out of business and huge conglomerates end up foundering.
• Realizing how beautiful and healthy hair is in its natural state without any synthetic additives means buying fewer, or no, other hair products. More foundering.
• Healthy, natural, beautiful hair makes made-up faces look silly and using other synthetic beauty products feel silly. Commence the trashing of all synthetic beauty products in your living space and refusal to endorse such products again. Founder, founder, founder.
• Discovering what hair, faces, skin, and lips look like, naturally, will be a shock. A good one. Leading to natural women everywhere getting really pissed that these foundering corporations have been controlling our appearances and emotions since puberty. Damnit!
• Natural women will tell all their friends, and the ripple effect will make waves of change throughout the product-obsessed world. I started making my own because two of my best friends dropped some "Natty Knowledge" on me and took the anti-beauty routine plunge first. I watched their natty endeavors and decided I believed in them, too.

So here I am, to start a revolution... Read on!

1.Think about your hair and its personality. Ask if it's curly or straight, dry or oily, long or short, brittle or strong, frizzy or smooth? Just like synthetic, store-bought shampoos, your homemade brew can be crafted to suit the needs of your hair. Below is a list of herbs that will maintain the beauty of your hair. Don't be shy. You can mix and match. My hair is long, fine, wavy, and a bit on the oily side. Since my first batch, I've been sailing along with chamomile, nettle, sage, and rosemary.

• Normal Hair: red clover, chamomile, horsetail, marigold, rosemary, and crushed lavender flowers.
• Oily Hair: dried leaves of peppermint, rosemary, burdock, nettle, tea tree, orris roots, and lemongrass.
• Dry Hair: red clover, elder flower, comfrey leaf or root, crushed lavender flower, crushed orange flower, chamomile flower, jojoba oil, and marigold.
• Black Curly Hair: ,sage, nettle leaves, crushed lavender flowers, comfrey leaves, jojoba oil, indigo root and rosemary leaves.

2. Check your house for the items below, or go to your local health store (Essene Market on 4th and Monroe is closest to my new place, but Newark Natural Foods started it all). If you don't have one of these close by, Whole Foods Market, or in some cases, Target, will have the ingredients you need. You can probably also buy most of these things online. Thank you, Internet:

• 1 bottle Dr Bronner's castile soap, available in Peppermint, Lavender, Almond (my choice so far), Tea Tree, Eucalyptus, Unscented Baby-Mild, Rose and Citrus Orange. It's Fair Trade, certified organic, 100% biodegradable, and comes in 100% post-consumer recycled bottles with ridiculous writing scrawled all over them. In addition, you'll find that you can use this soap for myriad things--hair, body, dishes, mopping, house cleaning, cars, etc. And, since it's meant to be heavily diluted, it ends up being super cheap in the long-run. Basically, it's the shit. 
• Herbs that you're going to test out. If you can get these loose, it will probably be much cheaper, and you decide how much you need.
• White vinegar or inexpensive coffee, ground.
  
• Tea kettle or small saucepan with lid.
• Tea strainer or colander.
• 2 storage bottles, preferably with squeezy-tops. Suggestions: old, washed out shampoo/conditioner bottles; small, empty liquor bottles, or picnic-style ketchup and mustard containers from the dollar store or party section of many stores.

3.  Once at home, this recipe is easy. You're going to tweak it to your liking the more you make, but I've found that my routine of making 8oz at a time is great, so I'll use it as an example:

• Measure out 1tbs each of chamomile, rosemary, nettle, and sage.
• Boil 6oz. water. Turn off heat, add herbs (in strainer, if you choose... I just throw them in), cover, and let steep/cool for 20-25 minutes.
• Strain the herbal mixture using a colander if you didn't use a tea strainer. Squeeze out the liquid from the herbs the best you can, and--if necessary--strain 2 or 3 times to get the major floaters out. You'll notice that your 6oz. of water is now more like 5oz. This is good.
• Pour the herbal mixture in your squeeze bottle, and fill the bottle the rest of the way with Dr Bronner's soap. I started out using a 4-to-1 liquid to soap ratio, but I've found that I really like having a lather, so it's now become a 5-to-3 ratio. If you dilute too much, you won't get a lather, and my hair didn't seem to be clean. You'll find your ratio--and determine how frugal you are with your soap--as you go.
  

4. Make your rinse. The mild, natural ingredients in your concoction won't completely cut all the oils in your dirty 'do, so you'll need something acidic to cut through. Prior to rinsing, your hair may feel a bit matted. When you use an adequate amount of rinse, you should be able to run your fingers through your hair pretty easily under the water.

• Combine water and white vinegar in a 2-to-1 or 3-to-1 ratio.
• If you have dark hair or want it darker, it's possible to rinse with double- or triple-brewed coffee. I tried this, and, although I liked the slight color change, I don't think it's acidic enough to actually have the cleaning effect.

5. If you don't like the smell of your hair after the vinegar rinse, try adding a drop or two of good-smelling essential oil (mint, lavendar, tea tree, etc.) to your shampoo, rinse, or directly to your hair post-shower. I've never felt the need to do this, but I don't find that my hair smells much at all, and I've learned to like my natural odors. Hopefully you will, too, but there's nothing wrong with liking a little added scent!

6. Shower to your heart's content! Lather up, rinse, and get squeaky clean. But remember, don't use too much water.

Things to keep in mind:

1. A little goes a long way. This routine is meant to be environmentally friendly, physically healthy, and absolutely economically savvy. After about 5 months, I still have about 2/3 of my first bottle of Dr Bronner's ($12.99), and my first 3 months' herbs only cost $0.87! Similarly, a large bottle of white vinegar will run you between $1 and $2, and I find they last about 2 months each.

2. You may not need to use the rinse every time you shower. Similarly, you may find that you need the rinse but not the shampoo. Or, like me, you may just realize that your hair looks pretty great for a while and showers every day (or even every other day) aren't as necessary as Americans make them out to be.

3. Don't be surprised if success in the shampoo/rinse realm causes a ton of other changes in your behavior. Since my entrance into the natural beauty arena, I:

• no longer wear makeup;
• want my hair to grow as long as it will healthily grow;
• trim my hair myself;
• moisturize by rubbing myself down with olive oil before getting out of the shower;
• wear natural deodorant (try Nature's Gate Spring Fresh stick);
• use organic face wash (currently Burt's Bees Soap Bark and Chamomile Deep Cleansing Cream or Garden Tomato Complexion Soap), and
• soap up with All Natural Bar Soap (Nubian Heritage Honey and Black Seed is my favorite and can be found at one of the few Rasta Shops on South Street).
• And, thanks to an article in September's Grid Philly Magazine, I'm going to shop around this week for all-natural, non-carcinogenic household cleaners to supplement my use of Dr Bronner's (sorry, Dr, you don't work for everything...).

4. Obviously, I really believe in this lifestyle, and so do tons of other people in Philly and throughout the blogosphere (see, for example, The Green Beauty Guide). I'm trying not to be overly idealistic, as I do realize this isn't for everyone (right now...), but imagine what a green beauty revolution would look like! If you're timid, test these things out when you have vacation time so you can ease into your comfort zone, or challenge yourself with a friend or family member. I promise you won't be disappointed.

And most importantly:

Learn to love who you Are. This isn't just about saving money or being nice to the earth, and it's definitely not just about shampoo--this is about YOU, and taking back who you are. You are not a cosmetic company's mannequin. You are not a slave to corporations. You are a beautiful, natural, human being. Take your transformation to confidence one step at a time, no matter what it is. Keep it natural, keep it about you, and the rest will fall into place. It's working for me!