This time of year my hair gets really dry. And then, when it rains, it gets very, very frizzy. When I wrote earlier about how it looks like a Bernese Mountain Dog, I wasn’t joking.
So I’m always looking for something to rehydrate my hair. Over the years I’ve tried hot oil treatments, hair masks, deep conditioners, and just about everything else on the supermarket shelves. Since turning “green”, I’ve looked for more responsible options to tame the pouf.
Yesterday I turned to my kitchen for help. I decided I wanted to clean my hair of all the layers of gunk before I hydrated it, so I grabbed some apple cider vinegar and lemon juice. Then I spied a jar of coconut oil across the room, so I grabbed that too, and into the shower I went.
After shampooing, I mixed the apple cider vinegar with lemon juice in a cup, and poured it over my hair. Though pouring cold liquid over my hair was just unfortunate on a chilly November morning, it did the trick, leaving my hair squeaky clean and stripped of chemical and herbal residues. This also stripped my hair of its natural oils, so the next step was to rehydrate.
After I shampooed again to wash the vinegar smell out of my hair, I rubbed a little coconut oil between my palms and ran it through my hair, doing so carefully to avoid breaking any strands. I left it in my hair while I shaved my legs, and then went to rinse it out. WOW. That stuff was seriously oily, which sounds silly because, after all, it is an oil. But it was really fatty, clinging to my hair for dear life. So I shampooed once again, and then I worked a very light conditioner through my hair and rinsed.
After all that, today I have very clean hair that’s incredibly soft. I was worried that even the small amount of coconut would make my hair greasy, but after all that cleaning my hair was in dire need of the oil. It seems as if I struck a perfect balance for my hair, and now I’ve got a fresh start.
I suppose mushing up avocado as a “mask” for my hair would have been good too, but I’ll try that later. For now, I’ll continue to do the vinegar and lemon rinse with the coconut treatment about once a month, depending on how my hair feels. The best part about it is that the ingredients are cheap and they’re already in my kitchen. When it comes to edible beauty, it doesn’t get any better than that.
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