Home made hairspray

[big brown horse]

You just have to be careful not to repeatedly keep spraying it in your mouth.

 

[Marianne]

Perfect timing! My one, ancient can of spray is about empty and I was wondering about alternatives.
I remember doing the egg white thing for stiff hair gel when I was a kid.

And welcome!

 

[~gd]

This should work OK in a dry climate, but in a moist or humid climate it can cause problems. In solution the vodka can partly protect the sugar from being consumed by bacteria/molds etc.
Both the vodka and the sugar are going to be atracting moisture from the air, that is why the formulation helps control hair. Given the high surface area of hairs and with the sugar and alcohol for feed stock, you have a bioreactor on your head! the alcohol will convert to vinegar and the sugar to alcohol to feed the first reaction.
Dispite what you may think cosmetic manufacturers are not fools, sugar is very cheap compared to the very highly modified resins that they use in hair spray and water is a much cheaper solvent than the pure alcohol that they need to disolve the resins. If the formulation was trouble free everybody would be selling it.

 

[OrganicKale]

Soooo- you are saying I should start with a small batch? If it doesn't work, I'll just drink it.

 

[big brown horse]

Soooo- you are saying I should start with a small batch? If it doesn't work, I'll just drink it.

My mother used sugar water to stiffen her 3-D crochet flowers etc. We lived in tropical S. TX. I say, give it a try. I think they (big manufacturers) don't use sugar b/c it would be too easy for us little people to copy.

 

[Marianne]

This should work OK in a dry climate, but in a moist or humid climate it can cause problems. In solution the vodka can partly protect the sugar from being consumed by bacteria/molds etc.
Both the vodka and the sugar are going to be atracting moisture from the air, that is why the formulation helps control hair. Given the high surface area of hairs and with the sugar and alcohol for feed stock, you have a bioreactor on your head! the alcohol will convert to vinegar and the sugar to alcohol to feed the first reaction.

But wouldn't the vodka evaporate pretty fast before all that happened? You usually don't soak your hair with hairspray. Or I didn't, anyway.