Inexpensive homemade hair conditioner or styling gel?

[Bubblingbrooks]

the native americans used bear grease to style their hair... not feasible anymore just thought i'd throw it out there.
wish i could help but i don't really do my hair.
i've heard a lot about washing your hair with vineger and i'm gonna start trying that out. and moist foods like cucumbers and avacodoes can moisturize your hair and your skin. never done it but i'm sure if you put the food in the blender and made a "shake" and poured it in your hair over a bucket and rinsed it out in the shower that would work.
my hair is pretty greasy but i'll see if i can find some tips.

We found bear grease is fabulous for rough feet.

 

[Homemaker]

Last night I was trying another experiment to get rid of my dandruff. I put plain yogurt in my hair and then wrapped it in a towel. I let it sit for a couple of hours and then washed it like I normally do. It made my hair super silky. If it doesn't work for my dandruff I will do it again just for the conditioning effects. Only I will just put it on the middle and end parts of my hair as a conditioner.

 

[savingdogs]

Well I have tried baking soda, vinegar and egg in my hair at different times....pretty soon I'll have a recipe in the shower to make something edible!

Actually the yogurt sounds moisturing and soothing both and has the right kind of consistency already...I think I'll try that one. Let me know how it works for you.

 

[Bubblingbrooks]

Last night I was trying another experiment to get rid of my dandruff. I put plain yogurt in my hair and then wrapped it in a towel. I let it sit for a couple of hours and then washed it like I normally do. It made my hair super silky. If it doesn't work for my dandruff I will do it again just for the conditioning effects. Only I will just put it on the middle and end parts of my hair as a conditioner.

wonder how kefir would work?
Makes me wonder if the itching could be yeast related.

 

[Homemaker]

Makes me wonder if the itching could be yeast related.

Really? Ugh, gross. Well I'm on 48 hrs now and my head doesn't itch. I still have flaking but, I can live with that.
O.k. I googled dandruff causes "fungus". Here is what I found from Mayo Clinics website listed under causes:
A yeast-like fungus (malassezia). Malassezia lives on the scalps of most healthy adults without causing problems. But sometimes it grows out of control, feeding on the oils secreted by your hair follicles. This can irritate the skin on your scalp and cause more skin cells to grow. The extra skin cells die and fall off, clumping with oil from your hair and scalp, making them appear white and flaky in your hair or on your clothes. Most often this eruption is identical to or closely resembles seborrheic dermatitis.

Exactly what causes an overgrowth of malassezia isn't known, although having too much oil on your scalp; changes in your hormones; stress; illness; neurological disorders, such as Parkinson's disease; a suppressed immune system; not shampooing often enough; and extra sensitivity to the malassezia fungus may contribute to the development of dandruff.

Thank you. I never would have guessed.

 

[savingdogs]

That makes total sense to me. The family members who have oily skin are the same ones that get dandruff in this family.

I have dry hair, no problems with dandruff. I still wonder about how conditioning yogurt would be however.

I tried using egg yolk and olive oil which was recommended somewhere, and it did not have a very good result. I had to actually wash it out with shampoo as it was much too oily.

 

[MsPony]

I shall try this!!! My hair isn't curly but it's super long and so I try to avoid doing ANYTHING to it LOL. It's pretty healthy but I'll see what happens if I don't shampoo mine and just do a really good rinse and then condition!!

In Colorado, no bypassing conditioner.

Right now I wash it once a week. So I'll just condition weekly instead. *bounces* I wonder what it will do!

No OTHER primate requires soap to stay clean.

ETA: what are the best conditioners? jojoba and coconut oils?

Uh, have you ever been up next to a gorilla?? They smell H O R R I B L E.

 

[calendula]

I have long wavy hair that gets very dry in the winter. I wash with baking soda and use a rosemary infused apple cider vinegar to condition. I grow rosemary at home, so I just snip off a few sprigs and put it in a jar with acv and let sit for a month or so. I strain it, dilute it with an equal amount of water, put it in a squeeze bottle, and it keeps just fine in the shower.

I have seen recipes for conditioner that uses oils and beeswax to make a sort of cream, but they usually need to be refrigerated. I don't want to keep my conditioner there, since I don't shower in the fridge, so it is very inconvenient

Sometimes I will mix a dab of soap in with the baking soda when I wash my hair if my scalp is feeling really oily, but normally I don't use soap much at all. I have heard of people using clay on the scalp as well, but never tried it. I think it's important to just massage the scalp daily to remove dead skin and dirt.

 

[Marianne]

Commercial hair dye was my last chemical holdout. I'd been dyeing my hair since I was a kid practically, thanks to the premature grey gene.

I'm letting my hair grow out (yet again). I was also using a medium to light brown dye. I read that you could crush up VIT C pills, add dish soap to make a paste and smear that on to lighten hair. It did work, but I had rosy pink patches here and there at the roots (!) and my hair was like straw.

So now I wet and towel dry my hair, work in some baking soda to the colored part, wrap with a plastic bag and sit around reading here for a while. It's lightening up the dyed part, and now I have no dye in some places, just my natural grey/white. Actually looks pretty decent considering..streaks of blond shades coming thru.

Anytime you lighten, you go thru 7 shades of red, my first was the most shocking copper. Got better after that, though. It sure is making the growing out transition easier as there's not such a definitive line there.

The thing that works for me is 1TBSP or less of Borax disolved in one cup of hot water, then cool. I wash with that and then use vinegar water for conditioner. I couldn't believe how much better my hair felt after the first time. No heavy conditioner residue to weigh my wavy/sorta curly hair down. Very shiny with the vinegar rinse and dries fast. I'll never go back to commercial shampoo/conditioners. My hair felt 100% better after the Vit C episode, too. Oh, I read that your hair doesn't care if it's white vinegar or ACV. I used both and got the same results.

For homemade gels, I'm clueless. I do remember people using sugar water a looooong time ago.

Oh, BTW, stress can bring on episodes of dandruff. The only times I ever had it is when I got married (oh joy) and a few times when my mother came to visit.

 

[savingdogs]

Your hair sounds a lot like mine but mine is drier. I can barely comb it out if I don't use some sort of conditioner and it isn't thick.

I am trying to figure out a hair dye method too. I was growing out my gray and now that I see an inch of it, I hate it.

I think commercial hair dye is going to be something I can't "do without" very easily.....

Marianne have you ever heard of using gelatin to make hair gel?