Hair TOTD – Coconut Milk

Coconut Milk having been derived from the same source as Coconut Oil has to be beneficial. So doing some research, turns out that Coconut Milk is high in protein and iron thus making it great for helping with hair loss prevention and growth. Sounds like something that makes me :). There are a couple of ways we can utilize this in our hair, some use it as a pre poo, see here, others use it as a deep conditioner, and I …well I will be using it as an ingredient in my cleanser. Although it started off rocky, I have stuck with cleansing with castile soap by Dr. Bronners. Because I have low porosity hair the high PH of castile soap along with warm water allows moisture to get in. My hair is not squeaky clean so I don’t feel that it has been stripped and my scalp is clean. Purpose served! At the beginning of my journey I knew I did not want to continue with shampoo because of its stripping properties of our hairs natural oils. I tried washing with conditioner only and its fine I do believe it cleanses but when I found out my hair porosity level I wanted to insure that the moisture gets in. And this works for me so I keep at it :).

Regarding the coconut milk, because it doesn’t keep very well you can freeze the unused portions and use it later. I used an ice cube tray to freeze mine.

So you can find about my cleaning mixture here… Castile Soap Cleanser

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Cleaning with Castile Soap

I researched a lot prior to doing my BC…about everything…lol One of the things that I discovered was castile soap. Castile soap is an oil based soap. Unlike our regular soap, it retains its natural oils that it took to make it (all soap starts out this way but the oil is removed from the soap). Unlike shampoo it does not contain any detergents which can be stripping to our hair. So I tried it and boy did I love it. It made my scalp tingle – which felt good to me – and my strands were not squeaky …I liked that A LOT!

I clean my hair with my castile soap mixture weekly just prior to doing my DC. Below are two ways to mix it. The first is my current mixture and the second is what I will be trying on my next wash day (Friday’s are the day :)) I’ve decided to modify my current mixture by adding coconut milk to see how my hair responds to it, as it turns out that the coconut milk has very beneficial qualities.

With Olive Oil (my current mixture)

1/2 cup of Dr. Bronners Castile Soap

1/2 cup of Olive Oil

4 drops of Tea Tree essential oil

8 drops of peppermint essential oil

With Coconut Milk

1/2 cup of Dr. Bronner’s Castile Soap

1/4 cup of Olive Oil (cutting down, there is already oil in there…should be ok if not I’ll modify)

1/2 cup of Coconut Milk

UPDATE: Since you cannot make loads of this stuff because the coconut milk will spoil after four days I’m only going to make enough to wash my hair once. You can freeze the unused portion of the coconut milk for use at a later time. I put mine in an ice cube tray then in a baggy.

BHC

My catchy title is abbreviated for baking soda, henna, and castile soap. No relation. So I will not be using baking soda to open my cuticles because , through research, I found that it can be damaging to hair. And I just don’t want to add a typing unnecessary yo my reforming to be totally honest. So I will rely on heat and an old friend of mine – castile soap- to open my cuticles to allow moisture and other good nutrients in 🙂 I,ve had an on-off relationship with castile soap but I think I am sticking with my initial good vib about this product. It turns out that the reason. Y hair was so well moisturized earlier in my BC days was because the castile soap was opening my cuticles and allowing the moisture in. So I’m going back to those days especially since I have been experiencing dry scalp recently. So my regimen will change by adding this step back into my wash days. I will wash my hair weekly with the castile oil mixture that I made.

So, henna huuuummmmmm where to start….well imma make it short. I tried henna before. It was very hard and messy to apply. Then the end result did not work. Well turns out that I used the wrong type of henna, I should have used body art quality henna instead of the $4.00 jar I purchased. So this time I was in. Y favorite neighborhood natural store and saw another jaw of henna priced at $6.00 🙂 so hopefully thesis a better grade. Hahahahaha!!! Yeah right! But I a sitting here with it in my hair now so we will see shortly. I followed the direction and used a cup of boiling water and because I have a few (wink wink) gray hairs I added two tablespoons of ACV which is supposed to help it attach to the grays. The consistent at that point was terrible and was not sticking to my hair. I remembered watching a video on YouTube about adding oil to it to change the consistency to allow it to adhere better to your strands so i added a good amount of castor oil. OMGosh it worked out so
much better.

So while the consistency was better and I could smooth it onto my strands the henna did not take to my hair. It did take to my hands though. Yeah I forgot gloves ..hahaha jokes on me 😦 my next attempt will be with online brought henna!!! Going to order right now…stay tuned for review.

Castile Soap

So I’ve been hearing random not-so-good things about castile soap.  Because I am doing the CG method (washing with conditioner only) but this method allows you to use gel as well as product and that is reason for me to want to clean with a little more than conditioner periodically.  I DO NOT want to use shampoo so I thought if I used castile soap which is an all natural soap made of oils not a detergent that my hair would be safe from harsh elements.  WRONG! Apparently the PH balance in castile soap is very high between 8 and 9.  This can strip the hair and make it very dry thus making my health care regimen POINTLESS.  I am not saying that I am going to abandon castile soap completely BUT I am going to cute back on my usage….so I am going to change my regimen.  Instead of washing my hair with this weekly I am only going to do it Monthly (if needed) and the amount will be less.  Last time I used 1/2 cup castile soap, 1 cup water, 2 tablespoons Jojoba oil, 2 tablespoons Vitamin E, 2 tablespoons Tea Tree oil, and 2 tablespoons EVOO.  This time I will use 1/4 castile soap with same mixtures of oil.  I am just a fan of the ingredients and I don’t want to use anything un-natural on my hair.

Okay, so what about the PH balance??? Well a healthy PH balance for our hair is between 4.5 – 5.5.  Anything above 7.1 is considered alkaline and anything below 6.9 is considered acidic….our hair is  slightly acidic.  Pure water is considered neutral at a PH level of 7.  When our hair is at the proper PH level the cuticle is closed this stops the hair from frizzing up.  When the cuticles are open the result is frizzy hair.

 

Oohhh, so I signed up for my first hair challenge! 🙂 The deadline has been extended to May 27th so I decided to try it.  Thought this was a good challenge especially since I just BC’d I can see where I will be in two years 🙂  Website is  http://www.naturalhair2014.com/

My regimen

My  regimen

Daily (Saturday thru Thursday)
* co-wash w/ VO5
* leave in conditioner VO5
* seal w/ Tea Tree Oil
* apply selected product (so far this is only Kinki-Curly Curling Custard, I may try something else this weekend)

Weekly (Friday)
* cleanse w/ Castile soap, Jojoba oil, Vitamin E oil, Tea Tree oil, and water mixture
* deep condition w/ honey, EVOO, and Vitamin E oil with cap overnight

Monthly (Sunday)
* hot oil treatment w/ EVOO, Jojoba oil, Vitamin E oil, Tea Tree mixture with cap for 30 minutes
** if needed ACV rinse as clarifier in case of product buildup