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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Porosity who???

This natural journey is making my hair vocabulary expand greatly …lol. The newest word to add to my hairdictionary is porosity. I did a test on my hair to find out if it was low, normal, or high porosity. Turns out cause my strand didn’t sink AT ALL that I have low porosity hair. In short: my hair cuticles are flat and do not easily allow moisture in. On the flip (good) side once the moisture is in it will stay 🙂 So now the question became, ” how do I moisturize my hair if the cuticle is flat and does not allow moisture in?” Research revealed that heat is my bestie!!!!! So I will co-wash with warm water, of course do deep conditioning with heat, probably do a final rinse with cool water to close my cuticles back, and seal seal seal!

Big question is to use baking soda or to not use it. Because of its alkalinity it’s supposed to be able to open the cuticle to allow moisture in. But is it really safe for the hair? Are there any…scratch that WHAT are the side effects? How long will it take the cuticle to close after its open?

You can perform a test on your hair to determine its porosity by taking a clean hair strand (one that sheds after you cleanse it and still with the white bulb on the tip) and putting it in a water. If it sinks you have high porosity hair which means that you have open cuticles which absorb moisture. Down side, because they are open they also loose moisture just as quickly. If your strand stays afloat you have low porosity hair. Low porosity hair is hard to get moisture in but once in it will stay there cause the cuticle is closed.