Homemade Hair Conditioner....I bet it's in your kitchen now!

I have fine, straight, thin hair. It doesn't do much, won't hold a curl to save its life and TANGLES.  I've had tangles the size of my fist, I kid you not. They just appear, overnight. When I was five, they got so bad despite daily brushing that my Mom cropped my hair into a boy's cut.  All the conditioner in the world didn't help them and always left the rest of my hair looking limp and greasy. Since my hair tends toward greasy anyway, the extra conditioner needed to prevent the tangles made it really awful!

So when I finally decided to give up shampoo and switched to a gentle castille based soap for hair and body, I was seriously worried about the tangles I was setting myself up for. Surprisingly, the monstrous knots didn't get much worse. But they also didn't get any better...and I was SO sick of ripping my hair to shreds every day just to leave the house looking presentable!  Then, whilst reading up on the no-poo method of hair washing someone suggested using a vinegar rinse to balance the hair's pH level.  Well, ok. I have vinegar...let's try it!  Added some vinegar to an old shampoo bottle, topped it off with water and squirted it over my hair in the shower one night. Wasn't too keen on the vinegar smell that wafted from my hair until it dried, but decided to reserve judgement until the next morning once it had dried and I could comb the tangles out...except for the first time I can remember (having hair longer than three inches in length), there weren't any tangles to comb out!  I couldn't believe it! I was so thankful I'd found something that worked and didn't leave my hair greasy, I just wished it didn't smell like vinegar! Coming out of the bathroom smelling like salad dressing was not  my idea of a relaxing shower experience. Fortunately, help was at hand over at One Green Generation!  She mentioned that she'd switched from apple cider vinegar to white vinegar with a vanilla bean pod in it for a prettier smell. DingDingDing-we have a winner! I started several different jars of vinegar with assorted flavorings to see what worked...and thus far, they ALL did! So I present to you my choice for smoooth and silky hair, naturally!

No-tangle, Shiny Hair Rinse

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup white vinegar
• 2 cups water
• Flavorings: cinnamon sticks, orange or lemon peel (just the colored zest from the peel-no white stuff!), mint leaves, vanilla bean pod, I've heard rosemary springs are nice, too!

1. Add mint leaves, cinnamon sticks, lemon peel, vanilla bean pod, whatever-you're-trying to bottle.I've used leftover jelly jars, Tupperware, bottles with a cork...anything with a lid on it!
2. Pour 1/2 cup (or more) vinegar into the container, add the lid and shake once or twice.
3. Set it somewhere dark-ish where you're bound to see it once or twice a day. I used my snack cupboard. At least once a day for a week, shake or swirl the bottle/jar of vinegar and flavorings.
4. Decant the vinegar out on day seven, pour into an old shampoo or squirt bottle and add 2 cups water.
5. Use in shower like a conditioner. Apply, let sit a minute and rinse out for sleek and shiny hair!

After some experimentation, I like the lemon peel best during the summer. Come colder weather, I think I'll be switching to vanilla and cinnamon. I have a mint vinegar rinse marinating now, so check back next week for a review of the mint rinse!

I stopped washing my face...

No really! I haven't given into the grime and let the sloth in me take over. I just stopped washing my face.

I have oily skin on my nose and chin that's dry on my cheeks and forehead. Trying to find a face wash that balanced all that, while still being a natural product was killing me and my bank account. Until I stumbled across a blog posting about something called The Oil Cleansing Method over at Simple Mom. Check it out here. Basically, you rub a mixture of olive and Castor oil on your face, steam with a hot washcloth, then wipe the gunk off.  I didn't really know how this would work but I had all the ingredients in my cupboard already so it was at least a cheap option to try! Besides, a face massage followed by a steam sure sounded better than drenching myself and the bathroom with water to wash my face every night!  I know from my BS-in-Chemistry holding Grandma that oil dissolves oil so I figured it might just work to use olive oil to dissolve the nasty oil on my face, right? I was still shocked when it did.

The very first week I tried this with a safe mixture of 70% olive oil and 30%Castor oil, I hit the holy grail people online had been talking about. While I was massaging the oil into my skin, I started feeling little grainy things on the surface of my skin. Never one to wonder, I scraped one onto the tip of my finger and headed for the magnifying glass to determine what it was. Lo and behold: it was a blackhead. Dark at the tip, tapered to a point, ew factor to the extreme. But it was no longer in my face! Woo-hooo! This crazy idea really works! And it left skin feeling moisturized but not greasy...something commercial moisturizers have never achieved.

Since then, I've refined my method to best fit my skin. This process does take some experimenting to get the best results. But you're experimenting with different mixtures of the stuff you already have, so the price doesn't go up! Yay for that!  I now use the same original oil mixture all over my skin, but add a drop of pure Castor oil to my nose and chin for further cleansing of the stubborn black heads. I love feeling the plugs fall out as I massage every night. You know how we all secretly like popping zits? This is better! Looking up close with a magnifying glass before I steam, I can actually see empty pores where the black heads just fell out. SQUEE!  Best of all, I'm meeting my preferred ideal of not putting anything on my skin that I wouldn't put in my mouth! Skin is an organ too and it absorbs everything we put on it. Think about it: how else do those nicotine patches things work?

I also just started using a vinegar toner around my hairline, nose, chine and neck this week. Well, yesterday. The only drawback to this method has been two odd patches of acne forming on my neck under my chin in an area I've never  had acne before. When it dawned on me that I probably wasn't cleaning the oil off this area well enough to prevent clogging the pores on my neck, I started using a vinegar toner/rinse/spritz. I soaked a strip of lemon peel in a 1/4 cup of vinegar for a week, then diluted it with 2 cups of peppermint tea. Rubbing this over my face right after I steam seems to be doing the trick as that weird acne patch is starting to clear after only one use. The lemon-mint vinegar toner is wonderful for summer and smells really nice as you rub it one. I think I may try this trick again for winter, but with a vanilla bean pod instead. Less astringent for the colder months, you know?

If you can get past the weird factor of rubbing oil onto your skin, I really encourage you to try this out! I've been pleasantly surprised to even find a few sun/age spots have started to fade during the last month I've been using OCM. I'm hoping the lemon in my toner will help take them all the way to gone! :) It's all natural  (as in you could drink it while no bad effects), it feels luxurious massaging it in every night, takes the place of face wash AND moisturizers, plus my skin really likes it!  And did I mention it's SO much less expensive than store bought? Homemade is better!