Hair Rinse

Trust me, when I first saw this recipe in Kelly Coyne & Erik Knutzen's Making It- Radical Home Ec for a Post-consumer World, I was extremely skeptical. How could 2 ingredients do the same work that at least 10 ingredients had been doing for the past 29 years?

Nonetheless, I was determined to try it, because 1.it would save us a lot of money and 2.it would reduce the number of chemicals in our home. Not to mention the recent thrill I was experiencing trying to make everything myself.

Ingredients:
1 tablespoon of apple cider vinegar
(1 tablespoon of aloe vera juice or gel)
1 cup of water
Spray bottle

Directions:
Mix the vinegar and water in the bottle and shake.
After shampooing (or if you're like me and typically wash your hair 2-3 times per week, but only shampoo once a week, you can add it to your hair when it's still dry), work the rinse through your hair. Use a comb to untangle, then rinse it out. That's it!

You may have to play around with the recipe based on your hair's needs. Coyne & Knutzen and Simple Mom suggest diluting the recipe even more if your hair becomes dry. You can also add herbs to the rinse to give it a nicer smell and add other hair-improving qualities to your rinse. Each herb is has its own properties, for examples rosemary and sage are supposed to stimulate the scalp and leave your hair shiny (they are also supposed to darken hair over time, so if you don't want that, don't use those 2 herbs).

When using herbs, replace the cup of water, with 1 cup of herbal infusion.

Making the Herbal Infusion:

Create your herbal infusion by placing your herbs in a jar and adding boiling water. Close the jar and let sit for at least 4 hours. Strain and use in mixture. You can refrigerate any unused mixture. I'm currently using a rosemary and sage mixture.

The verdict:

So here we are post-first-week-use of the hair rinse and I think I have a new conditioner! My hair was very easy to untangle and more importantly, it feels super soft! I've still got some store-bought products to finish, but as of today, I will not be buying store-bought shampoos or conditioners anymore! 

For me (with curly hair), I think my regimen is going to be to use the Baking Soda Shampoo once a week and the hair rinse whenever I wash my hair.

*Update Jan 22, 2012: After reading at Cleaner Living that aloe vera is a great anti-frizz product, I decided to add some aloe vera to my recipe. I had some pure aloe vera juice at home, so I just used that. I probably wouldn't recommend it for anyone with oily hair, but so far I like the addition, because it makes my hair shiny and less dry.