The Art of Mixology...

So anyone who has ever been to my house is well aware that I love mixing my concoctions! lol! Some have accused me of turning into a Mother nature freak. Well I cant claim that I am that, I still have chemicals that I use in my house, but where I can I do try to be as environmetally frienly as I can.

When I started my hair journey, I learnt alot about what we put into our bodies and onto our hair and skin. For example the mineral oil that is loaded into many of our haircare and skin products. While my skin is semi-okay with mineral oil, my hair certainly does not like this. Here in South Africa we dont have access to many hair products that do not contain mineral oil. Sometimes I really have to go out of my way to soruce them. But when I cant, I make use of the products that are more easily available to me.

I would like to share some of the recipes tat I have learnt from others as well as created myself.
How we can use common ingredients, many of which you probably already have in your kitchen, to make some yummy concoctions that will give you beautiful skin and hair.

A word of caution though: not everything is for everyone. I was so quick to jump on the Shea Butter bandwagon and began using it as a sealer for my hair....that didnt quite work out for me. But now I use it as a pre-poo, and getting much better results with it.
So try the recipes, tweak them around and see what works for you.

So here is my first recipe in the Mixology Series:

This is a very simple mix to start us off. I use this mixture as a sealer after I apply my hair moisturiser, but it also works so well as a hot oil treatment and my hair loves it this winter.

• 3 tablespoons olive oil (Preferably Extra virgin)
• 3 tablespoons avocado oil
• 3 tablespoons coconut oil (also preferably the extra virgin variety)
• a few drops of an essential oil of your picking (do your research first)

The first 3 ingredients work so well and are able to penetrate the hair shaft. no other oils are able to do this as efficiently as these 3. Heat these 3 up in a double boiler. Stove top or microwave may result in these being heated to a very high temperature. Please be careful in heating these oils.
Once they are warmed up, apply to your hair, section by section, from root to tip. pay special attention to your ends as these are the oldest parts of your hair and they need more TLC.
 Cover your hair with a plastic showercap. You can either cover with a warm and damp towel, or a heated conditioning cap for about 20-30minutes.
Rinse this out of your hair with a little bit of shampoo or conditioner. (Beware of slippery shower floors)
proceed to style as usual.

There you have the first simple recipe, all from ingredients you can find in your kitchen :)

My hair hates winter....

Like for real! The last few weeks in Joburg have been cooler and I have brought out my trusty winter boots!
I am trying to cope with the shorter days and longer nights...as I have gotten older I prefer summer months to winter months.
Anywho, my once juicy locks turned to dry twigs overnight. For real. My hair got dry and dull all of a sudden. I moisturise and seal daily, sometimes twice a day but that just was not working.
 I have found that as my hair has gotten longer it requires a bit more love and attention.
So I set to fix the twiggy locks. The first night I literally bolted off the couch and just shoved my hair under a tap and quenched the hair with water and I co-washed with my Tresemme naturals conditioner.
I then dried it off and used my SCurl Activator as my moisturizer, sealed with my olive/coconut/avocado oil mixture. Then followed up with a hair lotion as a cream.
This worked for like 12 hours and the next day my hair was like straw again! Sigh!

Lets try this again.....

A few days later, I decided to do an oil treatment. I mixed up the avocado, coconut, olive and castor oil.  I applied this to my slightly damp hair, covered with a plastic cap, covered this with my silk bonnet and went to bed. In the morning I did my usual moisture and seal routine. My hair was quite soft, and I repeated tis a few days later and my hair was back to being softer and more manageable.

I feel that the oil treatments have injected some quality nutrients into my hair and this has helped it deal with the cold.
Right now I am pre- pooing my hair with my oil mix and I added some shea butter this time. ( I realized I had stash all the way from Ghana). I am going to wash this out with my cheapie conditioner (Aussie Moist) and then apply my Aphogee 2 Minute Protein Conditioner...that's a whole other post so watch this space....

So what did I learn? Some of us do have to switch up our winter hair reggies. I will be including a whole lot more oil in my reggie: in the form of pre-poos, oil rinses, oil treatments and new for me will be adding oil to my cowash conditioners.

Have a great week and keep warm...bbrrrr!