DIY shikakai shampoo that survived the test of time

Hi all you homemade people ;-),

I am writing this post today especially for @Kariaantonoviche, a fellow steem blogger, who wrote a post about cheap, environmentally friendly shampoo alternatives. To be found here:

https://steemit.com/product/@kiaraantonoviche/product-spotlight-series-12-coconut-milk-shampoo-bar

I promised to introduce her to the Indian way of making shampoo, that has been practiced as long as ayurveda is around, which is for thousands of years.
Indian women are known for their silky smooth, long, black hair and they have been using a certain fruit from a tree to wash their hair with, for all those generations. This fruit is even named for its use, its called fruit for hair, which is the literal translation of Shikakai.

There are a few ways to make shampoo with shikakai:

The simplest way of doing it is to take the dried fruit (without the seeds) and powder it in the blender or buy the powder ready made. Put three table spoons of it in a bowl en add a little water to form a paste. It will be a brown liquid paste that smells very pleasantly spicy, flowery and sweet. This paste is your shampoo and you use it like this:
Wet your hair and wring it out. Take half of the paste and massage it into your scalp and hair.
If you have time, let it sit for five minutes for extra benefits of the fruits hair growth promoting properties, if not rinse it out and repeat.
You will notice that there is almost no lather forming while massaging like you are used to with normal shampoo. But as with normal shampoo the foam is actually due to a harsh foaming agent, called laureth sulfate which can cause dandruf, I don t realy mind that it' s not in there. It is a myth that you need lots of foam to get your hair clean. The hair gets clean without the foam, it just takes some getting used to. Be sure to rinse the shower floor and walls with some water after shampooing as traces of the brown paste are likely to get spread
around while massaging your scalp.

Now to make it more fancy and add more plant benefits people have adfed more fruits, herbs and nuts, that are beneficial for the skin and the hair, to the recipee. Below is a youtube on which you can see how an Indian woman makes her own shampoo using shikakai, soapnut, amla and flaxseed powder. Her version is boiled down to a shampoo like substance that creates more lather while shampooing your hair.

Enjoy!

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This was a ecotrain post, for more on wholistic life hacks check out: @ecotrain