A Beauty Experiment

Today I washed my hair with rye flour and rinsed it with apple cider vinegar.

For some time, I have wanted to eliminate some toxins from my life so I started this weekend with my locks. The 'shampoo' is made of finely-milled rye flour whisked or shaken with water. I used two tablespoons of flour and about a metric cup of warm water. Use less if you want a thicker paste. I wet my hair, massaged it in, rinsed very well then repeated. For a 'conditioner', I mixed 1tsp ACV with about two cups of warm water. I poured it over my hair, left it on for about 15 seconds then rinsed it out.

My natural hair is extremely porous, dry and frizzy. It's like a loose afro in its natural state. I noticed as it was drying (I always air-dry my hair), that it had a little more body than usual. Otherwise it seemed to follow the same pattern as when I use my regular shampoo. The ACV smell was strong at the start but completely disappeared once my hair dried.

My normal routine is to run a tiny amount of my lovely hair treatment oil through my hair before I straighten it. I still did this as it's quite a natural botanical product and doubles as a heat protector. I then used my GHDs to straighten my hair as I always do. I'll admit that the straightening took slightly longer than normal as the hair was a little rougher in texture, but the result is lovely, shiny soft hair with perhaps a little more volume than normal.

Why rye flour? Well, it's loaded with minerals and vitamins and is also the same PH as your own scalp. It cleanses without stripping natural oils (unlike shampoo, which forces your scalp to produce more sebum to compensate, and so results in lank hair). The ACV is there to restore shine, tone and volume to the hair. Plus, it's a natural antiseptic and disinfectant which is handy if you have athlete's foot, cuts or scratches and/or a stinky shower drain hole!

I use Liz Earle products for all of my skincare, makeup and hair care needs. For the most part, I've been really happy with them. Whilst I couldn't do without my hair treatment oil, from this experiment I'm beginning to see that I can live without their shampoo and conditioner. My hair wasn't extremely dirty when I washed it today so I'll wait until Thursday after a couple of gym sessions (yep I am back there in a low-impact non-bouncy way) and allow some more hair product build-up.

In terms of cost, I bought a 500g bag of rye flour from Clevedon Farmers' Market today for a fiver so that's a lot of hair washes considering I only wash my hair twice a week and I only used a couple of tablespoons of flour. The ACV costs about $7 for a litre.

Other products I want to make myself are:

- Soap
- Laundry power
- Face exfoliant
- Body butter (next on my list)

I'll see how clean my hair remains over the next few days and keep you posted. Right now it feels squeaky clean!