A blog about hair, written by hair junkies at Folica.com

Two weeks ago, I asked you for food-in-my-hair requests. Most popular? Mayonnaise.

Lauren, one of our lovely readers, gave me a bit of confidence: “I have let mayonnaise sit in my hair before as a conditioner, it made my hair softer and shinier!”

Agreed.

If your hair is thick and unruly like mine, be brave and give it a try. For those with thinner hair, go with a reduced-fat mayonnaise (less fat = less grease), or use a regular mayo and rinse it out right away, this way you won’t be left with a greasy residue.

An experiment like this one wouldn’t feel right without a warning, so here I go… we’re talking about mayonnaise here. It’s not the most pleasant thing to put in your hair- I’m sure you knew that was coming. BUT it is full of fat, and, well, fats tend to do fabulous things to your tendrils. I didn’t leave it in for very long (probably about 3 minutes), and it seemed to act the same as a regular conditioner would: smoothed, added shine …  you know the deal. I do plan to try it again though next time leaving it in as if it were a masque. (10 to 15 minutes or so.) I’m predicting the effects of a super-duper deep conditioner. I’ll keep ya posted.

Any other requests? My current to-do list is looking like a coconut oil, almond oil, almond butter trio. Warning free? I think yes.

–J

Hi! It’s Jillian. Hope you had a good hair week.

As I promised last Friday, I concocted another conditioning treatment last night. This time I was looking to fix my dry hair.

I decided to be creative and use only products that I already had in my kitchen. Here’s what I ended up with:

1. A bottle of beer
2. Half of an avocado
3. A small Greek yogurt (contains more protein than regular yogurt)
4. 3 tbsp Honey
5. 1 tbsp Olive oil

(It wasn’t the best smelling mix of ingredients.)

First, I washed my hair using the same clarifying shampoo as last time (Philip B’s Peppermint & Avocado Volumizing and Clarifying Shampoo). I towel-dried a little and then rinsed my hair with the room-temperature bottle of beer. I let that sit for a few minutes and didn’t wash it out. Then I applied the mixture of mashed avocado, yogurt, honey and olive oil on top of the beer, and let this sit for about 10 minutes. Finally, I rinsed and allowed my hair to air dry. (I recommend shampooing at some point after rinsing because the avocado and olive oil will definitely leave your hair greasy if you don’t.) I decided to let the oil sit on my hair over night, so I shampooed this morning and ended up with super, super soft and shiny hair!

As curious as you all are to try this recipe for yourselves, I suspect you’re even more curious about the beer element. Yes? No? Just in case that’s the case, here’s the backstory:

On a night of otherwise unmentionable fun, a big group of friends and I ended up with multiple pitchers of beer poured over our heads. The fact that each one of us (with completely different hair types – from curly to straight, long, short, thick, thin) woke up with perfectly smooth locks the next morning did not go unnoticed. I decided to research why the beer had this effect, and sure enough, people actually use beer in their hair. If you’ve ever been lucky enough to receive a beer-soak, I’m sure you had the same results as us. Why is this? The B vitamins obviously do wonders, but the malt and hops found in beer contain protein that enhances body and repairs damage. Beer also contains sucrose sugars, which tighten the cuticle of the hair, creating shine. That, my friends, is a fun fact.

As for the rest of my recipe: The honey, olive oil and yogurt all contain hair-happy vitamins, proteins and minerals. And the avocado contains, hm lets see… Vitamin A, Vitamin B6, Vitamin C, Vitamin E, Vitamin K, fiber, folate, copper and potassium. Enough said.

If your hair is damaged, do yourself a favor and give this a try. And, if you have any recipes of your own, TELL ME ! You know I’d love to test it out.

Happy mixing!

– J