All Natural Hair Wash / Shikakai Powder

Natural Hair Wash Powder

Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you. - Frank Lloyd Wright.

We all have come very far from nature. Let's stop, turn back and see what we all we have missed. Thank God we have not lost everything.

Shampoo is a basic necessity in our homes. But none of us give a thought of what it contains. We may know that many of the food products are loaded with toxic substances. But what we do not know is that most of the personal care products are also loaded with such toxic ingredients that are hazardous for our body.

I think, that using such a shampoo or soap on your body is as bad as drinking them! Any substance you rub on your body or inhale, enters your body as sure as you swallowed them. Think about how any drug administered through skin works or for that matter how the nicotine patch works.

The chemicals in these cosmetics entering your body is especially easier when you take a hot bath, when the pores on your skin are well open. These chemicals directly enter your blood stream!

I know, making this powder at home is not as easy as just grabbing one shampoo bottle from the supermarket shelf. Sometimes it might be few rupees more too. But its really worth it. The satisfaction that you are feeding your body with natural ingredients is awesome.

In today's life, it is impossible for us to personally cultivate chemical-free crops, or in that case.. it is impossible to buy any genuine organic product as we do not know whether the products they sell in the organic store are really organic.. except that they have costlier-organic-products price.

Let us start with simple things where we all can go close to nature. One such change I did was to shift to shikakai / sigaikkai powder as hair wash.

Shikakai / Sigaikkai - we fondly call as Acacia concinna, has been traditionally used for hair care in India since ancient times. The fruit pods of this plant is traditionally used as shampoo. The dried fruit pods are made powder along with other herbs and then made into paste. This hair wash powder does not produce the normal amount of lather that a sulphate-containing shampoo would do. This shikakai is a very good cleanser. Shikakai / Acacia is mild and since it has naturally low ph, it does not strip off oil from the hair. Usually no conditioner is needed.

Ingredients:

• Shikakai / Seegaikkai / Acacia concinna - 1 kg
• Fenu greek seeds - 300 grams
• Soap nuts (deseeded) - 200 grams
• Raw rice - 200 grams

The above ingredients are basic ingredients for shikakai powder. You can also add other herbs and dry flowers like dried rose petals, dried avarampoo (Tanner's cassia in english), dried neem leaves, vettiver (Vetiveria zizanoides), green moong dhal (200 grams), dried henna leaves, dried hibiscus flowers and leaves, and more if you know for any medicinal importance you personally need. There is no strict and fast measurements for these herbs and dry flowers. Can just add 50 grams or 100 grams of each. You get all these in our Indian country shops (naattu marundhu kadai) or even in some organic stores. Sun dry all these extra ingredients along with the shikakai pods and powder it.

I used shikakai pods, greem moong dhal, raw rice and soap nuts (deseeded) as basic ingredients. If I get dried hibiscus flowers and dried rose flowers ("panneer" rose - Rosa damascena), I would add along with the basic ingredients for my hair wash powder.

Procedure:

• Break the sihikakai into small pieces.
• Deseed the soap nuts.
• Take shikakai, soap nuts, fenugreek and raw rice and dry it in hot sun till crisp dry.
• Now, give this in the flour mill and get it ground into fine powder.
• This is the simple and best ever natural hair wash powder you can make.
• Store it in a dry box.

To make paste:

All we need: 

• Shikakai / sigaikai powder - 4 teaspoons
• Water - as required
• Rice starch water (I use this, but this is optional) - the water we drain out when we cook the rice in our traditional way what we call as kanji thanni / Vadi thanni

Procedure:

• Take 4 teaspoons of powder in a bowl.
• Heat some water and TURN OFF the stove. 
• Add to the shikakai powder and mix well. 
• OR you can also add hot starch water.
• Add more water if you need. Bring it to a paste consistency. 
• Let it come to the room temperature.
• Once cooled, it becomes thicker. Add water or starch water to bring it to a dosa-batter consistency.
• Thus, the hair wash paste is ready to be used to wash you hair.

Tips:

1. You can use either hot starch water or plain hot water or even combination of both to make the paste.
2. You can use starch water along with shikakai paste to wash your hair. The starch water softens your hair. I always use starch water along with shikakai paste.
3. Before hair wash, applying, massaging and soaking your head scalp and hair with good sesame oil or good coconut oil is a very good step to strengthen your hair roots and cooling your body and eyes.
4. If you apply oil before hair wash, then using starch water to wash your hair is advisable. Because, I find that the oil you applied is not completely removed with shikakai paste alone. (But, some people are happy with shikakai paste alone). If yours is a long hair, then I would suggest you to use starch water along with the shikakai paste. And personally I feel that its okay if our hair is little oily after wash.
5. This ratio of ingredients given does not give much lather. But, using starch water gives a sort of gooey consistency which reduces friction.

• After I started using shikakai paste for hair wash, I noticed that my hair fall problem reduced a lot.
• There are two advantages of using starch water for hair wash. One is, it is a good conditioner for hair. Second is, you will have to cook the rice in our traditional way, where you drain the starch water from the cooked rice. This way your carbohydrate intake is reduced a little.
• After washing the hair with this shikakai paste, your hair will have this soothing natural fragrance of the the shikakai which you will not get from any chemicals stored in plastic bottles in the name of shampoo.
• You can use this paste itself as body bath paste too. Its natural body wash / scrub!
• The above mentioned 4 teaspoons of shikakai powder is enough for my medium length hair and body wash.