- Apply the mask on freshly cleansed hair, leave on for five minutes, and rinse off with tepid
water. You can store this mask in a glass jar in the refrigerator for up to three days.
Green Solutions for Boosting Shine
Silicone serums are not the only solutions for vibrant, shiny hair. You can achieve far better and
long-lasting results without the greasiness of petrochemicals if you try one of the following recipes.
To bring out the natural shine, start with your shampoo. If you have less than two ounces of
shampoo left in the bottle, try adding a teaspoon of baking soda, which removes any residue from
your hair without stripping too much natural moisture. If you are happy with the result, buy a bottle of
inexpensive organic shampoo (aim for a basic formula without bells and whistles) and add 1
teaspoon of baking soda per 2 ounces of shampoo. Shake well and sit for about an hour before using.
Don’t expect soda crystals to dissolve completely. You will get a softening, mildly scrubbing scalp
cleanser that you can use once a week to keep your scalp healthy and itch-free.
The simplest rinse to boost shine is apple cider vinegar. Dilute one-half cup of organic vinegar in
one cup of water and use it as a final rinse after a thorough shampooing. Lemon juice mixed with
water in the same proportion can also be used as a last rinse to give your hair a shiny and bouncy
look. But beware: both mixtures should be applied carefully, with your head tilted back, so they do
not get into your eyes!
If you have dark hair and would rather not experiment with bleaching lemon juice, try bringing up
extra shine with coffee. Brew a cup of strong organic coffee, let it cool, and use it as a hair rinse.
Finally, the simplest recipe for shiny hair: after shampooing, just rinse your hair with cool water to
close the hair cuticles. Don’t use cold water, though: this can restrict blood vessels too much,
resulting in a headache.
Green Solutions for Increased Hair Volume
Our hair may look limp and lifeless for many reasons. We may use the wrong styling products that
weigh down our hair instead of holding it up. We may use conventional conditioners loaded with
silicones and quaterniums (synthetic polymers) that coat the hair with a shiny film. The shine will
wear off by midday, leaving limp, greasy locks behind. Whatever the reason, we can easily correct it
by some of the following methods.
First, ditch your conditioner with mineral oil, quaterniums, poly-quaterniums, stearalkonium
chloride, and similar industrial-strength hair softeners. Check the ingredients label, since these
ingredients may hide between plant extracts and infusions. Try wonderfully natural volumizing
conditioners such as Burt’s Bees Very Volumizing Conditioner, Avalon Organics Biotin B-Complex
Thickening Conditioner, orAubrey Organics Ginseng Biotin Energizing Scalp Tonic, which is
marketed for men but makes an excellent leave-on volume-boosting conditioner for anyone. Among
the volume-boosting ingredients to look for are panthenol, hops, coltsfoot, nettle, and horsetail
extracts, and the amino acids cysteine and methionine (the building blocks of hair follicles). Make
sure these ingredients are near the beginning on the ingredients list of the conditioner.
Second, determine whether the lack of body in your hair is due to excessive oil production or to a
lack of natural sebum. If your hair feels like straw by midday, most likely you have dry hair, and
you’ll want to follow the recommendations in the section on solutions for dry, damaged hair. If your
hair feels like a bowl of spaghetti, then your hair is on the oily side, and adopting some steps from the