Reetha, Amla & Shikakai Home Made Shampoo - Weekend Experiment

Good Morning Lovelies, I hope your weekend was fun. Mines was, well, ho-hum, but anyways, we are not talking about that here (let’s save that cribbing for twitter).

I have been suffering from quite a bit of hair fall since some time. I have tried changing products to using intensive conditioning and the works. It stops the hair fall for while, but then it rears its ugly head again.

So on lark, & for lack of better things to do, my best friend & I decided to make some Reetha – Amla – Shikakai shampoo at home. This century old ayurvedic herbal concoction is reputed to not only strengthen hair, but also darken it and stop hair fall.

I got the 3 biggies from a local kirana store. All 3 are priced at 15 Rs for 100gms.

Reetha

How to: Soak 5 pieces of Shikakai, 4 balls of Reetha  (Soapnut) & handful of Amla (Indian Gooseberry)  in about 500 ml of water overnight. In the morning, heat the mixture on gas till it just starts to boil. Let it cool, when lukewarm mash all the amla, reetha and Shikakai to a pulp to extract all the “goodness” (a lot of suds & froth is produced at this point).

Strain (don’t skip this or else you’ll end up with bits of shikakai & Amla mesh stuck in your hair – I talk from experience – Don’t ask) and use the liquid to wash your hair.  

Shikakai

The experience is a little different from using a shampoo. The moment the liquid touches your hair, it will seem to go all rough and entangled, the way to use this is to apply the liquid all over the hair and let it soak for 2-4 minutes before washing it all off with water. Don’t try and massage and lather like your shampoo – your hair will just get even more entangled than ever. Just apply the entire 500 ml generously all over wet hair hair and scalp. Let it soak, don’t disturb and wash off.

After 4 minutes, I rinsed very well with water and applied some conditioner to the hair ends.

Caution: Don’t let this enter your eyes – they will STING like nothing else has.

Amla



My experience: I loved it!

Generally when I wash my hair, I end up losing a lot of strands. I hardly lost any hair when I used this. It worked just as well as shampoo and removed all oil and dirt from my hair leaving it squeaky clean. My hair looks healthier, thicker and shiny. It also separates hair strands giving me a lot of volume which I am loving. I am planning to skip using regular shampoo & use only this for the next 2-3 months to see if it helps stop hair fall.



All 3 freshly soaked :)

You may not like this if: You like shampoos that lather, have nice perfumed scent. It also tends to stain a little bit – my hands were a light tinge of indigo after washing – nothing seriously though – a good hand wash will remove it in the first wash. Also it may cause some hair dryness.
 

Also if you are replicating this – please check for allergies by doing a patch test.

Have any of you ever used this? How was your experience?