As I mentioned in my Hair Introduction, Ayurvedic powders are the centre of my regimen. In particular, I use:
Shikakai (Acacia concinna): The powder contains saponins (cleansing agents). It hardly foams up at all, but it cleans like a dream. And you know how when you shampoo you get that squeaky, stripped feeling? Shikakai won't do that at all. I believe it has tannins in it like most of these ayurvedic herbs so it tends to harden the hair a little or maybe be a bit drying. But if mixed with a non drying herb like amla and bhringraj, the effect seems to subside. I'll go into how I use all these herbs soon.
Amla (Emblica officinalis): I've found this one is more conditioning rather than cleansing. It softens and defines my curl pattern. I fell that it darkens my hair. I love it. If you're thinking of mixing herbs, amla is a good one to mix with some of the more drying herbs like shikakai or henna.
Bhringraj (Eclipta alba): Bhringraj largley supports the scalp and promotes hair growth and premature greying. I remember reading a journal article on a study that showed that Bringraj oil increased hair growth. I'll probably do a post on this sometime soon. I use the powder for now though. This is also another good one to mix with the more drying herbs.
Cassia (Cassia Obovata): Cassia has recently come into my life, and this is my true love lol. Originally, I'd wanted to use henna ... well I have used henna once years ago when I started out, it dried my hair out and I never used it again. Henna is great, but I went out and bought it without knowing what I was getting into. I'd read a couple of posts on Nappturality.com and that was it. Fastward to today, I wanted to try it again because of its strengthening properties. The only thing is, I didn't want the colour change. No matter what anyone else says, Henna WILL colour your hair, even if it's mixed with other powders, or conditioner or whatever else. The active dye is deposited into the hair shaft regardless of what you do. I think there was a post on Long Hair Community forum about deactivating the Henna Lawsone dye. I've never done this, so I'm not too sure how well this works.
Well I suppose Cassia was the answer to my prayers then. It strengthens like Henna but doesn't colour dark hair at all. It will cause a colour change in blond hair and greys though. The shine it gives to hair hair is amazing. It also loosens the curl. The picture in my hair introduction post is of recently Cassia'd hair. I don't know how clear it is, I'll try and get a better one next time.
I also use herbs for hair like nettle, horsetail, burdock root and oatstraw.
In my next post I'll go over how I actually use all these herbs on wash day.
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