Caring for your hair, the Ayurveda way

There are three basic steps to caring for your hair:

• Oiling
• Cleansing
• Conditioning

Oiling is the first step because if you cleanse your hair without oiling, you will make your hair dry. Natural oils like sesame, sweet almond and coconut are best for use on hair. They can be infused with your favorite herb or bought already made, like Dabur's Amla Oil.

Massage the oil into your scalp to stimulate circulation. Indian head massage is becoming increasingly popular in the U.K. and there are many places you can pay to have it done. There are even videos on youtube and even for rent at Blockbuster on Indian Head Massage. Here is a video: Indian Head Massage. You can oil your hair at night before bed time and wrap your hair in a satin scarf to protect it.

Cleansing
You can make a tea rinse or paste with ayurvedic herbs to cleanse your hair. For a tea rinse, you can:

• Use an old coffee pot, put your herbs in a filter, add water and brew a tea rinse,
• Or you can simply add 1-2 tablespoons of herbs to hot water and steep and,
• You can also purchase empty tea bags and add your herb to them. Then boil your water and steep your bags.

For a paste, just add enough hot water to make a paste. Then rub the paste in your hair. You can store any excess tea or paste in your refrigerator.

The best herbs for cleansing are shikakai and aritha. Shikakai comes from a pod. It has a natural low pH, is extremely mild, and doesn't strip hair of natural oils.

Aritha is also known as soapnut. Just boiling the soapnuts will yield an excellent cleanser. It is also sold in powder form as is shikakai. Aritha and Shikakai have both been made into soap bars which are easy to use and very inexpensive.


You can mix these two cleansers together and add a conditioner such as amla to your cleanser.

Conditioning
There are many different herbs that condition the hair:

• Amla
• Hibiscus Powder
• Fenugreek Powder
• Brahmi
• Bhringraj, Bhringaraj or Maka (Eclipta Alba)