A scalp scrub does wonders for your hair. Scrubbing the scalp helps to remove buildup, exfoliate, and promote healthy hair growth.
You can make a scalp scrub by adding salt to your regular shampoo. It can be that simple.
I tried infusing herbal ingredients into the salt to see what happens – and the results have been amazing!
It’s such a great recipe to make – and you can make this using simple kitchen ingredients!
Salt is the base, the physical exfoliant. We’re going to saturate it with an herbal vinegar, and then dehydrate it. It’s just like making flavored salts for cooking with!
Vinegar is the ultimate hair care ingredient – it has a low pH, it promotes healhty scalp. It’s anti-fungal, helpful for dandruff. It’s rich in plant acids, which helps to exfoliate the scalp, remove buildup which helps hair growth.
AND it’s a vehicle for beneficial botanicals. Vinegar is a strong solvent – that can extract out water-soluble nutrients, and minerals that enhance hair health.
You can add herbal-infused salt to your favorite shampoo. I probably wouldn’t premix a whole bottle of shampoo… I would mix some up before shampooing.
But, personally, I like to use it just like a body scrub – straight onto the scalp… without any shampoo.
It feels really good!
Video edited on Kapwing
Ingredients:
Method:
Start by making the herbal vinegar for the salt infusion
Peel an orange…
Take a handful of fresh mint, or about 3 tablespoons of dried mint…
And two tablespoons of hibiscus tea. All of this goes into a bullet blender.
Top everything off with apple cider vinegar and water – just to the point where it covers the ingredients.
Blend it for several minutes.
And then strain over the salt, so that there’s no herbal pulp in the salt (otherwise it will be hard to wash out from your hair)
This is my favorite strainer – its a super-fine mesh!
Dehydrate the salt at 120 for about an hour or two – depending on how thick it is. Spread the salt thin so it dries more quickly.
You can do it in the oven, at the lowest setting with the door left cracked open so its not too hot.
Once dried – add the oil, mix well and then store it in an airtight container.
To use: wet your hair in the shower. Scoop out a handful of salt, and massage onto your scalp. Just like you would use a body scrub. If you want, use it with shampoo – find what feels good to you. Rinse off thoroughly. Scrub once per week.
Will keep for 6 months. But make sure you don’t use wet hands to scoop out the salt. And I still recommend using it up in a month or two so that’s as fresh as possible.
Blonde hair? I’m not sure – but the hibiscus could potentially tint your hair… might be fun. Or leave it out if that’s a concern.
Enjoy! – Militza Xx
When it comes to cleansing our body, there are certain words that we recognize: removing, eliminating, purifying. Replenishing, nourishing, and restoring are not words we usually associate with cleansing.
This recipe is all about why they should be.
Typical body/facial cleansers work through actions of extraction and elimination. It helps you achieve the goal of having clean skin, but using methods that leave the skin stripped of its resources. And that’s unsustainable. There’s going to be an imbalance.
Instead we can consider a regenerative approach to cleansing – using methods that prioritize replenishment and nourishment. So that you can balance the want for clean skin, with the needs of healthy skin.
Here’s what regenerative cleansing looks like, through the lens of this recipe:
Oats are a pre-biotic, which means it feeds healthy bacteria on the skin – which do the work of cleaning by keeping the numbers of pathogens and opportunistic bacteria in-balance.
Exfoliation is a natural process of renewal – but it’s about strengthening the skin barrier, not stripping it and depleting it.
The lactic acid in goat’s milk removes dead-skin cell accumulation on the surface of the skin –and– restores moisture (milk fat) into the skin. It fortifies. the skin barrier, and the acid mantle. because goat milk has the same pH as the skin, it supports the acid mantle.
Soap, and certainly over-washing, can leave the skin stripped of its own natural resources: oils, microbes, acid-mantle.
Saponin-rich herbs have a soap-like action. They clean by helping to capture and remove excess oils, dirt, and bacteria. Oats is an incredible saponin-rich herb, full of lipids, pre-biotics, nourishment. And it also acts as a buffering agent which means it helps the skin maintain a normal pH. Oats are seriously underrated. It cleans your skin, and at the same time moistens the skin barrier, supports the microbiome and maintains the skin’s pH.
A powder-to-cream cleanser that cleans and replenishes the skin. Gentle enough to use daily, leave on as a mask.
Ingredients:
* “part” can be any unit of measure, ie: teaspoon, tablespoon, cup, ounce.
For this recipe, it can be 1/4 cup goat milk powder, 1/4 cup colloidal oatmeal. All depending on how much or how little you want to make.
Combine the goat milk powder and colloidal oatmeal together and mix well. Store in a labeled container.
To use: scoop out 1 tbsp into a small bowl. Activate with droplets of warm water to form a creamy paste.
If you are wearing makeup and/or sunscreen, remove that first with an oil cleanser, ie: jojoba oil + a soft damp cloth.
Massage the creamy oat & goat cleanser on your face (body) let it sit for 10-minutes and then wash off.
I like to apply it onto my skin just before getting into the shower, and then I’ll only wet/wash my face just at the end of my shower.
Cleansers are a fascinating topic because ultimately – it’s a solution to a problem that was never well-defined.
Why do we need to clean our face with a product every day? What was the problem that facial cleansers were created to solve?
Cleansing has become so ingrained – using a cleanser feels necessary. It’s a standard, daily practice. The only question we ask, is: what cleanser is best?
But, something that’s interesting to consider is: do I need a product to clean my face at all?
James Hamblin is a doctor and journalist who made waves back in 2016 when he took this “cleansing” question a step further and asked – why are we cleaning our body at all? He decided to embark on his own research study – and stopped showering for 5 years – to see what’s happens.
”Because, evolutionarily, why would we be so disgusting that we need constant cleaning? And constant moisturizing and/or de-oiling? If we do more to allow our oil glands and bacteria to equilibrate, the theory goes, the skin should stop fluctuating between oily and dry.”
The shocking reveal (spoiler alert) is that… nothing happened. His face didn’t break out. His health didn’t deteriorate. Even his social status didn’t suffer. In fact, he found that once his skin rebalanced from cleanser-withdrawal, he didn’t stink. And his skin was just naturally clean, and healthy.
You know, when I was writing my book on natural homemade skin – my publishers expressed concern that some of my recipes were too simple… They wondered if “people might feel like its not enough”
Even within the natural/wellness/health space: there’s still this idea that we need to do more to our skin. It’s interesting to wonder – where did this come from? And is it true?
Certainly the beauty industry and capitalism feeds this idea of needing more. More product. More ingredients more steps…
And yet, that has’t felt good. And for a lot of us, it hasn’t worked.
I’ll tell you this – I didn’t change my recipes. And I’m still at it…
This Oat + Goat Milk is definitely simple. But it feels really good. And it approaches cleansing – in a nourishing way.
What about you? What do you enjoy for cleansing? Would love to hear your thoughts!
Herbalism is growing FAST – in just the last couple of years, we’ve seen old-traditions making a big comeback as more people turn to herbs to improve their physical and mental wellbeing.
If you’re wanting to start a new herbal routine, or reignite an old one – I’m here to help you make wellness feel more accessible… And by that I mean, accessible in cost, in the availability of the ingredients, and in effort!
Here are some tips that you might find helpful.
MAKE IT YOURSELF
There are so many herbal products, new ones popping up everyday! But if you can’t buy them, that shouldn’t mean you can’t have the same benefits! One of the first herbal products that I made was a baby wash made with oats and chamomile – because I couldn’t afford to buy the store bought version… so I made it myself.
Making herbal remedies like infused oils, bitters, tinctures and fire-cider can take a long time… but NOT a lot of effort! Really, the hardest part about making these types of remedies – is being patient enough to wait 4-6 weeks for the herbs to infuse.
And the biggest benefit of being self-made – is that you can afford to fill your home with an abundance of wellness products.
FOCUS ON CULINARY HERBS
Yes something like Kava Kava is amazing at soothing body aches. Orris Root Powder smells amazing in facial blends. But these herbs are obscure. And if an herb is hard to find, or too expensive to buy – the good news is that nature gives you lots of options!
Often the most accessible herbs are those used for cooking and seasoning, they’re easy to find, and less expensive to buy.
Think about rosemary, fresh mint, thyme, ginger… they’re some of the BEST REMEDIES for soothing muscle aches, boosting circulation, reducing inflammation, easing anxiety, protecting yourself from free-radicals…
GET IT FRESH, DRY IT YOURSELF.
When you focus on culinary herbs, it’s easy to get a big bunch of herbs at the supermarket, farmer’s market, garden bed… and dry them yourself at home. You can use a dehydrated or air-dry them.
This preserves the herb, so that you can then use it in LOTS of different ways.
And there’s no comparison to freshly dried herbs! Its so vibrant, and aromatic and flavor. So for less money, and little effort – you can stock your pantry with the best quality herbs – dried mint, and rosemary, ginger and basil – and you’ll have basically an entire collection of wellness for skin, body and mind… right at your fingerstips!