Do you have a hair product graveyard under the sink in your bathroom? Is it full of products you tried, filled with hope that it would help you have the perfect hair day? Only it didn’t help you have the perfect hair day and now you don’t want to throw it away, because you paid good money for it. But you know you are never going to use it. Cause it didn’t work. I used to consider it my emergency supply. But there has never been an emergency so bad that I have ever used it. I finally threw it all away.
I have over the years found my favorite combination of hair products, but they cost a fortune. So I was intrigued when I saw several pins for homemade hair gel using flaxseeds. It claims to be perfect for naturally curly girls like me . I looked forward to all the dollars I would save, and then spend on mani/pedis, or clothes, or chocolate. The list was long.
To make this hair gel you boil 1/4 cup of flax seeds in 1 cup of water and then strain out the jelly. Add your favorite essential oil for scent and there you have it. Several recipes play with different add ins like honey, vitamin E, agave nectar, aloe vera gel, or citric acid. But they all have this recipe as their base.
The texture has been described as similar to egg whites, which is a nice of way of saying it is a lot like the consistency of snot. Egg whites is a better comparison, because it is not so gross. It’s just that snot is what came to my mind. It wasn’t until after I saw another blog use egg whites for comparison and I thought, yeah, that is better!
For this gel to be effective you need to really heavily load it into your hair and then let it dry naturally or use a diffuser. This gives nice shine, but for me, not enough hold. And the yield is so little, you would have to make it often. It does spoil after a week or so even if you add citric acid, so it is best to make it in small batches. Some people keep it in the fridge, but I think it would be a pain to run to the fridge every time I needed to gel my hair. I am glad it was not expensive, because it went in the product graveyard. Since there is no perfect hair product for everyone, this might work for your curls. So give it a try and let me know. It is very popular amongst natural curlies like me.
For me, this pin flopped!
Homemade Hair Gel
Ingredients
- 1 cup of water
- 1/4 cup of flaxseeds linseeds in the UK
- Sauce pan
- wire or nylon fine mesh strainer
- Additional add ins: honey vitamin E oil, citric acid (to keep from spoiling), agave nectar, aloe vera gel
Instructions
- Combine water and flaxseeds and bring to a boil. Stir continually watching for a thin, white, bubbly jelly to form. Lower the heat as soon as you see that foam. Keep stirring until the seeds are suspended in the liquid instead of sinking. Remove from heat and put through the strainer with a bowl underneath to catch the gel. When cool, add essential oil and any other desired add ins. Store in a container with a lid.
- Apply to hair generously when wet.
Here are some great natural beauty products that Tracy really liked:
I tried this, too, last year and it was a total flop. The first batch was cooked too long and it was so gooey it wouldn’t strain thru the nylon or the mesh wire. Second batch mostly strained, enough to work with. I have naturally wavy hair that likes to frizz. This gel didn’t seem to have the muscle to tame it all day. It ended up forgotten in the fridge and eventually went bad. OH well.
I hear ya. It was a bummer, ’cause I really wanted it to work.