B. CliShea - Homemade Shampoo: 25 Easy DIY Recipes to Cleanse and Moisturize Your Natural Hair

Invest in your hair. Your hair is the crown that you never take off.

Everybody cares about how they present themselves in the world. Our outward appearance is of utmost importance and we focus much of our time and energy to make sure that every strand of your hair to the tips of your toes are groomed and taken care of.

For women, the value of hair is unquestionable. Hair is almost like a social status! Its a statement about yourself that represents your individuality and style, reflects your mood and state of mind plus a great hairdo gives an extra boost of self-confidence.

This value that we put into looking good and having great hair has driven women to seek assistance from hair professionals. Stylists are consulted for any decision re hair from styling to the latest trends! Women keep regular visits with their personal stylists for trimming, conditioning and the occasional chit-chat.

With the time you spend together, your stylist will become your best friend!

Aside from the obvious aesthetic benefits of having great hair, knowing your hairs status has other advantages. The state of your mane may be reflecting your personal health. If you have brittle and dry hair or a flaky scalp, it usually means that youre lacking in nutrients that keep your scalp and hair follicles healthy.

Health is a priority in todays world and this focus extends to hair-care. Through recent studies, consumers have learned the ingredients that goes into the products they use. They found out that most of the products sold in markets today have chemicals in them that do more harm than good.

Because of this, people started looking for all-natural and organically grown products for their most basic needs from the food they eat to their personal hygiene needs. For beauty, consumers have become more educated on the ingredients of their routine beauty products and are starting to avoid conventional products and buy organic instead.

Hair and beauty are now multi-billion-dollar industries and an average woman spends approximately $50,000 in her lifetime for haircare (washing and styling) alone.

But lets face it though not everyone can afford such luxuries. The cost of buying organic products and maintaining quality hair is too steep for most. This is the reason some people settle for conventional and common products. Their logic is: these products are affordable, can be easily bought and does what its supposed to do clean hair. For some, this is enough.

Even though complacency is present with most, theres still a growing movement of individuals that support homegrown organic goods and homemade organic products. These supporters have published multiple reports and studies to highlight the qualities of all-natural products and how these qualities resonate in our day-to-day lives.

This is particularly true for hair care. Multiple sites and writings budded all over the internet promoting the positives of going organic and endorsing the benefits of using homemade products instead of buying them. This gave people alternative lifestyles that are both healthy to their bodies and good to their wallets.

This eBook is in support of that movement. This is designed to show the merits of going organic for hair care and providing helpful information and tips to help you go through the process.

It will be a ride, so hang on and enjoy it!

Ph Levels + Your Shampoo + Hair Care

To fully understand hair, one needs to have a clear grasp of the relationships between your shampoo, pH levels and hair care.

What does pH levels mean?

pH levels are words that are being thrown around a lot these days. We normally associate pH levels to the alkalinity of household cleaners, the qualities of distilled water and of other everyday substances. Even our hair has its own natural pH level. This level can get affected by the kind and quality of hair care products you use regularly.

Potential Hydrogen or pH scale is the measurement of the acidity or the alkalinity of a substance measured on a scale of 0-14 with 7 being a neutral solution. The term originates from the French term pouvoir hydrogene or hydrogen power.

Potential or (p) is written in small letter as it simply talks about the amount of the substance while Hydrogen is represented as H as it is a proper word and scientific name of an element.

Blood and water are both examples of things with neutral or pH7 levels. Battery acid has pH level 1 and is very acidic while bleach has pH level 13 and is very basic.

Each level movement, either left to right or its reverse, represents the acidic or basic levels of a substance. The higher the Ph level the more alkaline or basic it is.

Your hairs typical pH balance is between 4.5 and 5.0. Hair is somewhat acidic because of the mantle a slightly acidic fluid mixture of oil, salt and water found in your hair.

Water, with pH 7, is therefore too alkaline for human hair. Then human hair encountering hard water will mean trouble!

The term hard water is used to describe water that has high mineral content, usually calcium and magnesium but may also include bicarbonates and sulfates. The degree of hardness becomes greater as the mineral content increases.

When hair encounters high alkaline substances, like hard water, the cuticles of our hair swells, rises and opens. Raised cuticles lead to porous hair that will have difficulty to absorb and keep moisture on. Because of this, hair will become dry, tough and susceptible to frequent breakage.

On the other end, when hair comes into contact with low pH substances, the cuticle contracts and lays flat. This is technically the ideal situation because a compact cuticle better holds moisture which leads to healthier looking hair.

To restore a balanced pH level, one key thing to do is to transition to hair products that are within the 4.5 5.5 pH level range. This may be difficult to determine because some manufacturers dont include pH levels in their product labels. However, you can conduct a simple test to identify the pH levels.