Greta Breedlove - Herbal Treatments for Healthy Hair

Excerpted from The Herbal Home Spa,
by Greta Breedlove

Achieving great-looking hair is not difficult, nor does it need to be expensive. With a few common kitchen ingredients and oils, herbs, and flowers, you can create a variety of treatments that your hair will respond to quickly. The time you invest in creating these easy formulas will be rewarded with healthier, more luxuriant hair.

You can customize the basic herbal shampoo to address your particular hair color, texture, and other individual needs. Then apply an herbal hair conditioner and rinse formulas after the shampoo to help keep your hair healthy from the roots to the ends. You may then opt to try one or more scalp treatments, which are designed to keep the scalp and new hair growth healthy. Some of the treatments are formulated to address particular hair and scalp problems, such as controlling dandruff and encouraging hair growth. The final section offers instructions for herbal hair coloring, a fun area to explore if you are an adventurous do-it-yourselfer.

Learning to make your own hair-care products can save you a bundle of money, but dont skimp on the quality of the ingredients in your money-saving efforts. Using the best quality ingredients is a good practice. Unfortunately, its not always easy to assess the quality of natural products such as herbs; price may not be a reliable indicator of quality.

Many of the preparations in this booklet are best when made with fresh herbs, but fresh herbs are not always easy to obtain. You can substitute dried herbs for fresh and vice versa, if herbs are not available in the preferred form: One part dried is roughly equal to two parts fresh. Growing your own herbs will ensure the best quality, but buying them from local gardeners and farmers or from local herb shops that buy from local growers is a good alternative. Of course, some of the herbs used in these recipes may not grow in your locale and you will have to purchase imported supplies from herb shops or mail-order suppliers (see page 31).

Many health food stores carry a selection of dried herbs as well as the oils required to create your favorite products, and there are a growing number of retail businesses selling herbs and herbal products. A great deal of herbal business is done through mail-order catalogs, but first look in your local yellow pages; you may be surprised at the number of shops listed.

In purchasing dried herbs, one of the primary indicators of freshness is color. Bright green nettles are preferable to those that are faded brown, oat straw should be a chartreuse green as opposed to yellow-tan, and so on. Shelf life for dried herbs is short, about one year at most. Try to purchase your herbs from a source that renews its supply of herbs often. Ask questions about freshness. Its worth paying a higher price for more colorful, more vital dried herbs.

One important quality to insist on when buying fruits, vegetables, herbs, seeds, and oils is that they be organic, which means that they are free of unnecessary chemicals and pesticide residue. Youll find that this does make a difference. More and more grocery stores as well as specialty food shops are offering organic ingredients. If you live in an area where organic ingredients are not available, or you simply cannot afford the added expense, dont let that stand in your way. Use the best quality ingredients that you can find, but be sure to ask your grocer to stock affordable organic ingredients. The more people ask for them, the more stores are likely to respond to the consumer demand.

What a rewarding endeavor it is to grow your own herbs! They are so wonderful to have around, beautifying your home and yard and imparting their gentle aromas. Herbs from your own garden are the best possible ingredients for your finished products, and most are easy to grow. An herb garden can range from a small kitchen window box to a large garden plot. Herbs have a variety of preferred growing conditions. Unlike vegetables, many herbs prefer poor soil. Growing your own herbs is topic enough for an entire book. I strongly encourage you to consult a few herb-gardening books and try to re-create the native conditions for the plants you decide to grow.

Wildcrafting is the practice of harvesting plants from their natural habitat. Many useful plants grow abundantly in the wild and are offered by the Earth for the taking. Unfortunately, the recent herbal renaissance has not been good news for some plants. Although logging practices are often blamed for the endangerment of many plant species, herbalists and wildcrafters have, in recent years, caused significant declines in populations of many plants that are gaining widespread interest.

In many places it is illegal to collect plants or even to pick a single flower. It is best to obtain permission to harvest on properties other than your own and to do so with respect for the land. Native American practice would have you speak to the plants, finding the Grandmother and asking permission to harvest. In that tradition, permission was received from the plants, and seven plants were left untouched for the next seven generations. Harvesting was done from what was left. Imagine if our culture took on the philosophy of the Native Americans and preserved resources for the next seven generations, refraining from any practices that would bring harm to them as well.

Learn to Identify!

Before you gather and use any plants from the wild, be sure you can identify those that are poisonous. We get quite alarmed when we hear the word poisonous, and rightly so. Unfortunately, the current warning system is confusing: All plants ever known to cause any ill effects regardless of dosage are labeled poisonous by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). For example, the herb comfrey, which the FDA recommends not be used internally, is healing to the skin externally yet is included in the list of poisonous plants. Buttercups can cause stomach cramps and are labeled poisonous, yet they are not nearly as dangerous as poison hemlock, which can cause death.

It is helpful to look further into why some plants are labeled poisonous and what these plants will do and in which quantities. If a plant is thought to cause livestock to have photosensitivity when eaten in large quantities, is it best to regard that plant as poisonous and never use it? Some of these questions you will have to answer yourself.

I dont mean to minimize the danger of poisonous plants small doses of some plants can kill. However, the ill effects of other plants have been overdramatized.

It is important to remember that essential oils and some plants that seem benign honey, for example can cause serious problems for, and even death in, infants. Simply placing an essential oil container in its mouth, which a baby may do, can cause harm. Individuals with frailties or health conditions will need to be diligent in their research and careful in their use of plants.

Another common practice used to preserve endangered plants and protect other plants while wildcrafting is to harvest only one third or one fourth of any stand. Unfortunately, this practice, while well intentioned, does not work with the increasing numbers of people wildcrafting, especially for popular plants like ginseng, goldenseal, and ladys slipper.