DIY - Homemade Hair Gel

Lately I have been cringing every time we wash our hair, brush our teeth, or put on lipstick. I actually started to look at the ingredients that are in these products. They are all full of dye - or lake - and sulfates. The ingredient list is gross - and I know that it is getting into our body.

So, in addition to cleaning up the way we are eating, I am going to clean up how we have been cleaning ourself.

I am a bit of an impulsive person. When I make a decision I throw myself into it 100% - and then it always fails. As much as I would love to throw out everything in our house, and make it natural and better, that is just not realistic. I have restrained myself a bit and am switching us over bit by bit.

First on the list was hair gel - I was running out and did not want to have to buy more nasty stuff. It was the hair gel that first got me thinking about making our supplies, rather then buying them.

I could not find a more natural hair gel that people actually liked, even though the products seemed to cost over ten dollars a bottle - a lot more then my dollar store gel. Then I stumbled across flax seed hair gel. I read over and over and over again how this stuff worked.

So I gave it a try.

Making hair gel is easier then cooking.

First I put in two cups of water and a 1/4 cup of organic flax seed. I dumped the flax seed in once the water was slightly boiling. Then I reduced the temperature down to medium high - to keep it from heavily boiling.

I let the mixture boil for about nine minutes - it should be gooey.

Next I put the mixture in a strainer letting the gel go through, and keeping the flax seed. You can stir the flax seed to try and get all the gel to fall through.

Once that was finished I moved the gel into a glass jar and put it in the fridge.

I have read that the gel will last for a couple of weeks.

For the left over flax seed some people suggest to toss it out, other's say you can use it for a new batch of gel, and other's throw it into recipes.

I had plans to throw it into our muffins for this week, but I forgot. Not sure what I will do with it yet, but I have no plans on just throwing it out.

The big question is does it work?

Yes, it works amazing. If you have been reading previous posts you have probably noticed L's big puffy hair. It is crazy everywhere, and we have never found an easy solution to taming it.

Here is L's big puffy hair.

Here is L's hair right after the flax seed gel.

Here is L's hair about four hours after the flax seed gel (after she had been running around crazy).

Yes, it works! But, you need to use a liberal amount or it is useless. Also, it will only last for about eight hours if your hair is as thick as ours. After that the shape will be gone, but the hair still looks healthier.

We will totally be using this recipe for now on.