Natural Hair Care From Your Garden

Who needs a store? The garden produces nearly all hair-care products.

By Maureen Gilmer
Filed under: Plants

Chamomile

To bring the natural highlights back into blond hair, use chamomile. Add four tablespoons of dried flowers to a pint of water in a saucepan. Boil for a half-hour. Allow to cool and strain off flowers to yield the rinse. After washing your hair, wring it out and apply the rinse, allowing it to remain on the hair as you dry it the usual way.

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Mullein

Blond hair was greatly admired in ancient Rome. Women brought out golden highlights by using mullein flowers. Later, in the Middle Ages, the same marigold petals once used to color cheddar cheese were used to create a hair-tinting rinse.

Yucca

Native Americans of the Southwest used yucca to wash their hair. The large roots of this plant contain gentle saponifiers that cleanse the hair without damage or residue. Roots were dug up, chopped finely and steeped in water for a half hour. Suds are worked up by rubbing the roots to create a thick lather. Remove the roots and apply lather to the hair. Even after modern soaps were available, many tribal groups preferred yucca for its gentle cleansing that did not strip or dry the hair.