Friday, July 13, 2012

Hair Help, Bug deterrant, produce cleaning

  It's been a nice break, cool and rain this last week, but as it always seems, too much rain. The garden is not likeing being so wet, needs a little sun. We are sure to go from cool and wet to another hot and dry spell, isn't that life!
  Today I have some ideas for home made hair rinses to make your hair soft and super shiny, and very inexpensive.
  These are all made the same way, depending on your hair color, pick what works for you.
  Brunettes,  boil 2 cups of water,  add 1/4 cup fresh or dried sage, and steep for 15 minutes. Strain, put in container. After washing hair, pour over as a final rinse, do not wash out.
   Blondes, use same thing but  put 1/2 cup of chamomile flowers into the boiling water. (omit sage)
  Red heads,  substitute 1/4 cup of hibiscus flowers.
  If you want a home made shampoo that will make your hair shimmer, try mixing 1/4 cup of water, 1/4 cup of castile soap and 1/2 teaspoon of vegetable oil together, suds away. Castile soap is easy to find on line, just type it into your search engine, it's not very pricy and good for a lot of things. Have not been able to find it in stores, used to be used for babies all the time as it's so gentle.  If you want to add herbs to this shampoo, dried chamomile, lavender, etc can be added as you like.  To add body and bounce, add 1 cup of beer, this needs to be reduced from 1 cup to 1/4 cup by simmering. When we were stationed in the Phillipines, the beauty shops all used a beer based shampoo on our hair, made it look great.  How about some home made bug repellant? 
  1/2 ounce citronella oil
  1/4 ounce lavender oil
  1/8 ounce tea tree oil
  1/8 ounce jojoba oil.
 Add 16 ounces of almond or oil of your choice, blend and put in spray container.
  Or try 3 and 1/2 ounces of witch hazel
            1/2 ounce lemon juice
            1/2 teaspoon eucalyptus oil
            1/2 ounce citronella oil   combine all in small spray bottle.
 On to fruits and vegetables. If you are buying them at the store or local farmers markets, they need to be cleaned. A great wash is made by combining the following:  8 ounces purified or distilled water, 1 cup vinegar, juice of 1 lemon, 2 teaspoons baking soda and a drop of orange extract, which I think could be omitted, mostly for scent.  Cut the lemon in half and squeeze out juice into a bowl, add soda, oil and if using, extract. Mix well then add vinegar. Whee , fizz all over the place, kids will love watching this. Pour this into a bottle, and when cleaning your produce, spray it well, let sit at least 30 seconds then rinse thoroughly. Some of the dirtiest produce includes potatoes, apples, peppers, celery, peaches, blueberrys, strawberrys, grapes, spinach, lettuce, green beans, kale, avocados, cantalope, eggplant, kiwi and watermelon. Just wash them well and they will be healthy additions to your diet.
  Hope you have a great week, stay well.
  By the way, any of the ingredients I use  in these recipes are available at Mountain Rose Herbs, or on Amazon.
          

 

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