Organic Rosemary Shampoo Recipe
Rosemary is very good for brunette hair, and has a fantastic smell. It's also fairly easy to grow your own! This recipe for making your own shampoo uses organic rosemary.Note that this makes 2 cups of shampoo - that is a fair amount for an organic use-quick style of shampoo. This is a good size if you have a family, but if you are making it for you alone I would cut the numbers in half.
6 Tbsp rosemary leaves
2 cups distilled water
30 drops lavender essential oil
1 1/2 cups liquid castile soap
Simmer the organic rosemary and distilled water in covered pan for 30 minutes. Once this time period is done, take it off the heat and let it stand overnight.
The next morning, strain out the leaves. Put the remaining tea-colored liquid back onto the stove. Simmer it until only 1/2 cup is left. This photo was taken partway through the simmering process to show you the color.
This simmering process took about an hour for me. Now filter through a coffee filter to remove any remaining leaves. Now prepare your lavender and measure out the liquid castile soap (on the left in this photo).
Add to your liquid castile soap and lavender. I used a citrus orange castile soap to give it some extra citrus aroma, but you can use any aroma you wish of course. You are done!
The resulting shampoo is VERY thin. I tried to show its thinness in the above photo. You won't be able to glob this into your hand and then dab it on your head. Instead, you'll drizzle it on the hair itself and then fluff it into a lather. I tried making an alternate recipe, a Rosemary Glycerine Shampoo Recipe which was half shampoo, half glycerine, and even that did not thicken it out much.
Bottle your shampoo in a dark-colored bottle. You want to keep all natural shampoos away from the light and heat to keep them usable as long as possible.
What I did was bottle half of it in two half-cup bottles, and then put the remaining cup of shampoo in the refrigerator in a tupperware container to keep until I needed it.
The shampoo is GREAT. It lathers up richly and does a great job of washing my hair. I use far less of this shampoo per washing than I did of previous shampoos. I am extremely impressed with how soft and fragrant my hair is afterwards. My face used to always feel tingly and itchy after I showered, from reactions with the shampoo. My face feels soft and happy when using this shampoo. Highly recommended.
I'll also comment that I have some grey hairs. My boyfriend commented completely out of the blue after a few days of my using this shampoo that they grey hairs were far less noticeable. The rosemary gently, naturally "colors" those hairs so they are less bright. It's a wonderful added benefit for anyone with grey hairs!
IMPORTANT NOTE: Your hair will be "tacky" after the shampoo and if you have long hair it will tangle. This is because you need to use a vinegar rinse aftewards to rebalance your hair. I highly recommend starting with a Hot Oil, then using this shampoo, then using a Vinegar Rinse for the best results.
Cost
Organic Rosemary was $2.49 at a regular supermarket
Distilled water is $1/gal - so 1/8th gallon = 12 cents
Organic Castile soap $40/gal - $3.75
Organic Lavender oil - $7/10ml - guess at say 50 cents?
So that's rounded to about $7 for 2 cups = 16 ounces. This is a lot more than I'd pay for a regular shampoo, but half of that was from buying the rosemary. If I grew a tiny plant of rosemary in my window that would be completely free! I should also be able to grow lavender. Time to have a herb garden in my window!
I bought my castile soap from Vermont Soap Organics which creates an awesome castile soap product! Note that the price of the organic castile soap drops drastically if you buy it in 5 gallon pails! Then it's down to $25/gallon.
So if you grew your own rosemary and lavender, bought a 5 gallon pail of organic castile soap and bought some distilled water that would be $2.46 for a 16 ounce bottle - which would last you much longer than a traditional bottle of shampoo would.
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