Skin Deep

As a child of the 70s/80s, I grew up in a pretty holistic, "hippy" household where we tried to do everything natural & "organic" (long before the word was being stamped on every label). Our food was mostly healthy & natural, some even grown in our own back yard, or from the gardens of friends & family. My mom used "natural" hair & skin care lines, found at Whole Foods (back when they were just one little store in Austin, not a nationwide chain) & vitamins were everywhere. I also remember there being plenty of "home remedies" for this & that. Some were born from tradition, passed down through generations ("old wives tales") & others came from the extensive reading my father did on all things healthy & natural.

For as far back as I can remember, I would spend hours in my room with various products & ingredients, pilfered from my mother’s bathroom & kitchen, mixing this & that, concocting the perfect products for this or that. At the time I was more concerned with skin care products, probably because that’s what I’d seen on tv or in magazines. Women were always shown devoting a great deal of time to creams & masques for their face during their beauty routines. Hair care seemed really to only consist of using the right shampoo (Vidal Sassoon – because if you don’t look good, we don’t look good!), learning how to get a good nights sleep in a full set of rollers, & a healthy coating of hair spray! Of course, over the years, I learned there is much more to it than that &, eventually, started experimenting with a variety of ingredients on my own hair.

Fast forward to present day – As a licensed cosmetologist, I have a wealth of products readily available to me & promising all manner of results. Some backed by years of research & the finest quality, least damaging ingredients (Kevin.Murphy, Sojourn, Aquage’s SeaExtend line) & many others that are really no better (possibly even worse) than the cheap drug store lines – they just come in a nice package with “famous” name. But for all of their research, proprietary blends, & patented ingredients, have we managed to lose sight of the fact that, for centuries, women have grown long, beautiful, healthy, strong hair without the aid of man made products? Are we overlooking brilliant remedies that may be found right in our own back yards (or local, natural markets, as the case may be)?

Recently, part out of necessity & part out of pure curiosity, I’ve began to experiment with some of these “home remedies” again; researching the ingredients that have traditionally been said to do this or that for your hair & applying that knowledge to mix my own potions. I thought I would start sharing some of the results – wins & losses – here.