By Julyne Derrick

Coconut oils and milks are great for both your skin and your hair. In the tropics, women have been moisturizing their hair with coconut milk for generations. And for good reason, coconut milk is wonderful for keeping hair soft and shiny.

Here, I include 3 coconut milk masks for the hair and as an extra bonus, I've included a recipe for making your own homemade coconut milk.


Simple Coconut Milk Hair Mask
Coconut oils and milks are great for both your skin and your hair.

This recipe is a favorite and leaves hair silky and smelling fabulous.

What's best about this hair mask is how absolutely simple it is. Plus, there's no need to use all the milk. You can cover the bowl and use again after a few days.

Ingredients

• 1 can of unsweetened coconut milk
• a few drops of essential oil if you like (totally not necessary, but if you have them on hand it can be luxurious).

How to Use
Pour a can or bottle of unsweetened coconut milk in a bowl and refrigerate overnight so it hardens. Section hair into 3-5 sections and section, by section, apply the milk from roots to ends of your hair (hair should be dry when applied). Cover head with a shower cap and leave the mask on for about 20 minutes. Rinse hair in the shower and comb out. If you have dry ends but your scalp tends to get oily, apply this mask only to the bottom 3/4ths of hair, keeping it off the scalp.


Coconut Milk & Avocado Hair Mask
I love the effects of avocado on dry, frizzy hair. This recipe is for shoulder-length hair. Add more if you have long hair.

Ingredients

• 3 tbsp unsweetened coconut milk
• 1/2 avocado
• 1 tbsp honey

Throw the ingredients in a blender to combine. Add another tablespoon of milk if it's not runny enough.

How to Use
Wet your hair thoroughly, then comb the mask through from roots to ends. Cover with plastic and a towel or a shower cap if you have one and let the mask sit for 10-30 minutes before rinsing thoroughly.
I have found that even 5 minutes helps with these masks, so if you're in a hurry, you can rinse after a few minutes and you won't have to leave the shower.


Infused Olive Oil and Coconut Milk Hair Mask
You've heard of hot oil treatments, well you can make your own with an infusion of rosemary and olive oil. The milk is added for extra moisturizing benefits. Don't have time to make an infusion? No worries. Just skip that part. Olive oil and coconut milk are wonderful together even without the herb.

Olive oil infusions will last for 6 months.

Ingredients

• 1 cup olive oil
• 3 tbsp dried rosemary leaves
• 1/2 cup unsweetened coconut milk

To make the infused olive oil, combine the oil and rosemary leaves in an airtight Ball jar for 4-8 weeks. If you don't have time for this, make the infused oil by gently heating the rosemary in the oil for 2-4 hours in a water bath or double-boiler. Whatever you don't use on your hair, you can use for meals. Rosemary-infused olive oils are wonderful brushed over focaccia breads or used for dipping.

Once you have your infused olive oil, you'll make your hair mask by combining 1/2 cup of the infused olive oil and 1/2 cup of the coconut milk.

How to Use
Apply to hair, cover with a shower cap and let it sit for 30 minutes. Rinse thoroughly. You may feel you need to shampoo your hair after a hot oil treatment, which is fine.


How to Make Your Own Coconut Milk
While you can buy coconut milk in a can, there's nothing better than homemade just-off-the-coconut milk.

Here's how to make your own.

Ingredients

• 1 coconut
• 4 cups boiling water

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Find the eyes on the coconut (they are always the 3 spots on one end of the coconut). You need to pierce these with an ice pick or a sharp skewer. This is to allow the heat to penetrate the coconut.

Drain the coconut water into a cup.

Place the coconut in a pan and bake for 15 minutes.

Remove from the oven and place on a large wooden cutting board or other solid work surface. Break the coconut apart with a hammer. Rinse the coconut meat and slice the coconut into small pieces (no need to break the shell away from the meat).

Place the coconut pieces and the reserved coconut water in a blender and blend until finely chopped.

Put the chopped coconut into a glass bowl with the 4 cups of boiling water. Cover the bowl and let it sit for 30-45 minutes.

Using a strainer or cheesecloth, strain the mixture into another bowl. This is your milk. You should have enough for 3 treatments. Store in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks.

This article first appeared on About Style

Happy Healthy Hair – Vitamins and Supplements
from Kala Kilshaw

Our hair and nails are the last place to receive the benefits of vitamins and we rarely eat as much of the good stuff as we need. As hair is 91% protein, in order to repair it from the inside out, a regular hair masque is the solution. Many masques available are moisture based so make the hair feel soft and smooth but don’t actually do any internal good. A simple homemade protein based masque is all you need.

These 2 examples are perfect for all hair types, they are a great blend of proteins and fatty acids exactly what we need for Happy Healthy Hair.

Ingredients for Banana Hair Masque
• 1 banana
• ¼ cup of almond milk
• 2 tbsp coconut oil
• 2 tbsp honey

⚛ Cut banana into small pieces and place in a bowl
⚛ Add ¼ cup of almond milk
⚛ Add 2 tbsp coconut oil
⚛ Add 2 tbsp honey
⚛ Blend or mash until smooth

Ingredients for Avocado Hair Masque
• 1 pitted avocado
• 1 egg yolk
• 2 tbsp of either coconut, olive or almond oil

⚛ Place the avocado and egg yolk in a bowl
⚛ Add 2 tbsp of either coconut, olive or almond oil
⚛ Blend or mash until smooth

Directions of use:

★ Apply to freshly shampooed, towel dried hair (squeeze water from the hair don’t rub, this prevent roughing the cuticle and causing damage)

★ Cover with a plastic shower cap or bag and a warm towel if possible

★ Leave for 20 mins

★ Comb through gently with a wide tooth comb from end to roots so as not to stress and damage the hair

★ Give your scalp a lovely massage – see details of the benefits above

★ Rinse thoroughly


⚛ 20 mins is perfect timing for treatments and don’t sleep with them in as there are no extra benefits.

⚛ You can add a couple of drops of your favourite essential oil if you want a more fragrant indulgence.

⚛ Drying your hair thoroughly instead of leaving it damp and tying it up will prevent, fungus, scalp problems and breakage.

This article first appeared on UKHairdressers.com

(The Science Experiment)
by Beth Skwarecki

When my hair gets frizzy, a good silicone serum is like magic. You just rub a drop on your hands, pat your hair all over, and your hair looks like a million bucks. But then you have to wash your hands afterward, which sometimes feels impossible. Silicone just does not wash out like other hair products.

So the anti-frizz serum sits on a shelf in my bathroom, mostly unused. A few days ago, my four-year-old found it.

“What’s that in your hair?” I asked. The front of his head was all wet, shiny curls. “I washed it!” he said. With what? “Hair soap!”

Our hand soap is in a green container with a pump top. The anti-frizz serum is also in a green container with a pump top. Four year olds have a vague idea that hand soap is not for hair, but they also cannot read words like “serum” or “shampoo.”

I asked my Facebook friends what gets silicone out of hair. Surely someone would know. Apple cider vinegar was the first answer, and the second, and made several more appearances as the day went on. I had my doubts, since silicone is not water soluble. Clarifying shampoo was another popular recommendation, but is there really a difference between clarifying shampoo and regular shampoo?

Crowdsourcing would not solve my problem. I needed to use science

Click here for the experiment >>

It's that time again...

Avoiding Pool Hair

Summer is approaching and many of us will be hitting the pool!  To avoid the damage chlorine can wreak on the hair, simply wet your hair with tap water (with a one tablespoon per pint of leave-in conditioner) before you jump in.  This will prevent the hair from soaking up pool water and reduce the damage!  

Summer’s here and so are swimming pools and Chlorine
Summer is here and many stylists are getting this lovely shade of swimmers green sitting in your chair. Remember your childhood as a white blonde who’s hair turned green each year. Leaning over the kitchen sink pouring tomato juice over your head, catching it in a basin and pouring it over again, and again. The tomato acids worked to remove the copper minerals (blue/green) but was very drying on fragile blonde long hair.  YES, Catsup works, too

Always remove the minerals causing the green (use Malibu C), rather than trying to cover them up (darken or tone) with haircolor or worse bleaching the minerals out of the hair.
 
Aspirin and Water Can Get Rid of Chlorine Green
Taking aspirin with water won’t help, but rinsing your hair with aspirin dissolved in water will, according to Manhattan dermatologist Amy Wechsler. It’s actually the copper in chemically treated pools, not chlorine, that makes blonde swimmers’ hair go green. The acids in aspirin and water, as well as in tomato and lemon juice, can neutralize copper, helping get the green out.

To prevent further greening, before swimming rinse hair in cold water to tighten the cuticle, then put on conditioner and a swim cap. After swimming, wash hair with swimmer’s shampoo, which binds to the copper on the hair to remove it.
 

From the archives of "The Beauty Blog"
7 Excellent Ways to Protect Your Hair when in the Pool

Have a great summer!

We know the basic salon etiquette—be on time, leave a 20 percent tip, don’t take phone calls, etc.—but what do stylists really wish we did during our visit? We asked a handful from different salons to share their biggest pet peeves so we can all be the best client—with the best hair.

By Chelsea Traber Burns

1  Come Clean
 “I can’t tell you how many clients come in with hair that hasn’t been washed in a week because they’ve been waiting on me to do it,” says Katelyn Bode, a colorist at Diva Salon in Oklahoma City. “If you don't come in with perfectly fresh, clean hair, it’s okay, but having a ton of product build-up on your strands can cause your color to go on unevenly.” Raisa Cabrera, a master colorist at Mizu salon in New York City, points out that you shouldn’t scrub your scalp before a color service because “it can make your skin more sensitive to the dye.” A good rule of thumb: “If you’re grossed out by how dirty your hair is, chances are, I am too,” says Bode. Gently shampoo the night before your appointment to make nice with your stylist and get the most out of your color.

2  Be Patient
“When undergoing a major color change, have realistic expectations of what can be achieved in a single appointment,” says Sheenon Olson, a celebrity hairstylist and creative director of ATMA salon in Miami. “Don’t expect to go from black to platinum blonde in one day,” he says. “Do it gradually to maintain the integrity of your hair—I always recommend asking the stylist what is realistic to achieve in one day,” he says. If you realize the process is going to take longer than the time you allotted, reschedule your appointment when you have the time.

3  Be Honest
“It’s critical that you tell us what your hair’s history is, whether it was a gloss, toner, Brazilian blow out, box color, etc., it can make a difference on how we go about treating it,” says Miguel Angarita, a master colorist at Mizu salon in New York City. He also recommends chatting with your stylist about budget and upkeep to ensure you’re not getting yourself in too deep. Certain colors and cuts require more trips to the salon so if your goal is to be low-maintenance, ask your stylist for something that will still look great as it grows out.

4  Keep an Open Mind
“It’s always good to come to your appointment with an idea, but be open to expert advice as well,” says Carlina Ortega, senior colorist at Rita Hazan Salon in New York City. “What you have in mind may not be the best choice for your skin tone, face shape, eye color, or other features, so be flexible and talk with your stylist to ensure you get the best cut or color specifically for you.”

5  Bring Visuals
“Pictures are the easiest way to communicate to your stylist what you like and don’t like,” says Cristina B, a stylist at Rita Hazan Salon in New York City. She recommends bringing in several examples from different angles and in different lighting to get your point across. Be sure to get very specific on details as well—getting a trim and getting rid of dead ends can be two very different lengths.

6  Choose Your Appointment Time Wisely
“Be wary of that last appointment on a Saturday,” warns Francesca D’Ascanio, master colorist at Mizu salon in New York City. “If you are a new client, want a major change, or need a lot of work done to your hair, consider booking appointments earlier in the day or in the middle of the week,” she says. “They’re easier to get and your stylist will have more time and energy to devote to you.” Not sure what you need or how long it will take? Call your stylist ahead of time or go in for a consultation beforehand so you can explain what you’re thinking and they can be sure to block out the right amount of time.

7  Take Better Care of Your Color
“Using good quality color-safe products really does matter,” says Bode. “I feel like clients sometimes think I’m just trying to make more money by having them buy the products I sell, but they’re going to make your color last longer and, in turn, allow you to go longer between appointments,” she says. Products that aren’t specially formulated for color-treated hair, can strip the color out of your strands, leaving it dull and dingy way sooner than you hoped. “You’re a walking billboard for my work so I want it looking the best it can,” adds Bode.

This article first appeared on RealSimple.com