Have you fallen in love with kombucha yet? The fizzy, sweet-and-sour, probiotic tea drink is available for purchase all over these days. In glass bottles and cute little cans it comes spiked with ginger, berries, and other flavourings, and will really get things humming in the intestine area, if you know what I mean.
If you really love ‘booch, you’ll want to start brewing it at home. For this you’ll need a SCOBY (a Symbiotic Culture Of Bacteria and Yeast). I got mine from my yoga teacher (I know, I know, could I write a more hippie-ish sentence if I tried?). My SCOBY is now roughly the size of a chunk of tire rubber (I should have taken more care to thin it out over time but… didn’t…) and will churn out a batch of ‘booch from sweetened tea in mere days.
My SCOBY collection… gross, eh?
However, this article is not supposed to be about how to make your own kombucha. This blog is about what to do with surplus sour ‘booch, of which I have a lot thanks to my tank-like SCOBYs (yes… plural… they’re stuck in my jars since they’re so big, meaning I can’t give them away).
As with all fermented things, you start with sugar and bacteria. The bacteria eats the sugar, producing more bacteria (probiotics!) and acid/alcohol as a by product (this is what gives things like yogurt their tangy taste). The longer you let something ferment, the less sweet and more sour/alcoholic it becomes. ‘Booch that’s been given an impressive ferment time will be pretty darn sour. I often have some of this kicking around as my production generally outstrips my intake. This ‘booch can be used as a nice cooking vinegar, but guess what else it’s good for? An acidic hair rinse!
I’d recommend using an unflavoured kombucha that’s been allowed to ferment for long enough that it tastes distinctly sour. If you don’t brew your own kombucha you can achieve this by purchasing a bottle of living kombucha from a store. Get one that comes in a glass bottle so you can swap the lid out for a coffee filter secured with an elastic band, and leave it somewhere reasonably warm and dark to continue to do its thing for a few weeks. You should start to see a thin, gelatinous layer form on the top of the kombucha—that’s your baby SCOBY (you can use this to start brewing your own ‘booch going forward if you want)! If that doesn’t happen (and especially if you start to see mould), toss it and try again with a different brand. Once the ‘booch tastes unpalatably sour, you are ready to rock and roll.
Kombucha Hair Rinse
1 part sour, plain kombucha
3 parts waterBroad spectrum preservative of choice (why?)
Combine the liquids in a sqeezey bottle, cap, and shake to combine.
To use, pour the rinse over the length of your hair (avoiding your scalp to prevent early onset greasies in your wash cycle) after shampooing with homemade shampoo. Rinse your hair and enjoy!
Well dang Miss Marie! I finally feel up to par with you on the DYI scales!
Ive been making this close to 2 years now. I got so sick of drinking it though, that I now just make it to turn it to vinegar.
I just store it in old wine bottles and my collection is growing. Mainly I do this for future cleaning purposes if times should get dicey..in my opinion, the world has a big question mark hanging over it.
Wondered about using it as a rinse and glad you wrote this post! It smells so much better than cider vinegar. Which I refuse to use. I use your dry CITRIC ACID RINSE. A lifesaver for the nose sensitive.
Great ideas as usual, Marie. And have you noticed, you can’t kill SCOBY? I was told to love it, baby it, treat it tenderly. No need, it won’t be killed.
Ha! I have definitely noticed it’s practically impossible to kill a SCOBY! I read about all these people struggling with mould and I’m wondering what on earth they’re doing since mine are like zombies! My hair rinse usually has a blobby little scoby in it after a week or two, and that’s in plastic, and heavily watered down with no added sugar to sustain it.
I would just let people know that you can form a scoby in your drain if you use it in the shower…don’t want that to happen!
I’ve poured a pretty good amount of kombucha down my drains over the last 18 months, and I haven’t had any troubles. As long as you aren’t pouring a liter down the drain and then going on vacation for a month, it should be fine. Lots of water to rinse it down with will have it in the sewer in no time.
Now that’s a scary thought. I have a septic tank and my imagination is “seeing” a giant scoby floating around, growing bigger and bigger each day 😮
Definitely a scary thought, but I really think you’ll be ok! The number of SCOBYs I’ve seen mould in a somewhat carefully prepared jar means there’s no way a septic tank would be a happy home for one… unless it was a mutant… but in that case you might have bigger problems as I imagine it would be sentient as well LOL! 😛
Hi Marie!
I’m also a SCOBY brewer since last year. And I’ve used kombucha tea as a hair rinse about 5-6 times. And I <3 the result…
But my sister had bully me for its smell. Thats why, I wanna ask you two questions:
"Do you have a same problem (not good smell kombucha tea) like mine?
"If yes, how you cope with it?"
Thanks for your attention ^_^
Hi Nilam! I never have an issue with my hair smelling like my rinses; kombucha, apple cider vinegar, lemon juice, or otherwise. Are you diluting yours? Does your kombucha smell gross on its own?
Thanks for the reply…
I didn’t diluting it. Should I? Actually, my sister complain about it’s acid smell and comparing with the smell of commercial shampoo. Well, she don’t get used to with the ‘hair rinse’ except water.
Yes, it’s definitely best to dilute it—you don’t need it to be full strength to work, and that’ll help counter the smell and avoid putting too strong of an acid in your hair on a regular basis. Try a 1:4 kombucha to water dilution and see how that goes 🙂
I see. Well, I’ll do it next. Thanks 🙂
Hi, why this doesn’t include a preservative?, this has water in it so i’m quite confuse jajaj please help i’m quite new to DIY proyects
It probably should, so I’ve added one. There’s a chance the low pH of the kombucha will keep it from spoiling, but it’s better to be safe and add a preservative 🙂
Thank you I’m going to try it
Happy making!
Oh my goodness! So, I just recently started using all natural shampoo and my hair is definitely not the same – tangles so easily and takes forever to brush! Imagine my excitement when I stumbled upon this?! But, I am so new to this and need to know what order to do everything in and how often??
Shampoo, rinse, condition?
Shampoo, condition, rinse?
I also have issues with my hair getting oily within a day causing me to have to wash my hair daily…
Thanks so much!
Hey Jill! Shampoo, rinse, condition 🙂 And don’t use the acidic rinse on your roots, ’cause that’ll make it look oily faster! That should help 🙂 I bet you’ll find the articles in this section helpful as well. Happy natural hair-care-ing!
i’ve been making kombucha for over a year now and through the winter my temp was low ( i don’t have a heater for my booch) and i kinda forgot about it so i got 2-3 batchs of kombucha vinegar! i’ve been wanting to try a kombucha rinse just haven’t gotten around to it. i’ve read that horsetail infusion rinse is also really good for hair. do you think i could combine the 2 and get something really awesome?!
Definitely! Do it! 😀
Hi Marie, could I add essential oils to the kovucha rinse? Would that not kill the good bacteria in it?
Thank you for teaching us!! <3
At 1% it should be fine, but you will also need to incorporate a solubilizer like Polysorbate 20 to ensure they disperse 🙂
i just wanted to know about adding an essential oil to this kombucha rinse…to assist mainly with the over all smell- would you advise it?
You can, but you’ll also need some sort of solubilizer to ensure the EOs properly emulsify into the mixture—something like Cromollient SCE would be a good choice as it’s also great for hair!
Hi, I have made some kombucha tea spray for my dogs. I use it after shampoo and spray it onto their fur before blow drying. I also add some EO into it and I love how soft their fur is and they smell great too. My only concern is that I have baby SCOBYs forming in the bottle after some time and they eventually clog the spray tube and I cant use the bottle anymore. Is there a way to stop baby SCOBYs from forming? Is there any preservative I can add to have a clear solution with no SCOBYs in it? Or should I just not use a spray bottle and go for a squeeze bottle instead?
Hey! If a scoby is forming that means the product is probiotically active. No SCOBY = not probiotically active, which I am guessing would defeat the point for you? I would probably just try to keep the liquid level high enough that the scoby would be nowhere close to the intake for the mist tube, and be diligent about removing it.
Hi Marie, I love your work. I have been trying recipes with Kombucha in a wide variety, because I love it so much. I am wondering if you have any ideas as how to incorporate it into lotions and scalp treatments. I use the Kombucha vinegar as a Deodorant and love it.
Thank you
best
Camila
Hey Camila! I don’t think kombucha is terribly DIY friendly, unfortunately. This hair rinse quickly produced a wee SCOBY, which we wouldn’t want in much of anything. I would stick to make and use straight away uses, like face masks 🙂