I thought of this one day as I was biking home from work. I was flying down a hill in a rather industrial part of time, really hoping today wasn’t the day I’d get hit by a dump truck, and I started thinking about hair mist. That’s just how my brain works, I guess. (Spoiler: I didn’t get hit by a dump truck). Anyhow, it seemed like a great idea, so I went home and made it. And it was.
I’ve been slowly amassing ingredients that are supposed to be awesome for your hair, so the basic idea was to try putting them all into one hair mist and see what happened. Not overly complicated, but I’m thrilled with the end result.
The base of the spray is just water, but you could use aloe vera juice or chamomile tea if you’re feeling fancy. After that, I added a bit of silk peptide because of “the shine, elasticity, and smooth feel it provides to hair. [This becomes] apparent after it dries and turns into a protective crystalline film that is less sticky than collagen or keratin.” So far, so good.
Up next was some phytokeratin—plant derived keratin. “In hair care preparations, Phytokeratin enhances the hair moisture binding ability giving sparkle, shine and bounce,” so obviously it was another no-brainer.
Next was some bamboo bioferment. Touted as “nature’s silicone”, it improves both slip and shine in hair (read: detangling powers!). Lastly, some vegetable glycerine (USA / Canada) (to boost the ability of the hair to hold the moisture from the mist) and just a wee bit of jojoba oil (USA / Canada). I rounded it out with some rose absolute and cape snowbush essential oil. The cape snowbush really brightens the rose and adds a nice crispness that keeps it from being too sweet.
The final mist boosts shine, leaves my hair feeling wonderfully smooth, and really helps prevent tangles. I’m in love!
Sleek & Shiny Hair Mist
20 drops jojoba oil (USA / Canada), camellia seed oil, or argan oil (USA / Canada)
3 drops rose absolute
2 drops cape snowbush essential oil
25 drops solubilizer/polysorbate 20 (optional)85g | 3oz distilled water
5g | 0.17oz vegetable glycerine (USA / Canada)
5g | 0.17oz bamboo bioferment
5g | 0.17oz phytokeratin
1 tsp silk peptide (need a substitute?)Broad spectrum preservative of choice (why?)
Mix the jojoba, essential oils, and solubilizer together in a small bowl.
Whisk in the glycerin, bamboo bioferment, and phytokeratin together in another small bowl. Add a small amount of the water and whisk the silk peptide in.
Slowly whisk in the rest of the water and the preservative, and then whisk in the oil mixture.
Decant to a 120mL/4 fl oz mister bottle. Use on the hair, avoiding getting too much on the roots so your hair doesn’t end up looking oily.
I”m always worried that hair mists and leave in conditioner type products will leave my hair looking thinner than it is (!) and oily, because I have super fine hair that had a massive shed this autumn, and I’m left with a braid narrower than a pencil 🙁
At the same time, I really think it needs something to help it (although I”m waiting to see if my thyroid is the cause of the unbelievable amount of hair that I lost…). I occasionally just oil it with coconut oil, but only overnight.
This recipe sounds awesome but I wonder if you have ideas for thin, fine hair. (You obviously have a ton of hair to work with, so maybe not)
Hmmm. I must admit I’m not overly familiar with thin hair. I have fine hair, but boatloads of it. I can attest that this mist is super light and doesn’t weigh down fine hair. To use it, I tend to mist it into the air above my hair and either walk through it or let the mist drift down onto my hair (I’ll usually shake my hair around in a very shampoo-commercial like way as well, to ensure the mist doesn’t hit one area too strongly). If you’re worried about the oil you can easily use less, or even leave it out entirely, and see how that goes.
I do have a girlfriend who has thin, fine hair who is also into natural hair care. I’ll ask her what she thinks next time I see her and report back 🙂
There are a few things you can do to boost your thyroid if it seems a little slow.
One is, natural liquid iodine (from kelp) drops in your water.
Another is, lie on your back with your head hanging over the side of the bed, and massage your thyroids gently, once a day.
Thirdly, dilute one drop of myrrh EO into a few drops of carrier oil, and massage that over your solar plexus.
Meanwhile, do NOT use synthetic detergents or conditioners on your hair, as they have ‘safe’ ingredients that actually damage your hair follicles. Make your own!
Thanks for the tips, Sylvia!
Hi Marie, I live in the middle east where a woman’s hair is her pride and glory lol, so almost every woman wears hair perfume on a daily basis. They tend to wear a large amount of it, and expect a strong scent that will stay the entire day. Do you have any recipe that would be suitable for this amount of application?
I’d start with this formulation and use more fragrance 🙂
This sounds like it would work great! I have recently let my brown hair grow out and it is now almost all white. I’m conscious of not using products that are yellow, so my hair won’t turn yellow. Can you tell me which ingredient is turning the product yellow so I can leave that one out? Thank you.
It’s the rose absolute 🙂 It’s very dark orange/red on its own, and dilutes down to this light yellow colour. Lavender would be a wonderful (colour free) alternative. Have fun & thanks for reading!
This sounds wonderful. My hair is very curly, like I have a perm all the time and I would love to try it! Unfortunately I don’t have most of the ingredients so I am afraid it would cost me a fortune to get them to try it. You don’t happen to sell your creations already made on Etsy do you?
OOh, I am so jealous of your hair! Mine is so straight people think I’ve straightened it when I haven’t even brushed it, haha. The grass is always greener, eh?
Sadly, I don’t sell my concoctions—I simply don’t have the time to both blog & sell 🙁 Maybe if I win the lottery and don’t need to work full time as well! It is something I’m thinking about and would love to do it if I ever find the time.
The ingredients for this might be $20, though, so that’s not too bad, especially when you consider the prices of more fancy pants salon hair products.
Lovely looking hair goodness! I don’t have solubizer is there a way to use vegemulse to make it into a uniform product? Would it still work without solubizer if I use an immersion blender to bring it together? I don’t like the idea of tiny oil droplets landing on my easily oily hair. Also I don’t have bamboo or keratine but I was clever enough to have added the silk peptides to my last order;-) on another note, have you tried Amla (Indian gooseberrie) powder on your hair? It’s faboulous. Thanks for sharing.
I just did a bit of research, and vegemulse = emulsimulse (Glyceryl Stearate, Cetearyl Alcohol, Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate), so they’re both wax, which means you generally have to use them at 5–10% of the final formula, with 75% water, and then you end up with a thick, creamy lotion… not a spray, which is what you want here, when you want to spray it, haha. And sadly, no, no amount of shaking and stirring will force an emulsion here without an emulsifier (like solubilizer). I have yet to find a natural emulsifier to replace solubilizer with, but I’m always trying. As always, I’ll keep you posted 🙂
I’d definitely recommend adding some phytokeratin & bamboo bioferment to your next order or two, they’re pretty darn awesome for hair.
I haven’t heard of Amla at all—what does it do? What’s it like? Where do you get it?
Bummer about the solubizer. I can’t put another order in with New direction as the postage is a killer. Also ND Australia is rather pricey ;-(
Google Amla, it’s awsome. I brought a prepackaged box at a market stall for a highly inflated price and I tried it on my hair.Its a natural conditioner/mask/treatment for brown/dark hair.It makes is shiny and soft and towns down brassiness red. You would need at least 200g for long hair like yours, better off buying bulk. Here an AMAZON link, unfortunately they won’t send to Australia again! http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008Q5Q3AC/ref=ox_sc_act_title_6?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A2UDNPGKURPVSY
I also brought another packet that’s cassia powder for extra shine. Haven’t tried it yet but read good stuff about it too. Let me know what you think 😉
Shipping is a huge bummer, eh? Americans don’t know how good they have it, with their free/cheap/fast shipping on practically everything. We get a similar crap deal on shipping in Canada.
Sadly, that Amla source on Amazon doesn’t ship to Canada, either 😛 But I will keep my eye out for it the next time I’m at an Indian market 🙂
I really don’t want to use Polys 20 because of the chemical components. When I make body and room spritz’s I just put on the bottle to shake gently. Oil and water don’t mix. Is this the reason you are using it so everything will mix well? I really love your post and have used so many of you recipes! You are so creative! Thanks for sharing! Kay
Yes, the solubilizer/Polysorbate 20 is the emulsifier here—trust me, I wouldn’t be using it if it wasn’t doing something pretty darn necessary. It’s actually not too dodgy as far as more chemically sounding things go (keeping in mind that some chemically sounding things are totally benign, like glyceryl stearte). It gets a rating of 3/10 on Skin Deep, and most of the concern comes from contamination, so if your supplier is reputable, the risk is quite low. All the same, if you want to leave it out, you can, but you’ll have to shake it up a lot, and even then, it’s not that good. The oil won’t distribute very well through the mixture, so you might have overdose/underdose issues.
Thanks for reading & DIYing with me!
Unfortunately, I don’t have the majority of these ingredients, but I was wondering if you ever attempted to make heat protectant. I’ve recently been using my curling iron more often and don’t want to damage my hair. I tried to mix some grape seed oil( it has a high smoke point so it doesn’t ‘fry’ your hair) , water, and an emulsifier and put it in a spray bottle, but it’s not potent enough. Have any ideas?
I have thought about a heat protectant… but I don’t really have any ideas. I need to do more research and ruminate on it. I haven’t gotten any further than you have (high smoke point oil). All the same, though, if you think about deep-frying, it fries without the oil smoking, so perhaps that isn’t the best approach? Hmmmm. Definitely another project for the list!
I have been following you for a while & although this is the first time I’m commenting, there has not been 1 post I have not shared in one way or another. In other words I think you are wonderful & I’am living vicariously through you, lol. Thank you.
Thank you so much, Terressa! I really appreciate your kind words and your support 🙂 I sure spend a lot of time on this blog, and it is really lovely to know my efforts are appreciated. Thanks again!
I think I just fell in love with you Marie:-))) too bad I’m a woman and married..
The opening of your post was hillarious, thank you for making me laugh out loud:-))
I’m having major hair trouble. I actually fried my hair with dye (overdose) yesterday. Can’t cut it off cause may hair are pretty short already, so gonna have to do things gradually and preserve this straw looking mess for a while. BUT! trying to be optimistic and seeing this as a good reason to try and grow back natural hair. Very very interested in your mist concoction, since I purchased some phytokeratin online yesterday (in panic after frying hair) and was wondering how to use it. Thank you for the recipe, will absolutely try it out and post the results.
Hi Aeriale! Your name is so pretty 🙂 Alas, it sounds like our love story was just not meant to be 😉 I’m so sorry to hear about you hair 🙁 It sounds like you need some serious moisture—like slather-your-head-in-hair-balm kind of moisture (my ultimate hair serum would also be great as it contains phytokeratin). I really hope my concoctions help, and that your hair grows out quickly! Keep me posted 🙂
My hair is very long and thin it was thik but it is fall out a lot I don’t even like brushing it any more cause all the hair that come out what can I us to help it get strong again. I just want my thick. Hair back again it makes. Me cry every day just seeing all over the. So please help me if u can. Thank you.
I’m so sorry to hear about your hair loss, Lucy 🙁 Do you know what triggered it?
Could you replace the polysorbate 20 with liquid soy lecithin since it has emulsifying properties? It probably would require an extra few drops to compensate for emulsifying abilities of the chemical polysorbate 20, but an opinion couldn’t hurt. 🙂
Hi Emily! Soy lecithin would not work here—it does have some emulsifying properties, but is not a complete emulsifier. You can read more about it here. I have had good results using Turkey Red Oil and Guar Gum instead of Polysorbate 20, but I do find it isn’t ideal for applications like this as it thickens the mixture so it doesn’t mist particularly well (more of a squirt than a mist), and increases the amount of oil in the formula, which you generally don’t want in hair products as it makes the hair look dirty.
Looks like a great recipe, I have most of the ingredients at home but would like to know if the phytokeratin is in powder form and if it is possible to subsitute the bamboo bioferment because I can’t seem to find it in Europe :(.
Wendy
Hi Wendy! The phytokeratin I used was liquid, but if yours is powdered and water soluble you should still be able to use it 🙂 If you don’t have bamboo bioferment I’d just leave it out, I can’t think of a natural alternative. Thanks for DIYing with me!
Will this leave my fine hair shiny
It leaves my fine hair shiny 🙂
1ts…. is that teaspoon?
Yup!
Hi, Marie: your recipe has “85 grams of water.” Does that mean we need a broad spectrum preservative? If so, what’s the one you’d use? BTW, I found out why I keep coming back to your site — you are so knowledgeable, and your website/graphics are awesome!!!
Good catch! Yes, for sure—I’ve edited the recipe to reflect that. I’m using liquid germall plus these days 🙂
Thanks so much for reading & DIYing with me!
Hey! Love this product, just had a few questions about the ingredients. Can I remove or replace polysorbate 20? And is the liquid germall plus a natural product?
I removed the bamboo bioferment and the product works well for me!
Thanks so much!
Hey Victoria! Read this, this and this 🙂
I have searched tirelessly for a similar recipe, however mine is for a lice preventative spray for my kids. I wanted carrier oils, essential oils, vegetable glycerin, and an emulsifier but could not find how/when to mix each ingredient effectively. Thank you so much for a great recipe that doesn’t just say “shake all ingredients together”!
Make sure you include a preservative as well 🙂 Happy making!