Here’s How to Blend Your Own Hair Growth Stimulating Therapeutic Formula
Therapeutic grade essential oils hold the promise for a great many people of stimulating the growth of bountiful healthy hair. Whether one is regrowing hair after hair loss, preventing the loss of hair, or just looking to make their hair more beautiful and lustrous than ever, essential oils and the carrier oils that comprise therapeutic aromatherapy formulas are very much worth investigating. We’ll first look at how and why you “build” your recipe, and conclude with a couple excellent formulations.
Building a Super-Effective Hair Growth Stimulating Recipe
Essential oils have a long history of skin and hair care — and it is the same essential oils that are used for both “mature skin” care, and skin healing, that are used to stimulate hair growth. You can see the link between these conditions: in each, there’s a requirement for new skin cells to be developed (which can translate to stimulating the follicles into action), providing nutrients that support this process, and oils that just generally keep the skin happy and healthy. The most effective method of using these oils is to use an oil treatment formula — rather than just adding to your current cleansing and conditioning program.
Revving Up Those Follicles
We’ll begin by looking at the “stimulating” essential oils. These essential oils are used in skin and hair care to stimulate cellular metabolism (increasing the oxygen and nutrients used by the cell) or stimulate the growth of new cells. The most popular of these are Rosemary and Sage. Sage MAY be the more powerful of the two oils, but it should not be used by children, or by women who are pregnant — or may becoming so. Rosemary is the most popular, and if you do choose Rosemary, be sure you find the type that’s specific to skin and hair care: it’s called “Rosemary Verbenone” — and while a little more expensive than the common Rosemary, it’ll be far more effective for this purpose. Use either or both of these two essential oils at a concentration of no greater than 1% in your base (we’ll talk about calculating this figure at the end).
The Deep Colored Nutritive Oils: Carrot and Sea Buckthorn
The nutritive oils include Sea Buckthorn and Carrot Root essential oils. These are both available as carrier oils as well, and you may choose to use them as a portion of your base, rather than as an “active ingredient”. Up to you. Both these oils have high levels of vitamins that can promote healthy hair growth. Sea Buckthorn may be the mos popular and easy to find. Use at a 1/2% to 2% concentration. These oils are safe to use for everyone.
Bringing Balance to Those Follicles
Many, many people have either over-dry or over-oily scalp conditions which wreak havoc on hair growth. Balance is what’s needed here, and here’s the oils to do it. Lavender is the most widely used “balancing” oil, that has a wealth of therapeutic effects. If you do not have an outstanding skin condition that really needs clearing up, add a little Lavender to your blend — it is thought to really tie all the components together to help them work most effectively. If you’ve got an over-oily condition, a little Myrtle essential oil is thought to do the trick. It’s cleansing and balancing at the same time, restoring sebaceous output to proper levels. Finally, for mature women, be sure to use a little Clary Sage, thought to restore cellular estrogen levels to their optimum for the most beautiful skin and hair.
Delivering the Oils to Your Scalp: The Carrier Oils
Carrier oils are also called “fixed” oils, as unlike the essential oils, they do not readily evaporate. These are seed or nut oils with their own therapeutic value that “carry” the essential oils to your scalp and follicles. Using the essential oils themselves would be FAR to strong, and would greatly irritate the scalp, and have the opposite of the desired effect on your hair! Choose one or more of these for your foundation: Jojoba, Coconut, Rosehip Seed, or Evening Primrose. Jojoba is highly regarded for moisturizing and bringing a wonderful luster. Coconut delivers very important nutrients to the scalp, and is called for all by itself by some natural health practitioners to combat hair loss. Rosehip seed has well-known regenerative properties for the skin, and should have these same effects for the hair follicles: returning them to a more youthful state. Finally, Evening Primrose is full of essential fats, known to combat inflammation, a potential cause of hair loss for many. All these can be mixed and matched as you see fit.
Getting Down To Business: Mixing Your Hair Growth Elixir!
Often folks are a little intimidated by blending. Really, it’s no big deal — far easier than baking virtually anything in your kitchen (and if you’re a raw food fan, it’s about THAT easy!). First, determine your base mixture. Equal parts of the carrier oils you choose is a fine way to go. If you’re using virgin Coconut, Rosehip Seed and Evening Primrose, just use equal parts of each. Making one-ounce of oil treatment? Just estimate filling a 1oz dropper bottle about 1/3rd full with each oil. Then add the essential oils. Each 1 percent essential oil is equal to 8 drops per ounce of total mixture. Using 1 percent Rosemary? Add 8 drops to your blend. Two percent Sea Buckthorn? Use 16 drops. Making 4 ounces instead of 1? Multiply all these numbers times four! Still unsure? Here’s some clear recipes…
Practical, Effective Recipes for Men and Women
These are well-rounded, potent recipes that are easily made — both of these are for two ounces of final blend. For women, use a base of 1/4 Evening Primrose, 1/4 Rosehip Seed, and 1/2 Jojoba. To this, add 16 drops Rosemary Verbenone, 8 drops Sage, 32 drops Lavender and 16 drops Clary Sage. For men, use a base of 1/3rd Coconut, Rosehip Seed and Hemp oils. To this, add 16 drops Sage, 16 drops Rosemary, 32 drops Carrot Root, and 16 drops Lavender essential oils.
Now you can lightly swirl or invert your mixture until you feel it’s blended. Don’t shake it if you can avoid it, as it’s not such a good idea to introduce air into your oils too much (it can shorten the shelf life — which, by the way, should be about six months if kept in a cool, dark spot). The most effective oil treatment program is to first shampoo your hair, or at least moisten your scalp with warm water. This opens the pores and increases absorption of the oils. Then using an eye-dropper, distribute 1 to 2 droppers-full around your scalp and massage the oil in. Wrapping your head in a warm moist towel for the next 20 minutes to an hour can maximize absorption, and/or you can sleep with it on your scalp. And there you have it! A simple, effective means of supporting hair growth with the therapeutic potentials of essential oils.
The author is a consultant for Ananda Aromatherapy. Find more resources are available on aromatherapy and essential oil blends through the website.
