making your own styling product...

jennyfurrens

...is it possible? i know lots of curlies make their own refresher sprays with water, oils and salts, but is it possible to make a styling cream to be applied to wet hair with shea butter (or something similar) as a base?

i cant find any good creams that havent been discontinued in the UK and a few of the US cream seem to be almost all natural ingredients, with a few preservatives.

anyone have any advice? or suggestions for base products (butters) that aren't TOO heavy or rich.

TIA!

one way street

Sure you can! I find this site to be helpful:
http://www.naturalhealthnbeauty.com/natural_preservatives.htm

When you scroll down a bit, there's a list of common preservatives. I would make my cream shea butter based. I'm looking for a cream too, and haven't found any that I'm too excited about, so I might make my own too. My hair is thick and dry, so I would need something heavy, but since you don't want something too heavy, you can try using mango or avocado butter instead of shea. For oils, jojoba would be great.

one way street

This is what I would put in my cream:
-Shea butter
-Coconut oil
-honey
-olive oil
-fragrence oil

Preservatives
-a little bit of salt
-rosemary oil
-vitamin e oil
-sugar
-a few drops of lemon juice

Then I would just store it in a dry, dark place.

jennyfurrens

thanks for the help angie curl! do you know of cocobutter is any good? i found a great site in britain that delivers cocobutter with a few added essential oils (like jojoba) free of charge!

http://www.bambaloo.co.uk

xfancy

cocoa butter is good, but if you use a lot its hard to cover the smell with fragrance oils

one way street

Yes, and the smell isn't that pleasant even though chocolate is made from it!

jennyfurrens

ok doke well i've just bought two small tins of shea butter with added jojoba oil (75%shea, 24% jojoba) each with different scents made from essential oils (1% essential oils)

i made a mistake - the site sells SHEA butter and the url is:

http://www.babaloo.co.uk

so now i've got a shea butter/jojoba oil base, will that spread easily through my hair once melted in my hands or will i need to add anything to water it down?

ingredients to add i'm thinking could be:

a teeny amount of honey
a teeny amount of salt (great for defining curls)

and i'm not sure what else. i want something that will fight humidity frizz and provide a firm but soft hold.

maybe 100% pure aloe gel?

xfancy

the shea butter is pretty greasy on its own, but not hard to melt down. you can melt it in the microwave, or put the container in some hot water. are you looking to use this as a dt or an everyday leave-in? its really greasy

jennyfurrens

really greasy? hmmm. would it be too greasy to use as a leave-in? I do have fine hair too. i just noticed that jessicurl adds it to her conditioner, and that didnt make my hair greasy at all.

i could just use it as a conditioner instead...

xfancy

ive used straight shea butter and ive used it mixed with other oils. its ok when it have my hair in twists or smth, but when i put it in my hair when its out it was way too oily. mabey just use it as a conditioner first? or if you want to use it on your hair use just a little.

hth!

jennyfurrens

it's always good to get other peoples advice and experience! thanks! i'll let you know how it goes