Homemade Hair Care: Flax Seed Hair Gel
This is what flax seed hair gel looks like.
Woo-wee! (Or is it “whewee?”)
After recommending this little recipe to several people who’ve asked for homemade hair gel ideas, I thought maybe it was in my best interest to try it myself before continuing to pass it on.
Flax seed hair gel. Easy enough.
Only it wasn’t easy. It might have been one of the most difficult homemade beauty product recipes I’ve ever worked with.
That being said, I have two things to announce:
It works.
and
I challenge you to figure out a way to make this recipe more productive and less messy.
Here’s the recipe and the way I did it:
Flax Seed Hair Gel Recipe
Flax Seed Hair Gel
from By Nature With Love
- 2 Tbsp whole flax seeds
- 1 C. water
- Aloe vera gel (optional)
- Essential oil (optional, for yummy scent)
Boil the water and then dump the flax seeds into it. Stirring pretty much constantly, allow the flax seeds to boil into the water until a gel consistency starts to occur. Mine took about 5 minutes. DO NOT OVER COOK. Strain the gel from the flax seeds using a fine-mesh sieve. Place in a squeeze or pump bottle, and add about a quarter as much aloe vera gel (for thinning the gel and adding moisturizing properties to the mix) as you have flax seed gel. Add up to 4 drops of your favorite essential oil. Shake well. Use as you would any hair gel.
So here’s the scoop.
This what flax seeds look like before you do anything to them:
Plain old flax seeds.
.
.
Then you take 2 Tbsp of these babies and dump them into a pot of boiling water.
Boil it until you’ve got a gel-like consistency.
It starts to look like this:
Boiling flax seeds are about to become really messy.
Now, it’s VERY important that you continue to stir as you do this, because otherwise the flax seeds are going to attach themselves to your pot and refuse to ever leave. Like a 20-year-old son in your basement with free internet access.
As it’s boiling, you want to monitor it, because if you let it go too long, you’ll just end up with a big blob of flax seeds.
Take it out of the pot BEFORE the flax seeds gel together. (My first batch didn’t go well, as you can tell.) You’ll be able to pour the liquid off your spoon without all the flax seeds clumped together, but it will be thickish in consistency.
After that, drop it in a fine-mesh sieve. IMHO, don’t even bother with cheesecloth. Unless you want a giant mushy ball of cheese cloth that you’re forced to rub all over your head. (My second batch didn’t go very well, either.)
Finally, I dropped it all into the fine-mesh seive, over a bowl.
Gravity working on the flax gel.
With the back of a large spoon, try pressing down on the gelled flax seeds. Some clear gel should start falling in your bowl.
As I was doing this, mostly what I accomplished was getting a spoon very, very slimy.
Eventually, I just gave up and hoped gravity would start doing the work for me.
I left the seeds in the sieve and the sieve in the bowl and walked away.
Five minutes later, I came back to see how dependable gravity is these days.
Gravity - sort of dependable.
Then, I took the gel that had collected in the bowl and funneled it into a small glass bottle with a pump lid.
The amount I ended up with? Approximately 2 Tbsp flax seed gel.
Not really worth it, iff’n you ask me, for the mess it made.
Flax Seed Hair Gel: Does It Work?
I used straight flax seed gel in my hair first. It was very effective, and didn’t flake or clump. However, it did feel a little dry and crunchy (though brushing un-crunched it immediately).
It held my bangs back (in kind of a slicked-over look) for quite some time, until I stepped out in the wind.
Then, I added the aloe vera gel and some palmarosa essential oil.
(About 1/2 Tbsp of aloe vera to the 2 Tbsp flax seed gel.)
The hold was much softer, and I have it in my hair at the moment. It gives a little definition and a little hold – and the scent is light and lovely.
In Closing: I’m a fan of the way this stuff works. Really.
I’m just not a fan of how difficult it was to separate the flax seeds from the resulting gel.
So here’s the challenge: Figure out how in the heck to get the gel out of the flax seeds without coating your kitchen with slime.
If anyone can come up with an easier, more effective way to do this, you will win my everlasting love and devotion.
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If you use brown Flax seeds you get a lot more gel and you’ll not have to go through the painstaking wait. you just let it cool and it will thicken. You don’t cook it till it gets all the way to the gel point. Just till it looks like snot. Ewww I know but thats what it looks like.
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To save the mess, I first put my seeds in a muslin bag while boiling but it took a lot longer to get the right consistency. I then saw a stainless steel mesh drain saver in my kitchen drawer that I had never used. I flattened the bottom a little, put my seeds in the mesh and then placed them in a small pot that already had the water in it. It worked well and they are cheap to buy.
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I find boiling to a thick yet runny consistency is best; take the still runny liquid off the heat and immediately strain through a metal sieve. Use brown flaxseeds and the mixture will yield more gel. It will also continue to thicken once off the heat as it cools. [Can’t be doing with all that hand straining, hot fingers stuff!]
Hope that helps :-)
K
You can use the same method but pour when gel is of a thinner consistency. The gel will thicken when cooled. If you would like a thicker gel, pour gel back into the pot and it will thicken.
Forgot! It is great with 1/4 cup seeds to 2 cups of water ;0)
Just happened upon this recipe, and tried it with a few modifications…I used double the water and 3 T flax seeds (that was what I happened to have handy). Then to strain, I used a Kuchenprofi 18/10 Stainless Steel Funnel with Filter–my favorite tool for situations like this! Worked out well, and a little less messy. Needed to stir the seeds in the filter, but that was not a huge deal. When it was finished, I added a little vitamin E oil, jojoba oil, aloe, glycerine, and lemongrass essential oil. It does not emulsify, so I have to shake it. So far, so good!
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I’m a bit of a vintage girl by heart, and flax seed setting lotion is something I live by — My hair is thick, frizzy and wavy and it keeps my pincurls beautifully and my hair sleek, shiny and soft.
I don’t know if this will help, as it’s not gel it’s setting lotion (about the consistency of a slightly runny egg white), but one tablespoon of whole flax seeds and 3/4 C of water, all tossed into the saucepan at once and simmered on low for about 12-15 minutes works wonders.
I have a saucepan with a little spouted edge on either side and I just pour the mixture through a little one-person tea strainer into a plastic cup. I let it cool, cover it with tin foil and stick it in the fridge. It’s good for two weeks, easy to comb through damp hair and set and it’s got no odor what’s so ever unless you add an essential oil to it. Absolutely no mess, I get about half a cup of setting lotion out of it. Hope that helps!
Fyi the easiest way to extract is to use a french coffee press. It works wonders. Pour hot mixture in the press lower the plunger to about a centimeter over mixture pour in container and viola no mess. Yeilds about 12 oz of gel.
I made flaxseed gel for the first time. I used the 1/4 cup of the brown seeds to 2 cups of the water. I got a nice amount of gel from that batch. I used the strainer method and had some issues. I poured about half of the mixture into the strainer and then by the time I poured the rest of it, it had thickened somewhat and wouldn’t strain. So, I wasted quite a bit of it. Also, I saw on YouTube, that if you mash the seeds against the bottom, it is supposed to force the gel through. I have to use that method next time.
As for the end product, I love it. I do not have the option of purchasing gel because my skin is so sensitive and I am allergic to EVERYTHING…literally, everything. I had no adverse reaction to it and it held wonderfully. I actually did a wash n go and it still looked nice the next day after I pulled it up in loose bun and slept on it. I definitely feel it was worth it.
The french coffee press is a good idea if you want to make a huge amount of gel, but I find that a disposable tea bag works well for smaller amounts. After you boil it you can just squeeze the gel out of the bag and compost it, seeds and all.