Hair Treatment: Hot Hemp Oil

Hot hemp! Sounds therapeutic, doesn't it?

I thought I'd try a little experiment with hemp oil last night, based on the hot oil treatments we used to do on our hair in the 80s. Do they still do those? I've seen them at Sally's, but you don't hear as much about them anymore.



Since hemp increases linoleic acid content in sebum, I thought it would be a great choice for a hair treatment. As my long-time readers know from my various rants on the subject,  my hair is very thin since I gave birth to my son. This is a very common hormonal reaction, but us older folk have a harder time growing it back. It's been four years now, and it's doing better... still thin, but better and healthier since I've been going the all-natural route.

Linoleic acid makes for a looser, flowier sebum. If you have a deficiency in linoleic acid, your sebum will consist mainly of oleic acid, which is thicker and stickier, resulting in clogged pores. On your head, this can cause dandruff and other kinds of buildup, and clogged hair follicles, resulting in stunted hair growth. Jojoba oil is a common remedy for clogged hair follicles, but it never worked very well for me. I think hemp, since it's the highest in linoleic acid of all the oils, would work better. It really cleared my face of clogged pores and closed comedones, it cured my son's cradle cap, and I think it's the bomb!


My recipe:

2 tblspns hemp oil
6 drops rosemary essential oil

I mixed them together in a pyrex cup and microwaved it for 30 seconds. It was warm, but not too hot to touch. I wet my hair with warm water, towel dried it, massaged the oil into my hair starting at the scalp, and tied a plastic bag around my head. I rubbed what was left of the mixture into my son's hair (which was dry), despite his flailing.

After an hour, I washed my hair three times, rinsed it with white vinegar diluted in filtered water, and rinsed it well with warm water. I washed his hair once, used the vinegar rinse, and then rinsed him off with plain water.

That was last night.

This morning we both looked like we'd slept in a garage.

I went running to Crunchy Betty. She did a two-part series on hot oil treatments with some excellent information and great comments.

http://www.crunchybetty.com/the-secrets-to-a-phenomenal-hot-oil-hair-treatment-part-1-creating 
http://www.crunchybetty.com/the-secrets-to-a-phenomenal-hot-oil-hair-treatment-part-2-indulging

A couple commenters suggested using honey and baking soda. After my no-poo baking soda debacle, I decided to go with the honey. I wet my hair, applied a couple handfuls of raw, local, unfiltered honey, massaged it in, shampooed (with my organic shampoo bar), rinsed with vinegar/water, and rinsed again with plain water. My hair was still covered in oil. I pulled it back in a bun. I just let him go to preschool with his oily curls standing straight up on his head because I'm such a great mom. Plus he thought it looked awesome.

After work, I tried an emulsifier. Nothing turned up on the internet about lecithin for getting oil off your head, so I'm winging it here. There are a lot of claims that it promotes hair growth, so that's a plus, right? Encouraged.

MIRI