Historical Hair Care Grew My Hair To Hip Length! Here'S How

I have been practising historical hair care for the past 6 years, and it grew my hair to hip length! This after having a chin length hair cut and having never been able to grow very long or healthy hair my whole life (up until now!) In this video I will be explaining:

*My unique hair history and how it's led me to the methods I now use

*The unusual hair detangling method that has helped to retain hair length

*How historical hair care drastically differs from modern hair care in its attitudes, aims, and results

*How not using conventional shampoos has helped my hair to grow (and thrive)

*The natural, homemade concoctions I use in my hair. Hint: I only use products in my hair that are edible

*How historical hairstyles actually helped to grow long hair. Hint: it's about length retention

Have you ever looked at those historical photos and paintings of women with surreally long hair, and then looked at the many thousands of people today who desperately desire long tresses, but their hair simply refuses to grow past a certain point, and wondered . . . maybe those historical women knew something we don't?

I have wondered the exact same thing, which is why, when I chopped off my hair to chin length 6 years ago, it was time to drastically rethink my hair routine. Previous generations clearly knew how to grow long hair - and I was ready to figure out the secret, even if it meant throwing out everything I'd been taught about modern hair care.

Be forewarned: This routine dramatically differs from all modern hair care routines, especially those typically recommended for people with curly hair like me!

One final note before we jump in: throughout this video, I will refer to "hair growth" synonymously with "length retention" (ie. avoiding breakage). This is because for 99% of people, their hair is always growing, but if their hair care practices are constantly breaking their hair off at the ends, they will never see that growth. This was my own personal experience before beginning my current historical hair care routine. Keep watching to see how I changed that!

Enjoy!

PS. My hair was slightly damp during the filming of this video, as I allow my hair to air dry and as a busy mom have a very limited time for when I am able to film. Just wanted to put that note in here!

✍ Blog post for this video: http://bit.ly/3Txvmgd

Rhassoul clay I use: http://bit.ly/rhassoullink

Ayurvedic Hair Oil Recipe @curlyproverbz (I've been using this for years) - http://bit.ly/hairoilrecipe

⏰ Time Stamps ⏰

0:00 - Intro

1:01 - Why Historical Hair Care?

1:33 - Who is This Video For?

2:19 - What's Up With Historical Women's Ultra-Long Hair?

4:29 - What this video will include

5:40 - The 4 Main Sections of this video

6:23 - My Hair History

7:34 - My Experience With the "Curly Girl" Method

13:29 - Historical Vs. Modern Hair Care

20:15 - My Historical Hair Care Tenets

20:22 - Dry Finger Detangling

21:12 - Problems with Wet-Detangling Hair

24:13 - Historical Women (Mainly) Dry-Detangled Their Hair

25:24 - Historical Boar Bristle Hair Brushing

26:46 - My Personal Dry-Detangling Approach (for curly hair)

29:34 - "No Poo" Method - Rare and Gentle Hair Washing

31:54 - Rhassoul Clay Hair Washing

33:40 - Minimal Hair Product Usage

34:54 - Hair and Scalp Oiling

37:42 - Protective Styles

40:47 - Weekly Hair Routine Demo

40:52 - Dry Finger Detangling

42:25 - Daily Protective Styling

44:51 - Pre-Wash Oil Treatment

46:04 - Clay Wash Recipe and Routine

50:24 - Finished Hair Results

51:02 - Conclusion

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I'm Katherine, and this channel documents my journey of creating a handmade, historically inspired wardrobe. Join me for sew-alongs, tutorials, corsetry, and even shoemaking!

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#hair #hairstyle #hairstyles #longhair #curlyhair #haircare #naturalhair #hairfashion #hairideas #healthyhair #historicalhair

Hi everyone: I have a little confession to make. I haven't shampooed brushed or combed my hair in about six years seriously: okay, okay, that's not 100! Technically true, but in today's video I will be sharing with you all the historically inspired minimalist and natural hair care routine. That I have been following for the past six years, since I chopped off my hair to chin length six years ago. It has now grown out too longer than it has ever been in my entire life. It'S now reaching about hip length. First of all, hi everybody. I'M Catherine, if you're new here this channel is focused all around historical and vintage sewing projects and tutorials, as well as some historical and classical shoemaking videos. In today's video I wanted to share a part of myself that I am incredibly passionate about, and that is historical, natural and minimalist hair care, and why am I so passionate about it because it has literally been the game-changing hair care routine. For me, that has allowed me to grow my hair longer and healthier than it has ever been in my entire life, and so many of these techniques are tried and true throughout hundreds of years of human history. So I feel confident that using these techniques - and some of these attitude shifts in Your Hair Care will really up level your own hair health and length, if that's something you're looking for so who is this video for this? Video is for you, if you are trying to grow your hair long and you have as yet not succeeded or you struggle with breakage split ends. Things like that. It'S also for you. If you are looking to reevaluate your hair care practices and the use of these modern commercialized, hair products and the chemicals that are in them and want to go to more of a natural minimalist route, this video is also for you. If you are interested in investigating historical hair care and how it lastly differs from Modern Hair Care in its attitudes, aims and results, and how some of those differences can maybe help you, if you incorporate some of these practices and attitudes into your own hair care life, So, let's jump into it, have you ever looked at those many historical photos and paintings of women with cereal, long hair like down to their feet and then looked at the many thousands, no doubt of people today who desperately want to grow long hair, but simply can't Achieve it, their hair just won't grow past a certain length, or at least it keeps breaking at a certain length and then have you ever wondered like hey. What gives like, what's going on here, like why the massive difference in how long people are able to grow their hair even when they want to grow it long and they can't what's going on? Maybe those historical women knew something we don't. I have wondered the exact same thing, because I am one of those little girls who has now grown up into a woman who has always wanted that long, like Disney princess kind of hair, but especially with my hair type, it's more of a like problem, hair type. I until recently have never been able to achieve hair that grew past a certain length and when it did start getting to the longer lengths like rib cage length, I was experiencing tons of breakage and split ends which led to my hair having lots of different uneven Lengths in it simply because of the breakage that I was experiencing and now fast forward in the past six years, I have radically changed my hair care practice to one that takes into account a lot of historical and natural hair care practices that we modern people have Tended to thrown out - and my hair is now longer and healthier than it has ever been in my life, so I will be sharing with you, the historically inspired natural and minimalist hair care routine that I have been following religiously for the past six years. Since I cut off all my Heritage in length and share with you why I believe it has been largely responsible for my hair now being able to grow so long when previously it never really could now be forewarned. This routine. This hair care, routine dramatically, differs from all modern day recommended Hair Care routines, especially those recommended for people with curly hair like mine, so you're forewarned. So in this video I'll be sharing my unique hair history and how it's led me to where I am now. The unique hair detangling method I use that has allowed me to grow my hair so long without experiencing the massive amounts of breakage that I had my whole life up until the past recent years. What on Earth clay and healthy long hair have in common? How only washing my hair once a week has helped it to grow the natural homemade concoctions that I use in my hair that have likewise helped it to grow long and be healthy, spoiler alert. I only use products in my hair that are literally edible and finally, The Styling routine. That has made the biggest difference in my hair length retention, I.E, preventing breakage and allowing my hair to reach such long lengths. So this video is going to be separated into four main sections, because there is such a lot for me to talk about, I'm definitely bringing out my hair nerd Persona in this video. Everything will be fully time stamped so feel free to jump around to whatever section interests you most or come back to this video. When you have more time, everything will be time stamped for you, so the first section of the video will be a discussion of my personal hair history and how it has led me to the practices that I now use. The second section of the video will be a theoretical discussion of historical Hair Care practices and how it dramatically differs from Modern Hair Care practices and attitudes. The third section will give you a verbal breakdown of the different main tenets of my hair care, routine that have made the biggest difference for my hair growth and health. And finally, in the fourth section I will actually be bringing you along for a week in my hair life and to show you what all of my hair care practices that I will be explaining to you actually look like on a practical day-to-day level. So, let's jump into it, foreign, as I can remember, my hair has always been something that I had to contend with in my life, whether it was just so dry, frizzy and Tangled that it required me and my mom hours to detangle it when I was a Child or being the only kid in my classroom with such curly hair and being teased as a result, my hair has always been something that required a lot of time, energy and thought and learning to love. My hair has certainly been a lifelong journey up until now. My hair became so tightly curled that it much closer resembled like kinky natural hair than typical Caucasian hair, like all the people around me in the small rural area that I grew up in this is when I first truly learned that what worked for most people's hair In people around me did not work for my own hair and I had to forge my own path and find the practices that worked for my hair. It was time to think outside the box. By the time I went to high school, I went full force into. What'S known as the curly girl method, if you're not aware, the curly girl method is basically a term, that's going to describe a set of Hair Care practices, but that are typically more beneficial for people with curly hair and do differ quite a bit from typical straight Hair care practices. Now this term was coined by author, Lorraine, Massey or Macy. I'M not sure how to pronounce her last name, who went on to found the Diva Curl, salons and products, and I just want to put a disclaimer out there that Diva Curl has recently been getting a lot of bad press and I actually never use their products. I just generally use the method, so I don't want people to get the impression that any of the hair problems that I had were a result of those products because they weren't. So, for me, the curly girl method looked like never using shampoo using about half a bottle of conditioner. Every time I wash my hair and detangling my hair with a white tooth comb in the shower, with conditioner in it and using tons of curly hair styling products to achieve those crisp, perfect, frizz-free curls that I so desperately wanted at that time. In my life, while this got me through high school, and it definitely like improved my hair self-esteem, these practices that I was using weren't sustainable, although all the products I was piling on my hair, did create sort of like a a mask of Health. My hair appeared to be healthy on the surface, it actually wasn't and although it grew fairly long by the time it got to about rib cage length, I experienced so much breakage pretty much. Every end of hair strand in my head was split and I had vastly differing lengths of hair because of the breakage that I was experiencing more in some areas than in others and, despite literally almost never even trimming my hair for a period of about. Maybe like four or five years, my hair just stayed stuck at the same length, which was about maybe like at my ribs. So after I had my first child, I became very interested in Natural Health and evaluating all the products that I was using in my life. On a daily basis and wanting to eliminate anything that was, you know like a chemical that I might not want in my body, and so this led me to gradually eliminating all of these piles of hair care products that I had been using, because none of them Were even remotely natural, they didn't even call themselves natural, so this led me to a major shift, though in my hair care life, because I had been so heavily relying on the use of these piles and piles of products for so long that once I took them Away it really just unmasked the problems in my hair because I no longer had that crutch to lean on of you know, using a half a bottle of conditioner just to detangle my hair and using like gel to make my hair just hold its shape. My hair definitely started to change a lot and it was kind of negative to be honest when I first took away these products, my hair just looked very dry frizzy and started having even more breakage, because I didn't know how to detangle my hair without the use Of all of this conditioner, I didn't know how to do it without creating all of this excessive breakage. So eventually the problems in my hair really came to a head. I was experiencing tons of breakage and some hair loss as well. At this point in my life, and so my hair was just very um uneven, the ends were quite stringy. Um, I'd actually lost quite a bit of length by this point because I had so much breakage and I had just vastly differing lengths of hair on my head. So finally, I decided you know what I really desperately want long hair, but I think the only way for me to get it is just by literally like chopping off my hair to chin length and starting fresh with all the same length of hair, no more layers. No more split ends no more stringiness and I'll start fresh from there. In hindsight, this was a very radical step and I'm not sure that I would have repeated that, but hey it's got me to where I am now. It was definitely very traumatizing. I will say to cut off pretty much all of my Heritage and like after I'd, had relatively long hair for most of my life, but this was a new start for me. At this point, I made the decision that I would do whatever it took to have healthy hair and to grow my hair long, even if it meant drastically rethinking all of the Hair Care practices that I had followed up until that point. I also wanted to achieve long healthy hair, while only relying on natural products and I'd actually made the commitment in my life that I would only use products on my skin and body, including my hair, that were technically edible. That'S not to say that I would want to eat them, but that the ingredients in these products were so safe that they were technically edible. And I'm happy to say that I have with a few exceptions here and there pretty much kept to that commitment. For the whole past six years that I've now grown up my hair, this long and this healthy, even though my curls are no longer as crisp and perfect as and frizz free as they were in high school. My hair is truly healthy to the core. It'S healthy. Without the use of silicones and other hair products just coating, the hair, it's growing split ends are no longer such a major issue. For me, breakage has obviously not been an issue. My hair is is relatively all pretty much the same length now, which is amazing. I'Ve. Never experienced that in my whole life having all hair the same length, and I have since found a method of detangling, my hair, that works for me that no longer causes breakage and allows me to retain the length that I do have. So, where does historical Hair Care practices enter in? Let'S get into that right now I know. That'S the part you've all been waiting for so about six years ago, when I did my big chop and chopped off my hair to chin length, I was definitely not as interested in historical clothing as I am now, but I was certainly interested in historical hair because I wanted long hair like those historical women, you see in paintings and photos. I wanted hair that was super ultra long and healthy, just like theirs, and obviously they must have known what they were doing because there they were. They didn't have access to the commercial, modern chemical products that we use today in our hair, and yet they were able to grow with such long hair. So I knew that there had to be a key somewhere in history for what I needed to change about my own hair care routine, to grow the long, healthy hair that I wanted now before you pipe in and say sure they had long hair. But that's just because they never cut their hair because it wasn't socially acceptable. There'S definitely some truth to that, of course, most women in history. It was the custom for them to grow very long hair, whereas in the modern day we tend to cut shorter hairstyles. But that is not the whole key to this answer. Because of the fact that there are so many people today who desperately want to have long, hair and don't have their hair cut or maybe just have very minimal trims, and yet their hair is still not growing past a certain point because they keep experiencing breakage. So, just because they didn't cut their hair in history does not account for the fact that they had such long hair, because there is so much more to having long healthy hair than simply not cutting it. You have to know how to keep that hair on your head and keep it from breaking so before we jump into the nuts and bolts of the specific historical hair care routine that I have personally used. I would like to give a couple notes. First, some of the historical Hair Care practices that we're going to be talking about are going to sound, strange and probably very dirty to a lot of modern viewers. For example, most historical people did not use shampoo or even soap to wash their hair, believing that it would strip the natural oils when they did wash their hair with the techniques of washing that we're going to be talking about a bit later. They did this very infrequently. I'Ve even read one historical Hair Care manual that refers to frequent hair, washing as being once every two weeks so get that into your system. That'S very different from what most modern people think of when they think of what is proper hair hygiene. But here's the thing we have to talk about this right off the bat, the more you shampoo, your hair, especially when you're using modern, harsh shampoos, the more your scalp is going to over produce oil. So it's like a repeating cycle. You wash your hair, your scalp freaks out, it's like, oh, no, we need to produce more oil, so it produces more oil. And then you need to wash your hair again the next day and then it just keeps repeating. So it's it's a very different way of caring for your hair and it works. It works when you practice historical Hair Care. It really does work when you view it as a system like that. Also, most modern Hair Care Trends such as frequent use of relatively harsh shampoos, as well as the use of you know, heat styling tools are grown around the fact that most modern people don't grow their hair past shoulder length. They are constantly having haircuts and just cutting off whatever ends that are damaged, and so, whatever hair they have on their head at a given time is never like it's never older than like one or two or three years, maybe maybe four years. Whereas when you look at people with very long hair, especially historical women who have their hair down to their feet, the hair, like the length of their hair, was probably many. Many years old it had been growing out of their head for many many years and the older, a hair strand becomes. It requires much more gentle care. So just keep that in mind. Modern Hair Care practices have revolved around the fact that most modern people don't grow their hair very long, and so they don't need to worry about the long-term health of their hair. Whereas historical women did have to think about the long-term health of their hair because they're, most of them growing their hair very long. The second thing I would like to note about my personal historically inspired hair care routine, is that it is not a routine. That'S taken straight out of his historical Hair Care manual and just applied to my hair. The main reason for that is that most of these historical Hair Care manuals were written for Western Caucasian people who most of them had relatively straight hair and a much different hair type than I myself have. In fact, my hair is so curly and thick and dry and prone to breakage and Tangles that in many ways it prefers being taken care of in ways that are more similar to how kinky-haired people take care of their hair. It'S closer to that end of the spectrum than what most straight hair people do, their hair and what their hair likes. My hair likes very different things than what most straight-haired people's hair likes. If that makes sense, so I have definitely adapted these practices to work with. My particular hair type and we'll get into that in a moment, and that being said, I am also not a fan of modern curly hair care, there's kind of two camps when it comes to Modern Hair Care practices. There'S like the typical straight modern hair care and then there's the typical curly, modern, hair care and, as I said, I have done the modern, curly hair care routine. It did have some benefits for me. It does produce very crisp. Looking curls, if you use all the products and do all the things, but for me it was not good for the long-term health and growth of my hair and in my opinion, I think it is the rare curly haired person who will be able to grow very Long hair, while using the typical, like Curly girl, hair practices such as wet detangling and things like that, but we're going to get into that in a moment so yeah. Just to reiterate, I am at a point in my life, where my main goal is having long healthy hair and it's kind of secondary to me to have perfect frizz free curls, all the time so at points where those two goals - conflict I'll always go with the Hair care practice that is more gentle and better for the long-term health of my hair, rather than just always having perfect looking hair days, but not being able to grow my hair long. If that makes sense foreign into my historical hair care routine, with probably one of the most controversial practices, that's in my routine and that is dry finger, detangling my hair. Now, if you're not aware the reason, I say that this is controversial is because in the curly haired Community, especially it is pretty much considered like sacrilegious to dry detangle, curly hair for the most part like there are many circles where they will tell you that the Only proper way to detangle curly hair is while it's soaking wet filled with conditioner in the shower and then use a wide tooth comb and detangle. It now there's a multitude of reasons why this is recommended, and I do understand those reasons, because I did use that type of hair care for many years. But I've since shifted away from that practice because it proved to not be good for the long-term health of my hair and I'm going to explain why and explain the problems some of the problems or potential problems with wet detangling hair. So the main glaring problem with wet detangling hair and when I say wet, I'm even talking about damp hair hair, that's already been towel dried, but it's still damp and then you go and detangle. There'S one glaring problem with that, and it is that when you look at hair on a molecular level, it's made up of different types of chemical bonds like salt, bonds and other types of bonds, which actually become broken down, especially the salt bonds. They become broken down when they're wet and then, as soon as the hair dries those bonds come back together. So what this means to us, practically speaking, is that if we go in and try to detangle our hair while it's wet, the hair strands are very much more likely to snap and in fact, they're more likely to stop and you're actually less likely to even feel The breakage as you're combing, your hair wet. This is one big misconception that I had. I used to think that dry detangling, my hair was bad because whenever I would dry detangle my hair, I might notice more of an audible or a visceral kind of snapping sensation. As I might have snapped a hair strand here and there, but I didn't feel that when I was detangling my hair, while it was wet for the most part, but actually a big reason for this is because is the hair strand is so much softer and more Fragile when it's wet that it's definitely breaking but you're, probably just not even feeling it it's just more likely to break another problem with wet detangling hair, especially hair. That'S like mine that is very prone to Tangles. Is that again, if you look at the hair on a molecular level, each hair strand has what's called a cuticle, which is the outer coating of the hair strand and the cuticle is actually comprised of a bunch of overlapping scales and when the hair is wet. Those skills will come up and it will make the hair strand actually look kind of like a pine cone with all of those scales, kind of up and sticking out, and then, when the hair is dry for most people with medium porosity hair. Those scales come down again and seal the hair shaft, so the problem, another problem with what detangling, when you look at it from this point of view, is that, on a molecular level, those hair strands when they're wet become like pine cones. All the skills are out, and so they're more likely to be like tangling up against each other as you're trying to detangle so you're, literally like working against the molecular structure of your hair. When you try to wet detangle - and I have noticed this since I shifted to dry detangling - I have noticed that whenever I feel tempted to start detangling my hair, while it's in the shower, it just seems like a losing battle like there's just more and more Tangles. I just can't win against the tangles, but then, as soon as I just wait for my hair to dry completely and then I go in with my fingers and try to detangle a bit, it's so much easier to detangle that way. So how does this connect with historical Hair Care, historical Hair Care is actually what gave me the first major kick into shifting to dry detangling, because, like I said, I had wet detangled, my hair for my entire life. So when we look at historical women's hair care, what do we see? First of all, they had far less of Reliance on regular showering and bathing and hair washing either because of a lack of access to running water or a fear of water and its health effects or a combination of both, which basically meant that they were bathing themselves. A lot less frequently than we modern people do when you consider that most modern people are taking a shower and washing their hair every single day and historical people, because of the immense hassle involved in filling up a tub of water with like buckets from the well. They would probably just bathe once a week. If that I mean it depends on their social status, of course, and so they learn to take care of their hair in a way that was not reliant on the use of water. Instead, they learned to care for their hair in other, more low-tech ways. If you will one of the ways they cared for their hair was through regular nightly. Brushing of their hair with a bore bristle brush now bore bristle brushing is something that's a really cool historical practice, and it was basically a way for women to brush out their hair. So it was, of course ridding their hair of Tangles. It also helped distribute their scalp oils all the way down their hair to moisturize their hair, as well as to decrease any visible greasiness at their scalp and bore bristle. Brushing also helps to remove any debris, just in a mechanical way, not in a chemical way like the way shampoos. Do it just kind of mechanically brushes it out of your hair. That way and again, what do we see about historical women's hair? They all had very, very long hair and when you compare that to people like me, for example, who have curly hair and are told that they have to detangle their hair while it's soaking wet and like me, you know, I was trying desperately to grow my hair Long for years and it just refused to grow, and then, when you look at historical women, they were brushing out their hair while it was dry and they were able to grow long hair. So actually, in my opinion, that was one of the biggest shifts in my own hair care, routine that have made the biggest difference in being able to grow this long of hair. For me, so obviously, six years ago I decided it was time for me to try dry detangling, my hair, but since I have very curly hair, that's different than a lot of those typical historical Western women that we see with the long hair. I had to make two alterations to this. The first alteration was that I choose to finger detangle rather than using a brush or comb. The reason for that is pretty obvious. It'S a lot easier to avoid the use of breakage when you're, using your fingers, rather than just combing right through with a comb or a brush, because the brush and the comb are inanimate. They can't feel you're just kind of distancing yourself from the breakage. That is happening because you can't feel it. Whereas when you use your fingers, you can feel every knot. You can negotiate every knot gently, so you can avoid breakage or minimize breakage. I should say because breakage always will happen, but we just want to minimize it. The second alteration I made to the historical practice of dry detangling is that, although I don't use water to detangle my hair, so it's not wet with water, I do prefer to use light oils to Aid in the detangling. My favorite oil to use for this is jojoba oil, because it's very light and it doesn't weigh down my hair, which means that I can use a little bit every night throughout the week between wash days and it won't make my hair look. Visibly greasy and jojoba oil is also really cool because it's the oil that most closely resembles human sebum from your scalp. So for someone with curly hair, like me, my own natural sebum has a hard time getting all the way down through the curls to the bottom. So by using this jojoba oil, I'm kind of like supplementing that and I'm able to add it back to my ends. I love the historical practice of boar bristle brushing and I do have one that I use occasionally. But for me, what's been working most consistently is finger detangling. So that's what I'm going to keep using for now, but if you have straighter hair I would definitely recommend investing in a good boar bristle brush now finger detangling does mean that my hair is never 100 tangle free, but I have just learned to embrace that as A part of my natural hair type, My Curls just love to Clump together and do their own thing. But again, my main goal for my personal hair is to grow it long and healthy Raw other than always having perfect crisp defined and perfectly detangled curls, like I used to have when I was doing the curly girl stuff. So I'm okay with having the occasional tangle as long as my curls are relatively separated and as long as there are no actual knots in the hair, I'm satisfied so in the next section of the video stay tuned. For that, I'm actually going to be demonstrating with you the actual process of how I detangle my hair throughout the week. So definitely stay tuned for that. Thank you. So another glaring difference between historical hair care and modern hair care that we've already touched on is the difference in how we wash our hair and how we view hair washing period. So in the modern day, as I'm sure you're aware, most people will wash their hair once a day with relatively harsh shampoos that typically contain sulfates, which are a very um, relatively harsh sort of detergent, echemical that removes dirt and oil from hair. But over the long term it might not be good for the health of your hair, especially curly, dry hair, like mine, but even forgetting the sulfates. Most historical people actually didn't even use natural soap in their hair because they believe that even natural soap would strip the oils in their hair and again this coming. This comes back to the fact that if you have very long hair, the needs of your hair are going to be much different than the needs of someone that has shoulder length hair, and I have personally seen this in my hair growth Journey. When my hair was super short, I was able to get away with using like natural shampoos a lot more or those soap bars that you see and my scalp loved it and my hair didn't mine because it was so short. But now that it's longer it needs a lot more TLC and I have to be a lot more careful about what products I use to wash my hair because it can get so dry at the ends. So what did historical people use to wash their hair? Basically, they used a variety of natural methods of washing their hair and there's even large groups of people today who will use these methods. This is known as the no poo method of Hair Care nope, who, of course, referring to no shampoo and so there's different means that people use today, but historically, one of the most common things you see is using a raw egg to wash your hair and also There is the practice of using vinegar to wash your hair and again, even when they were using these very mild cleansing methods. They also weren't doing it very often because they didn't shower very often they didn't rely on that to clean their hair. Instead, they relied on other practices that we've already mentioned, like regular brushing of their hair, which helped to distribute the oils through their hair without needing to use a cleansing method in the shower. So for me, I don't use either egg or vinegar to wash my hair. Instead, I have discovered an amazing natural, no shampoo method of cleaning, my hair that has actually helped to improve the health of my hair. It helps to Define My Curls and after cleansing my hair with this natural material. It actually feels moisturized, as opposed to most most cleansers, whether natural or conventional, that will leave my hair feeling pretty stripped and dry so drum roll, please. What I use to wash my hair is rasool Clay. Okay. So what is rasool clay? Rascal Clay is a natural clay powder you'll often see it in clay mask recipes for your skin, but it also works wonders for the hair and it's been used for probably thousands of years in eastern parts of the world. It typically comes from Morocco, so we see a lot of Moroccan women using this to care for their hair and I'm not going to get into all the benefits of wrestler clay in this video because it's long enough already, but suffice it to say that it cleans The hair extremely effectively, even when I have done an oil treatment the night before washing my hair, the Russell Clay is able to get it all out. No problem while leaving my hair feeling moisturized and My Curls defined, and the other really cool thing about racial clay. For growing long hair is it actually helps to strengthen the hair shaft, all the way down, which helps to prevent your hair from breaking as opposed to using just conventional cleanser. So in the next section of the video I'm going to be actually showing you the recipe that I use to mix my raso clay wash and the consistency that it needs to be so definitely stay tuned for that. If it's something you want to try, one last note that I would like to make in this section is that, in addition to only washing my hair once a week and only using the Roswell clay, I also just use very minimal and natural product bucks. In my hair in general, part of this is because of the fact that I dry finger detangle. So I don't want to use a lot of curly hair styling products that tend to make your hair crispy, because if it's crispy, that means you need to get it very wet in order to be able to get the tangles out again. And since I don't want to wet detangle, I don't want to use a whole bunch of those like crispy sort of gel like products in my hair. I also just have come to prefer a more minimalist approach and a more natural approach to my hair care, as I've mentioned, and it also means that I don't have a lot of product build up on my hair and one more thing. It probably goes without saying, but I do avoid the use of chemical treatments in my hair, like hair dye, and I never use heat on my hair either. So that definitely has helped with the health of my hair. But that's also something that I never did before. Either so I guess that's why I haven't really mentioned it up until now. I'M more talking about the changes that I made in my hair care routine in the past six years. That grew my hair, so long, okay, let's jump into talking about hair and scalp oils and how they have helped me grow my hair and how they are a tried and true technique that have been used throughout history. So basically, oils are like Nature's magic ingredient for skin care and hair care. It is, oils are like the best way to seal moisture into the skin like after I have a shower I'll, always put some jojoba oil on my skin and some jojoba oil on the ends of my hair, but more than that oils have actually been like a Radically health improving ingredient for my hair, because every week I do a weekly hair wash but the night before I do my hair wash. I do a very thorough finger detangling of my hair while it's dry, but I also do an oil treatment so I'll put in either coconut oil or castor oil or a different type of oil blend that I've prepared myself into my hair and get it quite oily. Quite greasy, and then I braid it and I wrap it up in something and go to bed and let it sink in I'll also usually put oil. On my scalp, I have a special mixture of oil that I have actually made and been using for years that I use on my scalp, and I will link in the description the recipe for that it's from another great YouTuber, and recently, I've also been using, like A store-bought natural oil blend for my scalp, so I like to use kind of the higher end oil mixtures on my scalp to help the hair growth and then I'll just use a bunch of the more inexpensive oil on the length of my hair like castor oil Or coconut oil or even olive oil, we see the use of hair and scalp oil mentioned in, like virtually all historical Hair Care manuals. It was understood historically that this was one of the best ways to improve the health of your hair and to improve hair growth and scalp Health as well, and not only in the west. We especially see the use of hair oil in eastern parts of the world, like the country of India, where women still to this day are known for having very long hair, and they typically still do the traditional practices of oiling their hair and oiling their scalp oiling. My hair is like one of the most consistent practices that I have been following every week, practically every day since cutting my hair six years ago, and it's made a massive difference to the health of my hair. So, in addition to my weekly oil treatment throughout the week, as I'm dry, detangling I'll typically apply a light amount of jojoba oil, which is again a light oil and I just kind of lightly coat, my hair. So it's also throughout the week getting a nice amount of some oil to help keep the ends healthy. Thank you. Another huge difference between historical hair care and modern Hair Care actually comes down to the way we like to style and wear our hair on a daily basis. So if we look at the modern day, most women or people with long hair will typically like to wear it loose on most days and they'll often use lots of hair products to make their hair look good in its loose State like Hairspray or mousse, and they'll Often use heat tools like blow dryers, straighteners curlers, to help their hair look good when it's in its loose state. If we contrast that, with historical Hair Care practices, most women had very long hair, but it was only really like at night when they were brushing their hair out, that they would take it all out, and then they might braid it for the night and then, as Soon, as they woke up in the morning, what would they do? They would put it up in some kind of nice updo that kept it tucked out of the way, but more than that, this actually has benefits for the health of the hair. The long-term health of the hair, especially because, when you're wearing your hair loose all the time, it's rubbing against everything it might get caught in things it might get pulled by your toddlers, in my case, you're more likely to get split ends, and especially in the winter Or the summer you're exposing your hair more to the elements like the sun and the wind, and that's going to have more of a toll on the long-term health of your hair. So the use of what we now call protective styles is actually very essential for growing long hair and keeping it healthy over the long term. And I think that's one of the reasons why historical women always did this, because they understood that it was the way to keep their hair healthy and also, obviously it kept it tucked out of the way. So they were able to have that super long hair. Without it impeding their busy Lifestyles, so even though I love wearing my hair loose and having the curls all nice most of the days of the week, I have it up in various different styles and I'm going to be showing you one of those Styles specifically later. On in the video so stay tuned for that, but my favorite styles to keep my hair tucked away, are buns as well as the milk made braids, where you braid your hair and pin the braids up around your head and when I do buns in my hair. I actually prefer to separate out the front section of my hair, so all the hair, that's around my face and first I'll put a bun in the back part of my hair and then I'll twist the front end separately, and you actually see this a lot in Historical women's hairstyles and what it does practically is. It actually helps avoid excess tension along your hairline, because if you see women who are always wearing their hair tightly pulled back, it can cause what's called traction alopecia, which basically just means losing hair because you're pulling on it too much. That'S what it means, and so I like to separate out the front section of my hair and just pin it back more Loosely separately. It also just adds a bit more interest to the hairstyle, so I'm going to be demonstrating that to you in a moment. Okay, so we're going to be jumping into my weekly hair care, routine, with showing you how I finger detangle my hair on a mostly nightly basis throughout the week between washes. I don't start doing it on this deep of a level until about day, two or probably three after the wash day. Just because my curls are nicer on the first couple days and I don't want to mess them up, but here I go you can see. I just work my fingers through from the roots to the ends, which is the opposite way that you would normally comb your hair, you'd, normally comb from the bottom to the top, but with finger detangling. You want to work from the top to the bottom and, as I come to knots, I just slowly work it out and isolate that knot to as small of an area as possible and usually I'm able to negotiate it out. And then I go in and I braid my hair into two braids for the night and by the way this footage was actually taken back in June. So my hair is a little bit shorter in these particular clips and then I go in with my silk scarf and I wrap it around my hair for the night, and this is how I sleep. I do also usually like to double up with a silk pillowcase. Just in addition, in case the scarf comes off at night, but this just protects my hair from friction and prevents Tangles throughout the night foreign, okay, so the next morning. This is what my hair looks like after it's been slept on, so I'm just slowly taking out those braids and just loosening up the hair, because it does tend to Clump up when it's been in those braids all night. Just with my fingers, using a little more jojoba oil, my hair does tend to drink up oil. It doesn't really look especially greasy and when I'm wearing it in a bun anyways, it doesn't matter if it does look a little tiny bit greasy anyways, it's just nice to know that I'm moisturizing my hair throughout the day. So here I go I'm separating out the front section of my hair. This is a common feature. You see in most historical women's updos and I'm just putting a twisted up Bun into the back section of my hair and basically knot it around itself, and I don't really need to rely on tons of bobby pins. It sort of holds itself up and then I do just stick in a few bobby pins. And now I'm just going to take those front sections and do sort of a French twist just grabbing the hair from my face and twisting it into that French twist and then twisting up the length of it and wrapping it around the base of the bun. So, apart from adding interest to the hairstyle, this also helps prevent any excess tension or pulling on my hairline foreign. That'S what it looks like from the back once you've added that hair in a few more bobby pins, just to hold those extra twists in place, pull out a few hairs around my face just to frame it and there we go. This style helps keep my hair tangle free and keeps the ends protected throughout the day. I especially like doing this style throughout the winter months, when it's cold out put on some earrings and I'm ready for the day. Okay. So now I'm going to be showing to you what I do on the night before I wash day, so I'm going to be showing to you my oil treatment routine. So first I'll add more of a high-end oil blend that promotes hair growth and scalp Health. Just to my scalp, so I just part my hair, apply it right to the scalp and then do a scalp, massage and then I'll use my big bottle of wholesale castor oil, because I use so much of these oils I'll either use castor oil or coconut oil Or a combination of both - and I apply it generously to my hair. The reason I love castor oil, especially, is because it's so thick and viscose that it is really good for coating the hair and adding slip to help with the detangling process, especially since my hair is dry right now. So this is when I do the most thorough finger detangling session of the week. I really want to get as many knots out as possible before going in for the wash. So I, of course let that sit overnight and the next day, it's time to wash so here is the big container of Russell clay that I buy. It'S a pretty good price from the website I get it from. I can link that below for you and I, like my clay, wash to be on the more liquidy side. When I first started, I made the mistake of making a clay wash that was too thick and it was hard to fully rinse out of my hair. It doesn't really need to be very thick at all in order to get the hair clean. Normally my ideal recipe is using half aloe vera juice and half water, so about a cup of aloe vera juice in a cup of water. But in this case my aloe vera juice is all run out, so I'm just going to be using all water. So it's about two cups of water to a third of a cup of the clay powder. But I will say that when my hair was shorter, I would only use a quarter cup of the clay powder and then I like to add some essential oils in there. Just whatever I have on hand, really that's good for hair and then go in and mix that up until it's smooth and combined. And then I pour about half or a little less than half of this into one of those hair squeeze bottles with the applicator tip, and this is going to be the mixture that actually gets applied to my scalp, while the rest of it is going to be To wash the lengths of my hair and I like to add some peppermint oil into the one, that's for my scalp, because that's great for opening up the scalp pores and helping to cleanse. I also like to prepare an apple cider, vinegar rinse. So I just mix a little apple, cider, vinegar with some water and that will be used at the very end of my wash routine and then I actually like to wash my hair in four braids. I learned this from the online Forum, the long hair community. It'S a great way to prevent Tangles, keep the hair suctioned and protect the lengths of your hair from getting overly cleansed and dried out, while you're washing the scalp, so I've gotten my hair wet in the shower. Normally, of course, I would do this entire process in the shower, but for the sake of showing you guys, I'm back in my sewing room here demonstrating so I use my squeeze bottle of the clay wash and apply it all in my scalp, the braid I did Is very loose so I'm able to access all the areas of my scalp this way and I just massage that in really well I'll actually usually use a shampoo brush at this point. But I couldn't find it for this video and then for the lengths of my hair. I literally just take that braid and dunk it into my container of clay wash and squeeze it out. Once I've done this process to all the braids I rinse out, and then I actually repeat one more time just to make sure my hair is fully cleansed okay. So now I'm out of the shower, so I rinsed out my two times of clay washes applied. Some very natural conditioner and then did my apple, cider, vinegar, rinse and then finally rinse that out with cold water, and you can see that considering that I didn't even run a comb through my hair. This entire process, the curls, are still looking pretty good and pretty defined, and I'm just showing to you that shampoo brush that I did use while I was in the shower just to help make sure that my scalp is getting fully cleansed. So then, I use a microfiber towel to just dab the moisture out of my hair, and then I use my jojoba oil and I just apply a little bit of that to the ends to help seal in the moisture of my hair. If this was the dead of winter, I would actually mix this jojoba oil with a bit of shea butter and seal the ends with that. I especially like to focus the sealing oil on the back of my hair, because that's where it's the most dry and the most prone to breakage excuse the fact that my face is so red. It'S really from the apple cider, vinegar, rinse. It is really good at increasing blood circulation, and it did that to my face, even though I didn't apply it to my face foreign ly, when my hair was shorter, I would use a microfiber hair turban to wrap my hair up, but my hair's gotten too long For it, so I just use a cotton t-shirt and wrap my hair up in it. I do also have a blow dryer and diffuser that I'll use occasionally with cold air, but I really wanted to show to you just the minimalist routine that I have been consistently following for years and how good of results it's gotten me. So I let that dry - and this is the final result - it's really amazing to me how defined My Curls look, even though I did not comb them out in the shower, and I did not use a speck of styling product in this hair. This is just from the clay wash and the sealing oil and the conditioner and the apple cider, vinegar, rinse foreign and just showing you now how long my hair is gotten now. This is really amazing to me. It has never been this long in my life before and I'm super pleased with how this routine has cared for and nurtured my hair through these years, everyone that there was a lot to talk about. I feel like this is a very big topic and it's so radically different from how most modern people think about hair care that I felt like there was a lot of topics and subjects I wanted to touch on. If you found this information wildly helpful and it has inspired you to change even just one thing about your hair care routine, I would love to hear from you in the comments section, and I would love to hear back from you on what your experience turns out To be, I truly believe that when you put love and attention into anything in your life, it will grow and Blossom, and thank you in its own way and that definitely goes for growing long, healthy hair. If you appreciate vintage and historical sewing projects and tutorials, and as well as historical and classic shoemaking, videos, you'll definitely want to subscribe to this Channel and hit the notifications Bell. So you don't miss my next video, the accompanying blog post for this video, which will have all of the written details of my hair care routine and why I take care of my hair in this way, as well as photos that will be linked for you. In the description so definitely check that out, especially if you want to give this type of hair care a try, it will be a really helpful thing to check back with if you found this information wildly helpful and informative and would like to thank me personally. I have now added a thank you button, it's in the bottom bar under the video, and you can thank me with a small monetary donation like enough to buy a coffee. That would really mean a lot to me. It would help support this Channel and support me in continuing to make videos for you if you're interested in the sewing products that I personally use and recommend, I have a link for you in the description. It goes to my website with a list of all of the products that I use and recommend that are available on Amazon and again. I have actually personally used all of these and found found them very helpful and useful. So I can wholeheartedly recommend them and if you do decide to purchase something using one of those links, it will be another way of helping to support me, because I got a small commission at no extra cost to you. So thanks in advance, if you choose to check that out, see you in the next video

Erica LaRochelle: Thanks for sharing! While this is a nonfactor for the finger detangling method you use, I find that lint accumulates on my brushes, especially the boar bristle brush; have you found any possible solutions for that in your research?

Amorette Flaming: This is a great addition of information for me! My hair's different; it's stick straight, quite fine, hasn't been trimmed since 2011 or so. The ends get dry and break and I think I have hair falling out. My hair is about a third to half as thick as it was at 14, and it was never thick enough to look good in two braids, even. I've basically been sad that it won't grow any longer than hip-thigh length, and it is not very thick. All the hairstyles I wished to do depended on thicker, longer hair. I gave up on things getting better unless I righted my diet, lifestyle and stress problems. Maybe that was premature. The clay wash could possibly help with dryness, and even trying to avoid actually washing my hair much may help. I could research what oils are specifically supposed to benefit the problems I'm having... I defaulted to coconut oil (with occasional olive and almond oils). Part of me is leery of costs of buying much, of course. Also, I'm curious what the effect of city water (chlorine and such), and softened water, have on hair. I'd love to test filtered water (with the right amount of minerals). My hair history is: never washed more than once a week with shampoo till I was 14 and only used conditioner for a few years up to that point, then I tried oiling the hair the night before, then just washing with castile soap and citric acid rinse (later apple cider vinegar), then shifted to an egg (because of emulsifying properties; I don't remember reading that people used it for washing) and apple cider vinegar, and used that for many years until recently I've been so lazy (I got married a year ago...) that I just rinse my hair in the shower, and it's actually behaving even better. All these shenanigans reduced the oil production gradually, but never has my hair produced as little as now, so that it's not at all oily looking even after a week and a half. It gets a bit more oily gradually, but hardly. Still I have breakage and thin hair, but it's not frizzy, tangly, or too dry, except at the ends. It ever amuses me how people I know assume that my long hair = lots of work when I'm probably far lower maintenance than even short-haired women, given what society says you Have To Do. That I put my hair up every day in a 'nice' way probably gives the impression I spend time on it, but it only takes 1-2 minutes... part of this is practise with doing my hair since I was 9, and that I do the same style almost exactly for years at a time until something forces me to change.

Parminder: Thank you for this amazingly well researched method of hair care. In the video you mentioned after doing the clay rinse twice you used a natural conditioner and then the apple cider vinegar. Would you be able to share what natural conditioner you use? Thank you again.

Qoumidan: This is very close to what I've been doing for seven or eight years now. I've gone back and forth buying a clay product and mixing my own at home. I had to stop using modern shampoos because each of my pregnancies made my allergies worse and after 3 kids, I couldn't use them at all. I'm interested to try the specific method you use to apply the wash and the shampoo brush, and dry brushing only. I've never had success with a boar bristle brush because they just glide over the top of my hair and can't get through. My itchy scalp is still a current problem I haven't managed to control and I've been using a shampoo soap bar occasionally to deal with a sticky residue that sometimes forms. I don't know what it's from. Thank you for this video! You've added several new ideas for me to try!

Boops: I’m two months into chemotherapy. Initially, I was noticing a lot of hair loss. I do a similar natural hair routine and have had people tell me how much thicker my hair suddenly looks. I know everyone buys the hair, skin, and nails vitamins with biotin. However, another hugely important vitamin is folic acid!

Dorcas Walker: the soapwort plant produces such a gentle cleanser that archivists use it for cleaning ancient and antique textiles. mucilage from flax or chia can be used as a low hold hair gel

Marie Landry: Thank you so much dear for this well needed video❤. I will definitely make some changes in my hair care routine…. I remember that a few years ago I had tried à olive oil natural bar soap… and my hair loved it… but the boutique that was selling the olive oil bar soap was closed for good sadly… so I went back the “correct “ way to wash my hair… now I want to naturally care for it and clean it naturally lol … I have very thin hair with some curls… any suggestions?

pc 1991: if you feel comfortable, would you be willing to straighten your hair so that we can see the actual length?

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