I’ve been looking for organic alternatives to traditional shampoo, more out of curiosity than anything else. I learned that you can wash your hair with leaves from birch and mock orange blossoms, which was a perfect fit for me since both can be found in my garden.
Birch leaves are supposed to be rich in saponins in the beginning of the summer. You can dry the leaves from both the birch and the mock orange blossoms and use them all year round.
Let a few leaves soak in water in a jar with a lid for about one hour. Shake the jar to make it lather, use instead of shampoo and rinse out with water.
I’ve only tried washing my hair like this once so far, so I can’t really review the effects. I have to admit though that I’m a skeptic at heart. 🙂 I sometimes use washing nuts instead of detergent when I wash clothes, but I think that modern washing machines are pretty effective even with just water. Still, I like the feeling of not polluting the water I use. So why not swap shampoo and detergent for ecological alternatives every once in a while?