@Sally.
Sorry in advance for the novel but...
Thinking back to when I first started dabbling with Ayurveda... it took some time to see some of the improvements.
The first/most dramatic difference for me was in detangling. I didn’t start using henna glosses until maybe 2 years ago. I started with full strength henna treatments. I read about rapid results with a rapid buildup of coatings, kinda how you season a cast iron skillet and it gets better and better over time. Well I think I did a treatment a week for about 3 months. Then tapered off to 2x/month, then 1x/month. I’ve fallen off periodically but it hovers around 1x/month. And when I fall off, I slowly start having more issues with breakage and tangling and then I’m like “Oh yeah it’s been like 2 months since I did a henna treatment. Let me do one!”
I went from DAY LONG wash days 5 years ago to 1 HOUR wash days today. Some of that is experience and knowledge but a lot is henna’s help with detangling and conditioning my hair. Detangling would take 6+ hours, have to be broken into two nights or over the weekend to my WORST day of tangling today doesn’t take more than 2 hrs. Generally, detangling is a 15-30 minute affair.
My experience and advice is to think of Ayurveda as a life style or as something you’ll (semi-) permanently include in your regimen.
When you think of it this way, you stop expecting dramatic quick flash results and are happy with sustainable, long-term improvements.
As far as tea rinses, I honestly did see results in one wash. Everyone is different though. But everyone also brews their teas differently and with different mixtures.
My first tea rinse was a kitchen sink mix (as in everything BUT the kitchen sink) so who knows what of that mix was the active ingredient or active mix of ingredients. I brewed it overnight and it was highly concentrated (ratio of water to herbs was low). I applied it, baggied overnight, and then proceeded with my regular wash routine. My ta-da moment was in 75% reduction in the shed hair. So it was a pretty huge difference for me.
Originally, I used tea rinses kinda like prepoos because of my issues with wash day shedding. Now, I mostly use them as daily leave-in/refresher sprays. I make them at a normal or medium strength now. Haven’t gone (or seen the need to go) extreme since my first month of using tea rinses.
Over time, my regular use of teas has definitely helped my shedding and the strength of my hair and follicles. But I can also say, my hair is long and abundant so perhaps it was mostly cosmetic for me to be so anxious about seeing so much hair fall in the shower. Throughout the week, I lose a few strands here and there with styling and handling. That’s to say I’m sure hairs that are meant to fall DO eventually fall, just not all at once in the shower like before. And I’m much happier with this result. My hair also feels fuller. I can’t say a way I could measure because it was never really thin. But it’s like
Ayurveda has optimized my hair.
So maybe don’t expect a whole nother head of hair, but the best version your hair can be.
Over time, that can seem like different hair, but it’s just your best hair.