First you need a base/carrier oil to make a massage blend as it is called.
Base/Carrier Oils-are used to dilute essential oils for usage in skin care, hair care and many different preparations. Containing vitamins, proteins, and minerals, they are highly effective moisturizers and provide many of the nutrients that the hair/skin needs to keep smooth and supple. You want to find a cold pressed carrier/base oil because it's usually of higher quality than heat or solvent extracted oils.
From my research, I found the that following are the best carriers for HAIR:
Jojoba - closet to sebum oil. It's an excellent moisturizer on the hair shaft, it also cleans, softens and conditions hair and prevent brittleness. Penetrates down to the scalp and hair shaft to loosen and dissolves hardened and built-up sebum. Also exhibits an excellent keratoplastic effect and brings out the hair's natural shine and overtone.
Coconut Oil - It imparts a lovely sheen to hair and extremely moisturizing. It is a natural emollient and miscible to most essential oils and solvents. It has a very long shelf life. It also penetrates very well and of light viscosity.
Shea Butter - imparts soothing properties and provides extra sun protection
Neem Tree Oil - offers moisturizing, regenerative and restructing properties. It can be used for damaged and delicate hair.
*There's many others, but this is what I found the most useful thus far for dry/damaged and relaxed hair:
Peppermint, Nettle (great for ethnic hair), Myrtle, Myrrh, Lavender, Palmarosa, Juniper, *Ylang Ylang, *Yarrow, Sandelwood, Sage, *Rosemary, Rose.
*some of the best essential oils to use.
When using essential oils on the hair what ever the ml of carrier oil you use divide by 2 and that's the number of essential oil you should use. That's about 2.5% dilution.
So lets say you have 20ml of Shea Butter Oil/2 = 10. You want to use 10 drops of essential oils. You can divide that down however you like.
ie:
20 ml Shea Butter Oil (base oil)
5 drops of Rosemary oil
3 drops of Yarrow Oil
2 drops of Lavender Oil
I would mix more of the most beneficial oil that I require for my specific needs and the lesser of a fragrance. Additionally, some oils more compatible with others.
And becareful, the essential oil and the herb itself of the same plant/tree etc can have two different properties. Example Lavender oil can help lets say dandruff and lavender plant can help greasy hair. Once you fully understand plants/herbs/oils and their properties, you can be on your way to making your own shampoos, conditioners and etc as many websites I've found sell base shampoo's and conditioners containing the bare essential required and you add the rest.
NOTE: Vitamin E's a natural Preservative.
I hope this helps. If you need more information...you know where to find me.
[email protected]
Those of you whom e-mailed me earlier this week, I'm just getting all my information together so I can send you neat little package /images/graemlins/smile.gif