A word about following instructions carefully and using ancient appliances.

Yesterday we embarked on our “fabulous homemade and natural shampoo and other personal care items” trek.  I had already explained to the kids what I was gonna do and why and how it would impact their lives.  They were pumped, as was I.  Go to Little House in the Suburbs to read the recipe for the shampoo I wanted to make.  (I love their blog,  I read it faithfully, and I try many of their projects.  Lots of fun.)

The first step in making the shampoo is to grate a bar of soap.  I used Ivory.  It grated up really easily and I didn’t even get any bits of skin or fingernail in it.

Next you put the grated soap in the blender and add the olive oil and some water as you turn on the blender.  This blends easily, so please don’t think this caused the following problem.

Now, I love my blender.  It was a wedding gift, which makes it 21 years old.  It’s a Hamilton Beach, 473 million watt, glass decanter, 324 speed, super deluxe blender.

This blender has done it all for us in these many long years.

When we raised hand-fed baby cockatiels (in our pre-Pirate years) the blender ground up all the ingredients for the baby bird formula.

When God started sending Pirates the blender pureed baby Pirate food, and, eventually, baby Princess food.

And lately it has smoothed lots and lots of green smoothies for Hub’s and my breakfasts.

But, while I was having fun blending soap and olive oil and warm water it began to do something it never had done before.  It started spewing black smoke.  I took this as a bad sign.

Well, Hubby and Pirates walked in right then (of course).  Actually, it didn’t look as bad as it sounds.  So Hubby and I had a little convo about what to put this nifty concoction into.  Unfortunately (as it happens) the olive oil bottle (plastic) was sitting right there, and it was almost empty.  Maybe one or two tablespoons left.  We both decided that was the best bottle for our fancy, hand-crafted shampoo, and being the frugal folks that we are, we decided to just add the last dribs of oil to the shampoo.

It really is lovely, creamy stuff, that fabulous, frugal, frothy, foam-for-the-head.

So, yesterday afternoon (like around 4pm) I gave The Princess her first and second shampoos with the new stuff.  At the time I thought it seemed like her hair felt rather… oh, I dunno… gunky?  But, you know, this is the good stuff, and it is different.  So, it follows that it would feel different, right?  So, I persevered and followed up with the recommended apple cider vinegar rinse.  That part went well.  Fast forward to 8pm.  The Princess came to me for a good night hug and I felt her hair and it felt… damp.  Eh, silly girl, got her hair wet.  Well, it wasn’t soaking wet, so I said good night and sent her off to bed.  She woke up at about 10pm for a potty run and another hug (your kids do that too, right?) and I felt her hair, still damp.  Hmmm…  It takes me a while, but I do eventually put 2 and 2 together.  That’s olive oil, folks!  Her first overnight oil treatment!  LOL!

So, this morning I put her back in the shower.  I was gonna fix her hair.  Ha ha ha.  I am like a dog with a bone.  Y’all just don’t know the depth of my perseverance.  I’m gonna find a way to clean hair without the chemicals!  So I resorted to another natural method.  An egg.  Stir a raw egg and use that just like you would use shampoo.  Y’all can stop laughing now, ‘cuz I really did this…to my daughter.  I have no idea if that egg did anything good for her hair.  But it did leave little strands of albumin  throughout her hair.  Drat!  Foiled again.

Well, I am not about to bury that bone yet.  But, she was all out of hair washin’ patience.  Boy, am I glad I didn’t throw out all of our industrial solvents regular store-bought shampoo in a crazed fit of natural-hippie-zeal.

I’ll be makin’ a new batch of the blender shampoo this afternoon with my brand-spankin’-new Oster blender.  I think I’ll use a tad less olive oil in this batch.

Happy shampooing!

Just like this, only mine is RED.

No related posts.