This Tea Tree and Lavender shampoo is a wonderful, easy recipe to help you ditch the added ingredients you may find in commercial shampoos found in store.
It’s really quite easy to mix up and requires just a handful of ingredients – 2 to be exact, plus the addition of essential oils.
Lavender Essential Oil is wonderful for supporting a healthy scalp and can stimulate hair growth.
Tea Tree Essential Oil is also great for supporting a healthy scalp and can assist with dryness and flakiness that comes with dandruff.
Raw Honey can combat frizz, keep hair nourished and moisturized, and treat dandruff.
Castile Soap is a wonderful cleanser – it may not suds up quite as much as regular commercial shampoo but that is actually not a bad thing. Commercial shampoo suds up because of sulfates that are added to shampoos and those sulfates can strip your scalp of the oils it needs to stay balanced (hello dandruff?)
I know many people actually use commercial shampoo for dandruff, but dandruff happens when the pH of your scalp becomes unbalanced – and shampoo can contribute to that. Who knew?!
I have rather long hair (past my butt), and it took me ten days to strip my hair down before I started using this shampoo, to get my hair ready for the transition. You can read about my transition here. I have found that DIY shampoo is a highly personal thing – so many people struggle with DIY’ing shampoo because they find it hard to transition.
One of the biggest pieces of advice I can give you is to be patient. It may take time for your scalp to adjust! That means throwing up your hair in a bun, or a ponytail, under a cap, etc. and don’t give up — it was an uncomfortable few days for me but now I wash my hair 2-3 times a week.
The days when I wash, I use an Apple Cider Vinegar rinse (below).
I pour that over my head in the shower (eyes closed, please!) and let it sit for 1 minute before rinsing out. It’s a wonderful way to remove greasy build up you may get in-between shampoos.
Why honey? Isn’t it sticky?
Honey is amazing, and while it might be sticky on your hands, it’s not sticky to wash your hair with (trust me!)
- The pH of your scalp is at 7 – and honey is slightly acidic (pH = 3.5 – 4). That slightly acidic pH balances out your scalp to prevent dandruff.
- Raw honey is antibacterial and antifungal.
- Honey is moisturizing to the hair and scalp – it won’t strip the scalp of natural oils like regular shampoo – therefore, the scalp won’t try to make up for that “stripping” by producing massive amounts of oils. After your scalp adjusts to using honey, oil production will even out and you will find yourself being able to go longer between washings.
Raw honey is very thick – so when you are using in a pump, you may want to warm it every so slightly to allow it to combine with the castile soap. It won’t re-harden, it will pump wonderfully when you use it 2-3 times a week.
Homemade Lavender Tea Tree Shampoo
- 1/4 C. Castile soap
- 3/4 C. raw honey (may have to slightly warm in the microwave to combine with the castile soap)
- 3 drops Tea Tree Essential Oil
- 3 drops Lavender Essential Oil
No water is used – making this last quite a long time. Combine the ingredients into a PET approved container and use 1-2 pumps as needed when you wash your hair.
Do you need conditioner?
It will depend on your hair situation – I use a conditioning rinse the days that I wash.
- 1/4 C. Apple Cider Vinegar
- 3/4 C. water
- 2 drops Lavender Essential Oil
Leave that rinse on for 1 minute, then rinse out in the shower with warm water.
Have you ditched commercial shampoo and opted for DIY varieties?
How have they worked for you?
