Highlighting Shampoo

1. Pour ½ cup water into a small saucepan and bring to a boil.
2. Place 1/3 cup fresh chamomile flowers in a heatproof mixing bowl and pour the boiling water over the flowers. Let the mixture steep for 45 minutes.
3. Strain the contents of the mixing bowl through a fine strainer, reserving the liquid in a clean saucepan or mixing bowl. Discard the used chamomile flowers
4. Add ½ cup castile soap to the reserved water and stir with a wooden spoon or glass stirrer.
5. Let the shampoo cool to room temperature and transfer to a plastic squeeze bottle.
6. Scent with your choice of natural essential oil (8-10 drops and shake well).

Uses

My daughter and I really like this shampoo and it does give your hair more intense natural highlight.  It lathers us nice and also rinses better than other shampoos in our hard water.  It leaves the hair smelling nice.  Shake this up thoroughly before use and squirt onto wet hair.  Lather well and rinse.  We use this as our daily shampoo.  You can use other flowers as well for a natural and nice smelling shampoo but the chamomile is what makes the natural highlighting work.  You can also use scented castile soap if you choose.  We use the plain castile soap and drops of Jasmine essential oil.       

Cost  

·         Flowers: Pick them wild for free!  I intend to plant some roman chamomile which I hope to grow as a perennial herb.  You can purchase seeds to do so for $3.

·         Castile Soap: $25 for 64oz bottle.

·         Essential Oil: $5 for 1oz.

The 8oz bottle of castile soap has enough to make 16 batches of shampoo.  Essential Oils generally come in 1oz bottles with an estimated conversion of 456 drops per bottle so 1 bottle is more than enough.  

Savings

At a total cost of $30 we can make 16 batches.  One batch lasts me about 1 month so we have a total of 16 months’ worth of shampoo for $30.   An inexpensive highlighting shampoo is around $5 per bottle and 1 bottle will last around 1 month.  16 months’ worth of such store bought shampoo would total $80.  Going the DIY route, we save $30 over 16 months – almost $2 per month.