Many hair care products geared toward the curly community boast of having added protein. This is good, as we curlies do tend to need the added protein, especially if we have porous hair. However, with a couple of ingredients and a little bit of extra time, you can actually give your hair a protein boost at home with this rum and egg porous hair treatment.
Getting Started
To get started, you’ll need some clear alcohol such as rum or vodka and two eggs. This depends on the length of your hair, though, and those of you with chin to shoulder length hair could probably get away with just one egg. I opted to double the recipe to be sure I had enough for my hair which is several inches past my shoulders. None of my mixture went to waste.
Since I didn’t have any rum on hand (we only drink one maybe two times a year”>, I rummaged up some leftover vodka from New Year’s. Before doing so, I researched this to see if there would be any difference between rum and vodka and there did not appear to be any difference. The important thing seemed to be having a clear alcohol that is fairly strong and “dry.”
Read More: How Does Hair Porosity Affect Your Curls?
Creating the Mixture
I mixed together three tablespoons of vodka per egg yolk, so this meant six tablespoons of vodka and two egg yolks for my length of hair. The mixture was kind of gooey, even though I whipped it with a fork several times. It actually was smooth-looking, but once you stick your hands into it, you can see it’s kind of goopy.
Next, it’s a good idea to detangle your hair. Alcohol isn’t exactly a natural detangler (quite the opposite, actually”>, so do what you can beforehand.
Note that I started out with third-day hair, pretty dull at this point, with all sorts of crazy things going on. My hair was in a ponytail and some of the hair was straight-ish with spirals at the end, while other parts were just coily (especially near the nape of my neck”>. So I let it down and detangled before putting the mixture in my hair. Yep, that’s my combed-out frizz-happy hair.
At this point, you just dive right into the ooey-gooey mixture and start applying it to your hair.
I have to say, the mixture left my hair feeling kind of parched, rough and smelly. Then again, I can’t stand the smell of alcohol CONSTANTLY in my face, though this may not bother some people. While I let it set on my hair for approximately 20 minutes, I was nearly nauseous as I kept getting whiffs of the vodka around me. Bleck! I could’t wait to hop into the shower!
Read More: Quick & Easy Hair Porosity & Density Tests
Rinse & Repeat
Finally, it was time to wash it out of my hair! When I stepped into the shower, I rinsed my hair with just plain water at first. I was already amazed at how my hair felt surprisingly soft, considering the alcohol made it feel so straw-like as I was applying the egg mixture. I’m guessing this was a result of the egg sliding out of my hair.
Next, I shampooed my hair as usual. When I rinsed out the shampoo, I was still shocked at how SOFT my hair felt. Of course, I still wanted to follow it up with conditioner, so I did.
While researching for this article, before daring to apply this to my hair, I found that many people followed up this porous hair treatment with an ACV (apple cider vinegar”> rinse. Should you choose to do that, you’ll want to add about a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar to two cups of water. Some complained of the vinegar smell (even after their hair dried”>, while others said it was barely noticeable. This must depend on how much you dilute the vinegar as well as whether you’re using apple cider vinegar or plain vinegar. Alternatively, you could use lemon juice in place of vinegar.
As for me, I didn’t use either because I didn’t discover that I had no vinegar in the house until the egg mixture was whipped together. Frantic, I did some more research to find out what the vinegar is for and whether or not it was truly necessary. As far as I can tell, it’s supposed to help make your hair soft when you finish shampooing out the egg mixture. Since I planned to follow this up with conditioner and my usual detangler, I figured it didn’t matter all that much.
Read More: Why Hair Porosity & Density Matter
Final Thoughts
Here’s a shot of my hair after rinsing and detangling. It doesn’t look a whole lot different here than it did when I first applied the porous hair treatment, probably because my hair is still wet. This is also pre-scrunching, which is what I do to get defined curls. My hair is actually fine and is extremely porous, which means water weighs my hair down tremendously. Had I planned to go anywhere other than to bed, I would have hit it with some holding gel or hairspray and would have done a scrunch-and-pump!
As I sit here typing this, over an hour after getting out of the shower, my hair is drying somewhat. Since it’s very porous and traps in water, it’ll be awhile before it’s completely dry! But at this point, I’m not noticing a whole lot of difference. I did notice a huge difference while in the shower as my hair was really soft hair, but I’m still thinking that could be just from the egg yolk.
The verdict: would I do it again and is this something I simply MUST incorporate into my hair care routine? I’m going to have to say….probably not. But it was still fun to try!
Read More: Is Water Damaging my Hair?
Are you thinking of whipping up some alcohol and eggs to treat your porous curls?
