» kitchen . : La Coco Bella : .

So my obsession with coconuts naturally meant I’d try coconut milk in my hair some type of way. We know the many benefits of anything coconut so I figured the milk would be interesting to try. I went to my local Whole Foods and picked up some 100% pure organic coconut milk. I googled around the web to see what could be mixed with the milk and I decided to use honey as a humectant and extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) as a sealant.

Since coconut milk is a protein, it will help strengthen your hair and prevent breakage. Using it as a DC really helped soften my hair as well. I also found out that it helps with hair shed, hair loss and dandruff so I made sure I rubbed the treatment into my scalp when applying it.

I made my concoction by putting all the ingredients in a blender (the coconut milk separates) but clearly this was a genius mistake, that I won’t be doing again, because it made an extremely watery mixture… #dontjudgeme I think I’ll use a whisk next time! anwho, I still managed to be able to apply the mixture to my hair. I put a plastic cap over my hair and let it sit for about an hour. It was not a pleasant experience because that stuff dripped like no other!! It definitely had to do with the fact that I blended it and I also think I put a little bit too much EVOO. I had to wrap a towel around my head to catch the drips and also one on my shoulders. It wasn’t fun. Lesson learned… I mean, It is a milk so it was bound to be liquidy but I think I made it worse lol. I read that some people use cornstarch to thicken it up a bit. Regardless, I made it through and finally rinsed it out. Check out the results below.

The main thing I could definitely see was an improvement in the elasticity of my hair. My curls were shiny, soft and springy. I may add coconut milk rotation but I will most likely experiment using it in different ways. Not sure if I was feeling the EVOO. My hair doesn’t really take to EVOO very well :o( Lots of naturals just mix in the coconut milk with any of their other conditioners, so you don’t have to use it by itself. When I try this again I will be sure to post the results!

So I love making hair treatments using stuff you can eat lol and I had seen this awesome treatment around the net and I figured I’d give it a shot. I first saw it on Elle’s Quest for the Perfect Curl blog and decided I’d do some googling and found out that it was a fluke concoction created by another blogger named Cherry Lola! Check out the link to see her take on the treatment and how she randomly came up with this.

So when I first heard the name “Cherry Lola” I was like, oooo that sounds like it would be some yummy, super fruity, juicy treatment….boy was I wrong lol. This treatment consists of 3 ingredients (far from yummy and juicy): Plain yogurt, liquid aminos and baking soda. I was shocked but none the less intrigued at the same time. I figured I’d still give it a shot.

The Cherry Lola Treatment (CLT) is a protein treatment that is supposed to reduce frizz and define your curls…and let me tell you, that’s exactly what it did! I really love this treatment!! Although, CL’s site goes into greater detail on how this treatment works, I’ll break it down briefly here.

Here’s the recipe:

16oz Yogurt (plain; full fat) **I used low-fat since that was all I could find
2 tbsp Liquid Aminos (Yes, the kind you use to season food; I used Braggs which you can find at Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s; Do NOT use soy sauce!)
2 tbsp Baking Soda (any brand will do)
I added a little bit of honey just because….it wasn’t in the original recipe though :o)

Ok so we know our hair is made up of proteins and the building blocks of proteins are amino acids—this is where the Liquid Aminos comes in. Yes, Liquid Aminos is used as a soy sauce substitute but you do not want to use soy cause because it is fermented and has added sugars, preservatives, coloring, etc. The yogurt is used for more protein and conditioning and the baking soda is used to make your hair more porous due to its higher pH.

I got a bowl and put the yogurt and the liquid aminos in and mixed them together. Then I added the baking soda….the mixture started foaming up a bit, that was fun to watch lol. The consistency is thick, frothy and gritty.

So I sectioned my hair in about 8 parts and applied the CLT generously from root to end on DRY hair making sure every strand is covered. Ok this was the less favorable part lol the smell…was…a bit funky. I mean it smelt kinda like salty stir fry lol. Oh well, I sucked it up and let the treatment sit on my hair for about 30 mins under a cap so it wouldn’t drip or run (even though it did, probably the heat from my head made it liquify more). One thing that kind of freaked me out a bit was after awhile, the mixture started to give off an ammonia-like smell. I was like OMG! Flash backs of getting a relaxer!! lol I am not sure exactly what components made the smell come off but I am pretty sure it had to do with the baking soda. It did not harm my hair or anything like that so I am not worried about it.

Here’s the CLT applied to my hair:

Now, Cherry Lola advises that you rinse the CLT out with a bowl of water so that you don’t disturb the curl pattern but I didn’t do that and I hopped in the shower and rinsed normally. Maybe next time I’ll try that…

I must say I am really pleased with the results! My definitely felt more defined, softer and shinier! Once thing I also noticed was that my roots were more defined (as Cherry Lola mentioned that hers were). Usually my roots are thick, fluffy and undefined but this treatment helped alleviate that. I also noticed that my curls were clumped a bit more as well. I definitely will try this again when my hair needs a dose of protein and my curls need to be re-defined :o)