Holistic Feathers

Shikakai hair shampoo – naturally shiny

I fell off the wagon a few weeks ago … I mean, in terms of only using natural, chemical-free products on myself!

At the beginning of January, I decided to stop colouring my hair. I have been ‘au naturelle’ just once in (ouch!) 25 years … and that was during my pregnancy, 20 years ago. Time to slide into my 40th birthday gracefully and be totally natural, I thought to myself.

Still, as a dark strawberry-blonde, I needed to a way to tone in the root growth, my wise-hairs (yes, yes, yes – ok, my white hairs!) and the colour left on my past-shoulder length mane. I finally gave in and picked up two bottles of Trevor Sorbie’s Cool Coffee colour shampoo in a moment of madness.

And would you but know it? My scalp eczema flared up within a week and although it gave a nice gleam to my hair, I couldn’t bear to carry on using something that was causing me such discomfort – and so full of un-natural ingredients.

To my surprise, I noticed that Raw Gaia – our favourite skincare range – had recently launched Shikakai, a completely natural powder shampoo which gives a slightly darkened sheen to hair. Great news! I ordered a pot alongside my trade order and have fallen in love with it …

Shikakai is known as as “fruit for the hair” and the powder comes from de-shelled shikakai nuts; an ancient Ayurvedic medicine for strengthening the hair roots and said to stimulate hair growth, shikakai also has a naturally-mild pH, which means it will gently cleanse your hair without stripping it of all its natural oils.

So it was a perfect find for my sensitive scalp, meaning it could gently darken my hair over a period of time. I am thrilled with the results I have had so far … my scalp is healing nicely, my hair has a lovely shine and I no longer need to use a conditioning product after each wash.

I use the shikakai powder daily, mixed with cool water into a thick paste – if you have a dry scalp or suffer with dandruff, you can also add 1 teaspoon of neem or jojoba oil to the mixture, to give it extra conditioning and soothing properties to your tender skin.

We are delighted to now stock shikakai hair shampoo alongside the Raw Gaia skincare products we use in our Living Facial treatments (we make it a firm rule to only stock products we use ourselves), so what are you waiting for? Give this magic shampoo a try for yourself …

PS – I am also thrilled to see that Raw Gaia ship their shikakai hair wash powder in a plastic pot; I am so accident-prone that I would have to have decanted it into a tupperware container, if they’d shipped them in their usual glass jars!