HelloHelloo there!

 

Recently I have been dealing with extreme bouts of shedding. Like when I say a lot, I mean A LOT! Much more than usual. Like every time I comb my hair or even run my fingers through it while straightened I get lonnnng ass hairs just poppin’ out everywhere. I know they are shed hairs and not broken because most, if not all, have the white bulb thing at the end. Broken hairs (which I have some of too) will not have a white bulb at the end and will be of varying size lengths rather than one long intact strand.

So I started reading and reading all over the net and found that many naturals swear by garlic oil and its shed reducing magic so I thought why not give it a try myself since it was so easy to make at home.

Here’s an article on garlic and hair!

So a couple of days ago…

I decided on doing a single garlic treatment instead of adding the oil to my hair daily because I really was not trying to smell like garlic for days at a time, and because home made garlic oil has a really short shelf life and should be used immediately or within 1-2 days with refrigeration. I had to learn from experience with this. For people who make this for food: Never let your garlic oil sit out at room temperature as this can cause the bacteria for botulism to grow and if you eat it, you can get sick. Now even though I’m not too sure what it would do if applied to hair, I don’t want to be, or have any of you guys be the one’s to find out, so just try and use it as soon as possible and refrigerate immediately if not and if you’re unsure just toss it and start fresh. Good thing this stuff is cheap.

Here’s an article on the risks of homemade garlic oil!

Now I know this site says you can use it up to a week after with refrigeration, I personally wouldn’t wait that long.

During my first trial run, I made some and used 1 entire bulb of garlic ( about 12 cloves chopped up) to 6 oz of olive oil and like 25 drops of tea tree oil and put it in the fridge. I forgot about it for 6 days and when I went to go use it, I looked at the jar and saw that the garlic bits looked weird and bloated and the oil had a strange blue tinge to it. I was just going to use it anyway because the site said a week was fine and I only was on day 6…but then I was like “ehhh this is kinda sketchy, I’mma just take a closer look..”

I poured it out into a white bowl so I could see everything clearly and to my surprise saw that the garlic pieces, despite the refrigeration and tea tree oil,

HAD MOLDED. O_O

The bits were blueish-teal-green and absorbed oil some of the oil, which would explain the bloated look, BUT it smelled totally fine o____o

I was so grossed out I forgot to snap a picture before tossing it.

So that goes to show you can not use your nose as a tool to help you find out if this stuff has gone bad or not.

My advice again if you’re ganna try this, use immediately.

The Process: Making The Oil

I used : extra virgin olive oil (however much that is in the pic sorry guys I didn’t measure), 6 cloves of fresh garlic, 10 drops of tea tree oil and about half a cup of aloe vera juice.

Then I blended it all till it looked like this…

 

The Application.

I sectioned my hair into like 8 -12 braids and detangled as gently as I could.

 

Still lost a crap load of hairs 😦

Then I mixed in some conditioner with it to try and mask the smell (to no avail), then massaged into my scalp only and put on a plastic cap for 30minutes.

WARNING: Now let me tell you. This stuff is smelly. Like ridiculously smelly. Like aggressively smelly. So smelly I started getting a headache just from the fumes that would escape from the cap, so if you have a sensitive sense of smell I would advise that you do not do this at all. If you don’t like the smell of garlic, needless to say, do not do this at all lol . It smelled sooooo strong it took me 7 washes with shampoo to barley come close to getting the smell out. (which was EXTREMELY drying on my hair may I add) That got it to a tolerable level but still not completely out till this day. -_____-

I did a DC yesterday and it STILL smelled like garlic when it got wet.  Now the garlic did not completely stop all my shedding BUT I feel like it did kind of reduce it which was ok but not worth all the effort and lingering smell.

I do not think I will be doing this again anytime soon because of the smell. It’s just wayy too strong and lasts wayyy too long. I think I will just invest in some garlic pills and continue with the black tea to see how that works.

It made my hair really shiny and smooth near the scalp. I’m not sure if this was from the garlic but my curl pattern was like ridiculously defined this time.

So to answer the question, “does garlic oil work?” Yes. It probably would work better if I used it more often,  but that then brings me to the 2nd part of the question, “is it worth it?” My answer would be not really. I can’t stand smelling like an aggressive salad dressing and to have that smell linger when wet or seep out during green house treatments and while you sweat is driving me crazy!!! So NO, having to smell like that is not worth it to me. Unless you like that sort of thing, then go for it lol.

Thanks for reading!!!

– Asia ❤

Have any of you used garlic oil or garlic in your regimen? I would love to hear all about it in the comment section below! ❤