Today, however, I decided to try making my own. While BB provides a fabulous service, my purse strings are tight. Whole, raw, golden flax seeds are only $1.99/lb at Whole Foods. I also picked up some oils for scent/preservation, and some agave nectar. All in all, my cost was about $20 (and it was only that much because I have to buy a huge thing of agave nectar because they were out of the smaller containers). Considering that I will be able to get many, many batches out of what I picked up today, it will work out to be a very inexpensive product.
First, a little about flax seeds. The flax plant probably originated in the Fertile Crescent region of Mesopotamia. Ancient Egyptians cultivated it like mad, using it for fibers. The plant parts can be used in a variety of applications, including fabric, dye, paper, medicines, fishing nets, hair gels, and soap. The plant produces fruit, which contain seeds. The seeds are what are used to make the gel (yay obvious naming!)
The seeds look like this. They are pretty tiny, so having a medium mesh strainer is important for the gel making process.
There are 2 basic types of flax seeds: golden (shown above) and brown. All reports say that golden seeds are preferable to brown for hair gel making. No one can seem to point of the difference between the two types however. They contain the same amounts of omega-3 fatty acids and have the same nutritional values. However, the more experienced gel makers say that golden seeds result in a gel with better hold, so golden seeds it is for me.I used BotticelliBabe's basic recipe for making my gel and added in some things. The fun thing about making this stuff is that you can add in whatever the heck you want. You can customize the scent with essential oils, you have add hold and shine with agave nectar or honey, you can add moisture with aloe, you can get curl enhancement with magnesium sulfate (epsom salt), etc etc etc! It's a fun and easy way to figure out what your hair likes and in what doses, and since flax seeds are pretty darn cheap, it's not so bad when you find out your hair hated a particular add in!
Plain and simple, here is what you will need:
1) Large saucepan
2) Measuring cup (or my mother's ability to guesstimate amounts remarkably accurately!)
3) Large bowl (your mesh strainer should have plenty of room between the bottom of the strainer and the bottom of the bowl)
4) Medium mesh strainer (I use an 8inch strainer I got at walmart with holes that are just small enough to trap the seeds. You don't want an extremely fine grain strainer because they gel will not go through it easily, or at all if you make it thick)
5) Tear-drop shaped wire whisk
6) Container for finished gel. I use on of these which I got at walmart. It's called an H2O mini or something like that
7) a funnel
Ingredients:
1) 2 cups of water. Some people prefer distilled to tap, I just used tap for the ease of it
2) 1/2 cup of golden, whole flax seeds (not ground!)
3) your add ins. I personally added: 1 and a half teaspoons of agave nectar (for hold and shine), several drops of vitamin e oil (helps preserve the essential oil), and a couple drops of orange essential oil (for scent).
I keep my gel in the fridge and go through it quickly. This recipe will make about 8 oz. This stuff will go bad. You can add a preservative like grapefruit seed extract or citric acid (6 drops/oz) or keep it in the fridge. Only keep what you plan to use in a week or two in the fridge. If you don't plan on using it all up, it will freeze in a ziplock bag to kept longer.
Procedure:
Pour 2 cups of water and 1/2 cup of flax seeds into the large saucepan. Turn the heat up as high it will go, and stir the seeds occasionally with the whisk so they do not stick to the bottom of the pan. Once the water starts to boil and a thin film of jelly appears, turn the heat back (my stove has a scale of 1 to 10. I cut back to 4). Start stirring gently but nearly constantly. Watch for the point where when you stop stirring for just a second, the seeds suspend in the jelly instead of sinking to the bottom of the pan. When you dip the whisk in, and pull it back out, the liquid should be jelly-like, like the consistency of egg whites At this point, turn the heat off, give the mix a final stir, and IMMEDIATELY pour the mix into the strainer over a bowl. The gel needs to be hot to strain effectively. At this point, you may want to clean out your saucepan, because if the gel dries in there, it'll be difficult to clean. Once your pan is clean, see how much of the gel has gone through. With my first batch, it all went through pretty well, but there was still a little bit left clinging to the seeds, so I whisked the seeds while they were still in the strainer. This got some more gel out of them, but also forced some seeds in. If you have stray seeds, you can restrain. I'm lazy, and I left them in there. I don't mind taking them out when I use the gel. Now that you have your strained gel in the bowl, add your additives. Whisk them in. Then, put your funnel into your gel container, and pour your gel into the container. It will still be very hot and very runny. It will thicken up a bit as it cools. Some have used xanthum gum as a thickener. I personally like this gel a bit on the runny side, because that way it's very very easy to distribute in my hair.
When things go wrong:
1) It's too thin post-straining. I urge you to keep in mind it really will thicken up when it cools. Mine went from runny like egg whites to very globular over night in the fridge (I'd compare it to like Kinky Curly Curling Custard). But if you still think it's too thin, throw it back in the saucepan and boil it for another minute or two.
2) It's too thick to strain. Add water to the saucepan and try boiling it again for another minute. Then attempt restraining.
The results: I cowashed with CURLS Coconut Sublime, then used Aubrey Organics Honeysuckle Rose as my rinse out. Once out of the shower, I completely saturated my hair (use about 2-4 times as much of this stuff as your instinct tells you to). It's virtually impossible to overdo this product, but it is very possible to underdo. I scrunched out some excess water with my Curls Like Us towel (favorite!), and let it air dry since all I had to do today was study for some finals. Here's how it looked when dry :) Click to enlarge
I got a good bit of crunch, indicating a good amount of hold from that agave. All in all, not too shabby for a 1 product styling (I used nothing but the flax seed gel). I will continue to use this on a regular basis because it's easy. Here is a picture of the gel itself so you can see what it looks like/how much I got out of the recipe.
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