My best friend came up to visit me at school once and ended up meeting a guy at a party.  She went home with him and amidst hooking up, said: “it’s not me, it’s you.” Harsh. Anyways, shortly thereafter, this guy, now with a seriously bruised ego, encountered me at another party.  Recalling that I was her friend, he took out his frustration on me. With a cup of beer.  That he poured from a porch. Onto my head.

While at first I was angry that this unfortunate boy was taking out his anger on me ruined my straight hair that I spent an hour on, I now know better. After some research on natural beauty remedies, I learned that beer actually adds volume to hair!  This guy wasn’t trying to hurt me; he was trying to help me out!  His glass was empty, but I’m choosing to look at the situation as a glass-half full kind of thing.

Who knew that beer was helpful for more than getting drunk?  Actually though, it turns out that lots of food and beverage products are quick fixes for hair and skin problems.  Spend 5 minutes looking through your pantry or fridge and you’re sure to find some ingredients that could improve your beauty problem areas.  Below are some super simple ingredients and what they can help you fix.  Save money, be natural, and be beautiful?

Win-win-win.

Beer:
Helps: dry, flat hair.
To use: Yeast and hops build volume so test this out in the shower when your hair is feeling especially dull.  Pour a heavy beer (non of the MGD64 crap) over your hair in the shower and rinse just until the smell is gone (so you don’t smell like my ex-boyfriend/a frat house).

Salt:
Helps: Remove oil and grease.
To use: Salt can be used on dry hair to remove oils.  Massage a tablespoon of big, coarse salt crystals into your hair.  Let it sit for 15 minutes, and then brush it out thoroughly so it doesn’t look like your hair is flaky.

Tomatoes:    
Helps: Shrink enlarged pores.
To use: Mix 1 teaspoon of tomato juice with a couple drops of lime juice.  Apply to your face and leave on for 15 minutes. Then rinse. Unless you want to look like a pizza.

Almonds and Honey:
Helps: Dry, dead skin.
To use: Mix almonds and honey together to make a paste.  Massage into your face or body with warm water.  Scrub away the dry, dead skin then rinse away with cool water.

Olive-oil:
Helps: Dry, damaged hands.
To use: Apply olive-olive oil all over your hands right before bed, massaging it into your skin.  Then put on a pair of cotton gloves and hit the sheets.  Skin will be soft as a baby’s butt in the morning.

Chamomile Tea Bags:
Helps: Puffy, swollen eyes.
To use: After steeping the tea bags in water, place them in the fridge (for the summer, or in warm water for the winter) for a couple of minutes, then lie down and place them over your eyes.  Puffiness should be immediately reduced. Toss those puppies away and enjoy a nice, soothing cup of Chamomile tea.

For more complicated natural recipes check out All Natural Beauty.  Do you have any food or beverage beauty remedies that you use? Help us out and let us know.

Shockingly, neither of these are good looks.

But what am I supposed to do? If I let my hair go naturally, it blows up Monica-Gellar-goes-to-Hawaii-style. But if I add product, my hair becomes a slick, oily mess.  One summer problem would be enough; dealing with both of these can be tricky.  Luckily, I’ve devoted lots of time to fixing this problem before the heat sets in this summer and I’ve found some products that can help tame these heinous summer looks.

Control the Oil:

Shampoo: Oily hair is actually caused by an oily scalp.  Your scalp produces sebum (oil) and it transfers to your locks.  So when you are looking for a shampoo to combat the oil, you want one that will control the root of the problem.  Shampoos labeled “Sebo-control” are designed to remove the oil from your scalp, like this shampoo from L’Oreal. After lather/rinse/repeating with it, I’ve noticed that the grease stays away longer, especially when hair is straight.

To Condition or Not to Condition: If your hair is only mildly oily and you want to condition, make sure you don’t condition the roots of your hair.  If your hair is especially oily, condition only twice a week and just apply a small amount of conditioner to the ends.

Other Oil Control Tips: Don’t excessively brush your hair; it encourages oil.  Keep your hair pulled back from your face and away from makeup.  If you need some serious oil relief, Jonathon makes a dry shampoo powder that can be used in between washes or on-the go. I’m sure it works great…but then again, so does baby powder.

Combat summer’s other problem: Control the Frizz:

Use a small amount of hair serum on your hair when it is still wet; try Paul Mitchell’s Super Skinny Hair Serum.  It will keep the frizz to a minimum and add a healthy shine, not oil.  For colored hair try Okara Protect Color Serum.  This can be applied in a small amount to dry hair to protect your color and control the frizz.  For a cheap alternative you can also try Suave’s Anti-frizz cream which happens to smell quite delicious.

Other Tips for Frizz-Control: Mousse and Hair Spray can help control frizz but you don’t want to overload your hair and create a build-up (which would add to the summer grease problem!). The serums and cream above are light and effective and thus a better alternative to piling on other products.

Best of luck with the summer hair care qualms!

You don’t say!

Greasy hair is good, according to a University of Missouri study. After exposing eight washed and eight unwashed hair samples to ozone for 24 hours, researchers discovered that unwashed hair absorbs around seven times as much ozone as freshly washed hair. This is most likely because the ozone reacts with oils in the hair.

What does reducing the ozone mean to you (in case saving the environment isn’t enough)? The less ozone you breathe in, the lower your risk of having respiratory problems is. According to one of the researchers, “For dirty hair, the ozone concentration around the head is likely to be substantially lower than the level in the room.”

So, sure that pretty girl with the freshly washed hair will be surrounded by potential dates, but she’ll also be surrounded by ozone. Sucks to be her, right?

Before you get too excited about sleeping an extra 20 minutes every morning, you should know that researchers also found that oily hair might produce more secondary-reaction products, such as respiratory irritants, because of its reaction with ozone.

Darn it. I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that last part. Twenty extra minutes in bed would make all the difference to me.