Tea Rinsing Not Working? Try Drinking It....Benefits of Green Tea

Here is a forgotten post I found in my drafts from 2016. It is very relevant so I am sharing now.

Tea rinsing has been one of the things that I have tried but never stuck with during my healthy hair journey.  As you may know, tea rinsing is said to help reduce the shedding in order to maintain thicker hair.  I have not kept up with tea rinsing. The main reason for this is to reduce the many steps of my wash day.  I didn't mind skipping this step

Wash Day|More Experimenting with Tea Rinsing

In my last wash day post, I introduced tea rinsing back into the mix.  After noticing the reduced shedding, I knew that tea rinsing was here to stay.  I'm still trying to find ways to make it work within my regiment, however. I don't care for the drying stiff feeling that I usually get, so I've been playing around with my mix.  See below for the tea concoction that I used this time around. You'll notice that I used the same products as before with an extra addition....coconut oil!

Let's Get Into My Wash Day Experience....

1.  I'm not even sure if I should call this a prepoo. I applied Silk Dreams Wheat Germ Butter Conditioner on Sunday evening and detangled my hair with every intention of washing that night, but um....it was getting pretty late. Knowing how long it takes me to wash and blow dry, I knew I didn't have it in me. So in a bun my hair went. It wasn't until Tuesday night that I actually washed my hair. So I had a nice 2 day prepoo. My hair felt so moisturized.  

2. Shampooed with the last bit of ORS Creamy Aloe Shampoo diluted in an applicator bottle. I get so excited when I empty product, because I know I have way too much (even after giving my mom several bottles of shampoo). LOL

3. I then applied my tea rinse mixture. This time I steeped only one tea bag instead of two and I added coconut oil to the mix.  My hair did not feel dried out or stripped. I really thought I was on to something with this mix.

4. After rinsing,, I deep conditioned under my heat cap with Shea Moisture Manuka Honey & Mafura Oil Intensive Hydration Hair Masque.

5. After t-shirt drying for a few minutes I applied my leave-ins which were Annabelle's Moisturizing Leave in Conditioner in the Vanilla Bean scent (My Giveaway win from Relaxed Thairapy. as well as Annabelle's Hair Creme in Birthday Cake Scent) and GVP Smoothing Serum.

I used the tension method to blow dry my hair on cool/luke warm temp. My hair seemed to dry faster than usual and felt a bit dry. I'm not quite sure what caused this. I think I should have sealed with a different product. I don't think I've ever used the GVP Smoothing Serum alone as a sealant when blow drying.  I also noticed that the bits of slippery elm and marshmallow root that seeped through the strainer were still in my hair and flying out as I blow dried, which was frustrating. I didn't notice this on my last wash because I used curlformers.  So now I have to go back to the drawing board with my tea mix.

I decided to just keep it simple and rock my usual bun.  I love low maintenance styles. 

All in all, it was a decent wash day. I've most definitely had worse. If you haven't heard any relaxer talk form me, then it must have been a good one. LOL

So how was your wash day? Head on over to Saving Our Strands or Just Grow Already and share your wash day post in the #WashDayExperience Link Up.

HHG!

Final Wash Day of 2014 - Operation Cease The Shedding

Happy New Year's Eve everyone! This passed Sunday was my last wash day of 2014.  I notice that every wash day I start pondering about what I plan to do, which products I'm going to use, and finally, how I will style my hair.  My wash days are a lot more calculated; there's a method to the madness. Before my hair journey, I never put any thought into this. My how things change when you start to really focus on your hair goals and learning about your hair.

Lately, I have been experiencing more shedding than I care for.  I had not done a tea rinse in so long; in fact, I haven't done a tea rinse at all during 2014.  To be honest, when I was doing them I wasn't even really convinced that it was helping at all, but the main reason I omitted tea rinsing from my regimen was to save some time and steps on wash day. I really don't enjoy shower hopping.  Well, this wash day, I thought I'd bring tea rinsing back into the mix.

Green Tea|Marshmallow Root|Slippery Elm Bark|
Peppermint Essential Oil|Rosemary Essential Oil

My Wash Day Experience:

1.  I started off by massaging my scalp with a mixture of coconut oil and JBCO.  I then did a hot oil treatment with some Tea Tree Oil that I was trying to use up.

2. Next, I took a moment to prepare my Tea Rinse mixture which consisted of two bags of Green Tea, steeped with a little bit of marshmallow root and slippery elm bark. I also added a couple of drops each of peppermint and rosemary essential oils.  I was hoping that this mixture would help combat the drying effect of the green tea and help with detangling.

3.  I then shampooed my hair using ORS Creamy Aloe Shampoo.

4. Next I applied the tea rinse using a color applicator bottle.  My hair still felt a little stiff despite my adding the marshmallow and slippery elm.  I may need to play around with the measurements a little more to get better results.

5. I deep conditioned using the last of my Shea Moisture Deep Treatment Masque which I mixed with a little Extra Virgin Olive Oil and JBCO.  I deep conditioned under my heating cap for about 45 minutes and allowed to cool before rinsing.

6.  I hopped back into the shower to rinse my DC and then applied It's A 10 Miracle Conditioner to help soften and detangle my hair because it still felt a little stiff after deep conditioning. It helped a little bit. I should have grabbed my Aussie Moist, but I was ready to get out of the shower and be done.

I then t-shirt dried my hair for a few minutes while I pondered back and forth on whether I wanted to blow dry my hair or go with curls. I decided on pulling out my CurlFormers.  My leave-ins were Jessicurl Too Shea Extra Moisturizing Conditioner, GVP Smoothing Serum, and Jessicurl Confident Coils Styling Solution(to help set my curls). It did take me a while to install the CurlFormers because I had to spend a good bit of time detangling each section.  I definitely think the Too Shea Extra Moisturizing Conditioner helped to soften my hair for easier detangling.

I left the Curlformers in overnight to allow my hair to air dry. It wasn't too bad sleeping in them this time around.  I think I had the CurlFormers too tight at the root last time so I tried to make sure they were more loose this time around. This definitely helped.

Tea rinsing was definitely the star of this wash day.  I can truly say that this time around I am 100% certain that tea rinsing definitely works for reducing shedding. For the past several weeks, whenever I would run my fingers through my hair I was constantly pulling out shed strands of hair.  After tea rinsing, this has not been happening.  Tea rinsing is definitely here to stay.


How was your wash day? Are you battling with constant shedding? How does tea rinsing work for you?

Wishing everyone a very safe and Happy New Year!

Thanks for reading,