Hair Week: Ethiopian Hair Secret

I recently read an article about Liya Kebede (an absolutely stunning Ethiopian model, mother, role model and maternal health advocate). Her hair is gorgeous, and she spoke about how she teaches her daughter to braid her hair. There's a lot of pressures on women of with Afro type hair and for their hair to look sleek, and I think all Desi people need to learn something here because we're often told we're not "fair" enough, and our hair are not "sleek" enough. Curly hair isn't deemed beautiful. Brown skin isn't attractive. I love that she's teaching her young daughter to embrace her natural hair texture and not follow blindly set Western beauty standards.

She spoke about how when she goes back to Ethiopia she gets these treatment which is a local secret where home made clarified butter (ghee) is applied to hair and leaves hair really healthy. Me being me was instantly intrigued. I'd never heard of this before. I stayed up and googled as one does. There wasn't a lot about this on the net, so I set to make my own ghee as it's not a ingredient we keep in the house. She made a point of saying that the clarified butter was organic and home made. I read a post on how to make ghee and off I went with my butter. Set it on the pan and watched in amazement as it turned into ghee. I poured my ghee into a container and took a whiff and oh my God, it smelt of gulab jamuns. Such a delicious smell. I was planning on dying my hair that day so I tested the ghee on hair treatment on Nigar and mum. Both were so impressed. Nigar felt  like she wanted to eat her hair (all her words here not mine), her hair felt smooth and silky, and easy to style. It washed out with normal shampoo as well. 

I've made another batch of ghee to use on my hair this week.
I used it on my hair and it's made my hair very soft and really really silky (a little too silky because when I curled my hair, my curls were a little limp, but that's okay). It did wash out in one shampoo (I used a sulphate free one). I left it on my hair overnight. At first I smelt like a gulab jamun and as the night moved on the smell turned pungent. It wasn't overly overpowering, but I'd recommend to only leave on for a few hours.

How to make ghee: 

Grab:

A lump of unsalted butter (use organic if you can, I didn't have any)

A saucepan

A container to store your ghee in 

{This whole process took me about 5 ish minutes}

Cut the butter into cubes and put in the saucepan 

Turn on a very low heat 

Watch it melt 

Slowly the butter will start to boil and separate in 2 layers: a white foamy layer on top, and  gold layer in the bottom. 

Slowly start to skim the foamy layer off with a spoon. Be careful not to burn yourself.  

A third layer will start to form at the bottom which will be darker brown. This means your ghee is now done. 

Remove all you can of the white foam, then slowly strain the gold liquid through a sieve (a metal one, I used a plastic one the second time and obviously it melted).

Pour gently and avoid pouring the darker brown into your jar. Store and use as needed. As it cools down it will turn into a more solid texture (as in the first picture)

 That's normal. Just warm it up before applying to your hair for easier application. You can also use this for cooking. 

Ever tried this nifty little hair trick? 
Intrigued enough to try it? 
Hashtag us on twitter/Instagram using #desidossierhair if you try it 

Have a great hair week.