I am not a natural hair expert. While I have natural hair and always have, half the time I don't actually know what I'm doing with it or if I'm doing it correctly. I have spent countless hours on Pinterest and YouTube staring at pretty natural hairstyles and looking at products for natural hair, but I never actually tried anything out on myself or for myself. Until my mom decided to put a low bun in my hair and the need for a natural gel became overwhelming. With no time to look around in hair stores for one, I decided to make one myself.
Following a recipe I saw on YouTube from one of my favorite natural hair gurus, Naptural85, I embarked on a mini-hair journey and made Flaxseed hair gel.
Because my mom is on a health kick, we happened to have flaxseeds in the house which was truly a pleasant surprise.
I also needed water and tea tree oil (not necessary, but nice to add as a preservative and an essential oil). Once I put the flaxseed and water in the pot, I put the heat on and waited for a mucus like trail to appear in the mixture - the signal that the mixture would be ready.
Because I used roasted flaxseed, my mixture took a little longer to form the mucus trail than the recipe noted, but I didn't mind. The only somewhat annoying part was the constant watching and stirring to make sure that nothing boiled over. But even that wasn't too horrible.
Eventually the trail formed, so I turned the heat off and let everything cool. 20 minutes into the cooling time, I added some tea tree oil. I didn't add it earlier because I didn't want it to burn off or evaporate. After 20 more minutes, the mixture was ready to be strained. So I cut the leg off a pair of stockings and sat it in a measuring cup. Then I took the stocking leg filled with the mixture out of the cup and squeezed the mixture into a container, separating the gel from the left over seeds.
Once that was done, I was left with my very own homemade flaxseed gel (which did a great job at holding my hairs in place while I wore a low bun during a hot, humid June afternoon).