Ancient Shampoo (Part 1)

Have you ever wondered what people used as shampoo back in the day? Well, before all of the colourful and great smelling shampoos we have today, people still needed to wash their hair.
However, they didn’t have access to the awesome ingredients we have today like Quaternium-15 and Polyquaternium-10, whatever the hell those are.

Well, in ancient Indonesia they also had hair, and of course, it needed to be washed. So, these people went ahead and invented their own shampoo made from the husk and straw of rice. They thought that because rice was so awesome, they could use it for everything. Amazingly, they were right. They would burn the rice plant, mix the ashes with water to make a lather, and then they would slap it on their hair. Apparently, this somehow cleaned their hair. We can’t help but wonder how they came up with the idea.

After rubbing what is essentially wet ash into their hair, the Indonesian people discovered that it would strip their hair and make it incredibly dry. To solve this problem, they rubbed coconut oil into their hair, which is still being used today as a hair moisturizer. So if you want to break away from the chemicals we use in our shampoos today, burn some plants, mix it with water, and boom, you’ll have a sloppy mixture of ash and water that you can apparently smear on your head in order to clean it.

Liked this article? Check out Ancient Shampoo Part 2 or Ancient Shampoo Part 3