Rice Ferments & Herbal Hair Treatments

Fermented rice water has been the secret to beautiful long and healthy hair for village women and imperial princesses in the China, Japan, and Southeast Asia since ancient times.  Women from Huangluo Village, in southern China, have extraordinarily long hair that stays black until they are around 80 years old. Their average hair length is about 6 feet. Part of their secret to having such long hair lies in washing it with fermented rice water.

Fermented rice water is rice water that has slightly soured. It is rich in antioxidants, minerals, vitamin E, and probiotic microbes. Rice extracts have moisturizing properties. You can use rice water for your face, body, and hair.

With our Rejuvenating Hair Treatment, we have added a combination of 15 prebiotic herbs, which increases the nutrient value of the probiotic rice ferment. The herbs we selected are all beneficial for hair, scalp and skin. We found that fermented herbal rice water treatments increased the shine, color spectrum and hair elasticity.  It also decreased surface friction.

In our family we no longer use any commercial hair shampoos, conditioners or detanglers. We only use our probiotic shampoo bars and our ferments as rinses and conditioners. Once we detoxified our hair and scalp from old chemical residue, we didn’t need to wash our hair as often. Our scalp conditions cleared up and our hair strength, shine and luster increased so much that we could see the effects in just weeks, even on hair that had been damaged from bleach, color treatments and perms.

ORGANIC HERBS:

Horsetail, Nettle, Oatstraw, Rosemary, Thyme, Sage, Yarrow, Holy Basil, Lavender, Green Tea, Black Tea, Fo-Ti, Amla Berries, Fenugreek Seeds and Parsley Root. 

DIRECTIONS:

How to Make the Herbal Tea:

Bring ½ gallon filtered water to a near boil. Add Herbs. Let tea sit at room temperature until cool.

How to Make the Rice Culture in the Herbal Tea:

Strain the herbs out. Add the rice to the tea and stir. Cover the jar with a breathable cloth or coffee filter and rubber band. Let sit at room temperature for 2-3 days. Stir every day. NOTE: Cooler temperatures slow fermenting process. We have fermented ours for over a week if needed.

Strain the rice out of the water and discard the rice into a compost. Store the strained tea in the fridge in a jar with a tight lid.

Take out enough fermented rice/herb water mix and put in a small glass jar to keep in the shower for a few days use. Leave the remainder of the ferment in the fridge.

If you want your small jar of rice/tea water to continue to ferment in the shower, cover it with a breathable cloth and rubber band. If you don’t want your rice/tea to continue to ferment, cover it with a tight lid. Additional fermentation increases the probiotic microbial levels in this culture and can facilitate hair improvement. When the herbs are cultured with the microbes in the rice ferment they form prebiotic nutrition that feed both the microbes and your scalp and hair.

Optional: You can add a few drops of essential oil to the ferment you leave in the shower for aroma.

For a Special Honey ferment: After fermenting the rice/tea for 48 hours, mix 1 cup warm water with 1 Tbsp. honey, stir until honey is dissolved, cool and add to tea. Let ferment for another 12-24 hours and then store in the fridge with a tight lid. The honey feeds the probiotic microbes and increases their activity.

How to Use the Herbal/Rice Water Hair Treatment:
Shampoo hair as usual. Pour rice/herb tea over hair and massage into scalp. Make sure to get the ends of your hair thoroughly wet with the tea mixture. You can either wash the tea out, or leave it in, then dry and style as usual. If you experience a slight film on your hair it will easily brush out. After several treatments you should notice your hair getting softer and shinier. This hair treatment can be used as often as needed.