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Just 3 ingredients that you likely already have in your house and you can make your own all natural homemade hairspray! No more toxic ingredients!
Hairspray is full of nasty stuff. It is coating your hair in plastic, in reality.
Would you coat any other part of your body in plastic? I think not. Why should your hair be any different?
On my quest for natural hairsprays, I discovered I could make my own all natural homemade hairspray using ingredients that I already had in my kitchen!
As it turns out, hairspray is not all that hard to make! No need for crazy ingredients. All I need is sugar! Who knew that a watered down simple syrup can work as a hairspray?
If you doubt that sugar water can really act as hairspray, let me assure you it really and truly will work!
Even if it didn’t you are only out what… two cents? Because that’s how ridiculously cheap it is to make this all natural homemade hairspray.
All Natural Homemade Hairspray
1/2 cup water (boiled or just about boiled)
2 teaspoons sugar
1/4 – 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract or another extract or a 1-2 drops of essential oil (optional)
Directions:
After heating the water, remove from heat, add sugar and the vanilla.
Wait until cooled before pouring into a spray bottle. Old hairspray bottles work great as do old body splash bottles. (once cleaned obviously)
Use like you would a normal hairspray. Replace when it no longer looks the same.
This stuff works great!
If you need a stronger spray add more sugar. Although I can not imagine needing anything stronger as this stuff seems to work better then my old hairspray.
If you want less hold then add less sugar. Simple!
I do have one word of warning; as this is essentially sugar water, bees can be attracted to it. I have not had a problem yet but those with severe bee allergies should take care.
Want a hairspray with a bit of color boosting ability? Check out this post:
Herbal Color Enhancing Hairspray
I'm going to try it! I get so tired of buying so much hairspray, this may not work for me, but it's worth a try! I have very long hair and I spray every strip of hair down with hairspray b4 I hot roll it. Right now I use herbal essence, and go through about a bottle every two weeks. I will let you know how it goes after I try it! I love your site! It's a little overwhelming bc I'm anxious to read it all. haha
Wow thanks! I am totally trying this.
cant wait to try this – i just started the NO POO today and my hair looks and feels amazing….seems like a shame to put commercial hairspray on to help hold my style for the day…… 🙂
does this work for makeing spikes or mohawks ? just wondered about it cause we do haunted house and use a lot of hair spray for frizzy hair do's
It might. I think if you do try it for spikes or mohawks that you might want to up the sugar a bit so that it's got a super good hold.
Oh sorry about that last comment..I didn't read that last section! Hahahha Sorry!!
Have you ever had an issue with bees being attracted to this?! I used to use a sweet smelling hair spray and I had to stop because the bees were attracted to it! Seems like this would have a similar effect? Have you ever experienced that?
I wonder if you could research and find an essential oil that bees don't care for yet smells nice? I know peppermint repels spiders and mosquitoes yet when my mint plants bloom they are buzzing with bees.
Lavender or mint is a repellant
How AWESOME is this!!
Never would have thought to make my own hairspray…definitely worth trying, even if it's a flop, you only spend pennies making it!
Very Cool! Thanks for sharing!
Wow, it is amazing how simple this recipe is!
what is the shelf life?
is mostly water so the shelf life must be long but your guess is as good as mine
Barb,
The Shelf life varies a bit depending on if you use essential oils or extracts. Both of those add-in's can increase the shelf life. I usually keep my bottle for a month or so and have had no issues.
I like it! Greetings! Thank you for your post.
So glad I came across your article! I’m obsessed with zero waste blogs and such lately, and try to be even more concientious of the waste I produce and what product and food I consume. Where as I am nowhere near living a zero waste life, every little bit counts and I think we should all try our best to preserve the planet we live on.
That’s great! I love zero waste living as well but like you am still a far cry from being truly zero waste. But ever bit helps.
This works great! My main reason for trying this, was that the store bought hairsprays were getting hard to wash out. I was washing my hair 2 and 3 times to just to remove the old hairspray. Now I’m down to washing my hair once and using and rinsing with a little conditioner. I’m using vanilla during the winter, but I’ll try the lavender for the warmer months. Thank you for posting this!
So what are we suppose to do after hairspray ?
Wash and shampoo or just leave it to dry ?
As far as I know, hairspray is always used and left on. If you wash and shampoo then you’ll just wash the hairspray out. You want to use the hairspray to hold your hair’s (curls or straightness), so you spray and let dry.
Tried it, wanted to love it, but it just makes my clothes, bathroom floor and counters SO sticky!
I’m sorry that was your experience. I’ve never had a sticky issue but it potentially could happen I suppose if you over spray (it is sugar water after all lol)
I researched and unfortunately leaving sugar in your hair can create bacterial overgrowth 😔I made the recipe it made my short hair look full of volume!!! I added jojoba and vanilla extract , I love the fact it is all natural versus the chemicals in hair sprays. So what can I do about the sugar bacterial overgrowth? Thanks
Honestly, I’ve looked around, and I’ve not seen anything on sugar in hair causing bacterial overgrowth. Maybe if you were soaking your scalp in it… but this is just on top of your hair. In any case, adding vanilla extract (or another extract that is made with alcohol) may help, or perhaps another preservative such as rosemary oil. But I’ve not experimented with that, so I don’t know for sure how it’d react with the hairspray.