What is Shikakai, benefits, and uses

Hi, Beauties! Today I would like to introduce you to an ingredient with multiple uses and benefits: Shikakai. But what is exactly Shikakai? I discovered this natural powder recently because it was mentioned to me by a friend of mine. With strong curiosity, I decided to know more about this ingredient, and what I learned definitely pushed me to buy it and to use it in my DIY recipes. In this post, I’m going to introduce you to this powder mentioning its benefits and how to use it.

Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. By clicking through them and making a purchase, I may receive a small commission WITHOUT any additional cost to you.

Gabi

What Shikakai is? Benefits and uses

Shikakai is an Ayurvedic herb obtained from the bark of a shrub called Acacia concinna. It grows typically in Asia, particularly in India. The bark of those shrubs is high in saponins, a class of chemical compounds that act as surfactants.

Benefits

Shikakai powder has various benefits that make it an excellent ingredient for shampoos and skin creams. Some of them are:

1. nutrient-rich
2. antibacterial
3. anti-fungal
4. cleansing
5. hair growth
6. shiny hair
7. detangles
8. stronger roots
9. pH balance
10. help to moisturize hair

With all these properties I bought it immediately to use it in my DIY recipes.

Uses of Shikakai

I thought of using the Shikakai for two DIY projects. I would like to test its untangling and conditioning properties by creating a solid shampoo and then use it in a hair mask.

Solid shampoo with Shikakai powder

To create this solid shampoo I used a few ingredients:

• SCI (sodium cocoyl Isethionate ) 72g, you can find it here
• Deionized water, you can find it here
• Conditioner Emulsifier vegetable 16g, you can find it here
• Shikakai powder 6g, you can find it here
• Shea butter 6g, you can find it here
• preservatives 0,6g (I used Geogard), you can find it here
• fragrance (I used bergamot), you can find it here

The conditioner emulsifier vegetable is a mixture of cetearyl alcohol, lecithin, sodium cetearyl sulfate and vegetable oil all from vegetable origin.

Procedure

The procedure is really easy:

1. combine all the solid ingredients in a glass and add water to mix it easier
2. continue to mix the ingredients in a bain-marie or use a microwave to melt them
3. once you got a paste to add preservatives and fragrance
4. pour in a plastic mold and let it cool down

After a day the shampoo is ready to be used.  This formula has a great cleaning and untangled power due to the Shikakai powder.

Shikakai Hair mask

For the hair mask, only two ingredients are needed

• 1 cup of Skikakai powder
• 1.5 cup of warm water

Just mix together till obtaining a homogeneous mixture and it’s ready to be applied.

Shikakai has confirmed my expectations by proving to be excellent as a cleanser and untangler. My next step is to try other Indian powder as Aritha and Amla.

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Gabi