Rice water is a simple, cost effective way to nourish your hair follicles and encourage aging hairs to not fall out of your head, but rather to choose life and to stay stuck to you and your adventures a little bit longer.
It’s such a simple method that for years I dismissed it as useless, untried.
My own hairloss eventually made me try it: At the end of 2015 I faced a loss so complete, it made me want to disappear. I dyed my golden blonde hair dark brown, in order to hide. I wanted no skunk line of undyed hair at the top of my head, so I redyed it every three weeks. After a year and a half of this, and after another great loss where the little farm business we were growing got taken away from us, and we could not afford any of the relocation options. Houseless and hopeless for a few months, all my hair fell out, except for the bit at the top and surrounding my face. We moved to a more affordable community and started again, without the farm and without the old life. My hair eventually grew back as I attempted a administrative assistant career in a bureaucratic corporation masquerading as a care home for seniors. As my confidence grew, so did my responsibilities. In 2020 when the pandemic hit, it devastated my ablity to do my job and I was let go. I managed to keep a position in that company by accepting a demotion back to my original role and wage, but the pressure to train my replacements AND do my job AND do their job while they learned eventually led to burn out. My hair lost it’s pigment and began to thin out. 8 months after my demotion, I burned out completely and could no longer work. I cut my hair off, and spent a year and a half fighting to become healthy again. As I won back more at more of my health, my hair regained it’s colour, but even now, every time I feel extreme stress it falls out again.
Then I remembered the rice water. My three daughters all spent a few of their teen years working at a very good sushi restaurant. The Korean women they befriended always touted the praises of using rice water to maintain a healthy head of hair. Back then I was still living under the illusion that everything I stood for and believed was true. Back then I had not yet dyed my hair in an effort to disappear, so I was not interested in trying it out.
These days I am very interested in trying it out, because my life is great. I have found a job to do that I really enjoy and I no longer am constantly doubting the life changing choices I made in order to recover from a very severe and long lasting depression. Yet my hair still is falling out.
I’ve tried quitting shampoo, but there is no way to clean my hair that does not cause more hair to fall out.
I’ve tried concocting moisturizing sprays, like Hairy Hair Spray, but though it helps my scalp and hair in many ways, it does not stop my hair from falling out.
So I made some Rice Water. After it was finished, I poured it into an empty dishwashing liquid squirt bottle. I squirted half of the bottle onto my scalp and hair and let it sit there for just under 20 minutes before I rinsed it out. From what I’ve read, you don’t want to leave it in longer than 20 minutes, because it is food based and as such, it can begin to grow food related bacteria in your hair, which would bring other problems for you.
The next day I brushed my hair. Ordinarily lately brushing my hair results in the bristles being filled with my hairs. On this day, the bristles held maybe four of my hairs. Throughout the day, I would lose hundreds of hairs, but on that day I noticed myself losing only about ten hairs.
Here’s how I made it:
- I took 1/2 cup hard, raw rice and rinsed it with water.
- Then I added 2-3 cups tap water, stirred them together and let them soak together for at least half an hour.
- After 30+ minutes I poured the cloudy water into my squirt container.
- We then cooked the rice and ate it with supper.
- I keep the rice water in the refrigerator so that it doesn’t get mouldy.