Have you ever heard of rose water? Rose water is that sweet-smelling liquid that is literally made of rose petals and water. While it’s commonly used as perfume or in middle eastern kitchens, it has plenty of benefits for your natural hair too.
Using rose water in your hair not only leads to an intoxicatingly luxurious scent, but its antioxidant and pH balancing properties can lead to better hair days than ever.
Read on to learn all about why you should consider using rose water in your natural hair routine and its benefits, including a recipe to make your own rose water for hair at home.
What is Rose Water?
Rose water is made by steeping rose petals in distilled water to extract its natural, fragrant oils. The first instance of rose water being cultivated is believed to have been in ancient Persia, also known as Iran today, dating all the way back to the 10th century!
Benefits of Rose Water for Natural Hair
Below we listed a few benefits that will leave your curly hair entangled with this love potion in no time.
Great for Scalp Health
Rose water is a mild astringent, so it’s great for reducing the oiliness of your hair and has an amazing ability to soothe an irritated scalp. Rose water also has anti-inflammatory properties that allows it to combat fungal issues. This means that if you have dandruff stemming from a fungal infection, incorporating rose water in your hair routine can easily eliminate it. Rose water is also good to use on a dry scalp and can help alleviate psoriasis and eczema issues that plague your scalp.
Rose water commonly used as perfume or in middle eastern kitchens, but it has plenty of benefits for your natural hair too.
Moisturises Dry Hair
Rose water is full of vitamins such as vitamins A, B3, C, D and flavonoids, which help regenerate your curly strands. Vitamin C helps your natural hair against signs of ageing and Vitamin E is not only great for your scalp, but can also moisturise your hair.
Controls Frizz
Using rose water on the regular has been lauded by many girls with curly hair as a great way to control frizz and add shine. Rose water has a similar PH level to human hair and therefore provides powerful hydration to your strands, making it less dull and frizzy. The presence of vitamin E ensures that your curly hair gets the shimmer and radiation it deserves.
How to Use Rose Water for Your Hair
There are many ways to incorporate rose water into your natural hair routine. Let’s go through a few of them:
- You can use rose water as a pre-poo for damaged hair. Just mix it with some oils, coat your hair in it and let your hair sit for a couple of hours onder a shower cap before washing as normal.
- You can use rose water as a final rinse after shampooing to restore your hydration levels to combat the stripping effect of shampoo
- You can use rose water in a spray bottle to refresh old curls and reduce frizz.
- You massage rose water directly onto your scalp to alleviate scalp issues. Try dapping some rose water on a cotton ball as an easy application hack.
You can use rose water in a spray bottle to refresh old curls and reduce frizz.
How to Make Rose Water
While you’re able to buy rose water from stores, you can also make it right at home. Here’s how:
- Buy some roses. You can try a florist or maybe a farmer’s market. It’s best to get roses that are pesticide-free. Organic roses would be best for this DIY.
- Remove the rose petals and rinse them in water. Some sources say cool water, while others say warm water is best. Either way, it’s best to rinse them off first and add them to a bowl.
- Boil some distilled water and then pour it on the rose petals. You can also skip boiling the water and just add the rose petals to a pot of water and then let them boil. If you choose to do that, make sure to let the rose petals boil, before you remove the pot from the stove.
- Cover the bowl and leave the roses to soak for about 30 minutes. If you’re boiling them, boil them until you notice that they’re losing their colour, which should take around 20 minutes.
- Filter the mixture from the rose petals using cheesecloth, a gauze, or any other type of strainer.
- Store the filtrate in a clean container and place the container in the fridge. It should last about a week. Another option is storing your container in a cool dark place.
Remember you can add oils to your rose water or use it as is. It’s also worth mentioning that store-bought rose water will probably last longer than the homemade version as it often contains preservatives.
Is Rose Water Good for Hair Growth?
The sweet-smelling liquid is also good for promoting hair growth. Rose water contains vitamin A, which is essential for cell growth and thus super beneficial for growing your hair out. Vitamin C is another essential vitamin as it helps your body to absorb iron and produce collagen, which are both instrumental when you want your hair to lengthen.
By the way, if you haven’t heard, chebe powder can also help your hair grow to new lengths.
Is Rose Water Good for Skin?
Yes! Not only does rosewater have immense benefits for natural hair, but your skin can reap these benefits as well. Rose water has antinflammatory properties, which can help soothe eczema and rosacea. Its antimicrobial properties can also help calm irritated acne and reduce skin redness. It’s no wonder that many skincare products incorporate rose petals into their formulas!
What are the Side Effects of Rose Water?
For most, there should be no side effects of rose water; however, if you are allergic to rose petals, you may find that it causes burning, redness, or itching if it is applied to the scalp. This is on extremely rare occasions though, and the majority of people should be able to enjoy the benefits of rose water with no side effects.
Rose water promises to fix many common hair problems such as scalp issues, frizz and stagnating hair growth. While we all know that not everything works for everyone, there is no harm in giving this love potion a try.
Rose water is so easy to incorporate into your hair routine, because you can use it pretty much at any step. Use it while you pre-poo, add it to your shampoo or conditioner, use it as a hot oil treatment or just spray it on your curls on a random day. It is fairly affordable and easy to make so it’s definitely worthwhile to experiment with it.
Now that you know the benefits of rose water for hair, learn how to use shea butter to care for natural hair.
Have you ever used rose water before? How was it? Comment below and let us know.