It is over a year now that my husband uses my Aloe Vera Hair Gel and he is very happy with it, but I never thought it would be interesting to post about it… until today 🙂
The recipe is really fool-proof-easy and it makes a good hair gel, which won’t become white if you brush through your hair after it dries up, the hairs stay in shape but don’t look glued!
It is also good if you have long hair and you want to give them proteins: use it in small amount on wet hair (just after you wash them) and then dry them as you are used to. In this case it doesn’t keep the shape but makes the hair shiny and in a month or two they look much more healthy and they feel stronger 🙂 (this is my experience).
There are three methods depending on your starting point:
Method 1: if you have Aloe Vera Juice you are going to use it instead of water (substitute the water of the recipe with the juice! 🙂 )
Method 2: if you have the concentrated Aloe Vera Powder (1:200) you will make the gel with glycerin, xanthan gum and water and then add the 0.5% Aloe Vera powder to your gel (it will melt immediately 😉 ).
Method 3: FOOL-PROOF! You can even use a bought Aloe Vera Gel (just make sure the Aloe Vera amount is at least around 95%! Run away from any “10% Aloe Vera Gel”) and add to it the other ingredients of this recipe (of course leaving out the xanthan gum, the glycerin and the water… easy no? :D). This method also works if you have your already homemade Aloe Vera Gel which you read in this post. In case the gel is too liquid, you can add a little bit of xanthan gum to have a more firm gel 😉
Finally the RECIPE:
Water to 100 (explanation HERE)
Glycerin 3
Xanthan Gum 1.5 (this makes a very thick gel, if you like it more liquid you can lower it to 1)
Preservative (water-soluble) – use the amount required from the specific preservative you are using.
ALOE VERA POWDER 0.5 (of course this is for Method 2)
Wheat Protein Powder 1
Panthenol 1 (this is Pro-Vitamin B5 and a famous brand made its fortune thanks to this vitamin*)
Hydrolized Keratin – 3
If you want you can add two drops of fragrance oil 🙂
*About Panthenol – Panthenol is not only a humectant, but is also a useful moisturizer and emollient. It spreads evenly on the surface of hair strands, forming a smooth film on the surface of the cuticle. This film gives enhanced coherence to the reflection of light from the surface of the hair, which imparts significant gloss and shine. The smooth film also provides excellent slip between adjacent strands of hair and detangling properties. Panthenol is capable of penetrating the cuticle and entering the hair shaft as well, where it aids in moisture retention and provides volume. (source here)
PROCEDURE:
(this procedure is for the bit more complicated Method 2: other methods are very easy)
In a becher add glycerin and xanthan gum, mix until it becomes a paste.
Now add the water little by little and stir constantly.
Add your preservative and stir again.
In case the gel is not smooth (xanthan gum takes hours to hydrate so you might want to help this process), you can use an immersion mixer and mix until it becomes more homogeneous. Pay attention to not add air to the mix or it will fill it with too many bubbles (however this won’t compromise the efficacy of your gel).
Add the Aloe Vera Powder, stir very well.
Separately measure and mix the wheat proteins with the Panthenol; add it to the Aloe Vera Gel.
Add also the hydrolized keratin.
Check the pH which should be around 5.
Add two drops of fragrance oil (or essential oil) if you like (but remember that wheat proteins, and proteins in general, don’t have a very pleasant smell and totally covering it won’t be really possible… so choose a smell that combined won’t create a worse result :D).
That’s it. The Aloe Vera Hair Gel is already ready but will be best to use it from the following day of preparation (because the xanthan gum takes time to ultimate its gelling properties) 😀
I might also post a video on youtube about this Hair Gel because it is effective, simple, it doesn’t require crazy ingredients and it takes 5 minutes to prepare! 🙂 In case I will update this post 😀
HAVE A GREAT DAY! 😀
Here the video 😀
For more recipes click HERE
To learn how to formulate cosmetics click HERE
For a list of online cosmetic ingredients suppliers click HERE
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
It's all in my hands 
I hardly drop comments, however i did a few
searching and wound up here Aloe Vera Hair Gel – Recipe | It’s all in my hands. And I actually do have a couple of questions for you if you usually do not mind. Could it be simply me or does it look like some of the comments look like written by brain dead visitors? 😛 And, if you are writing on other places, I’d like
to keep up with anything new you have to post. Could you
list of all of your community sites like your linkedin profile, Facebook page or twitter feed?
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Ahah yeah some comments I think they escaped the spam section! 🙂 I receive so many spam comments (99.9 % they are spam, actually 🙂 ) that sound all the same like “great blog. I will be sure to bookmark it. You are a great person (and soooo on 😀 )” very impersonal and which has nothing to do with my blog… but what can I do 😀 ahah
And I am sorry but this is the only page I have: maybe I will make soon a page on facebook but mostly I will write these things here 🙂
I have learnt the things I write here through the internet. The recipes are, however, all mine unless stated differently. So this blog is somehow the sum up of what I have learnt 🙂
You can bookmart it if you like 🙂
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Loooved that recepie!! Thank u so much for sharing! Will try this tonight;))
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And I’m going to make it again tonight as well cause I just finishedmine! 😀
Let me know if you like it!! 🙂
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Hi there! Great stuff! Can’t wait to try it. But I have the concentrated aloe vera powder. Can I use beeswax in place of xanthan gum? Or can I just use glycerin?
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Hello Nikki.
To be able to substitute ingredients they need to have the same function 🙂
Xantham gum is a gelling agent: it is the ingredient which makes the aloe juice become gel.
Beeswax is a thickener and it is oil soluble not water soluble therefore it cannot work.
Glycerin instead is a humectant substance which has no gelling properties 🙂
Therefore you cannot interchange xantham gum for these ingredients because you wouldn’t get a gel 🙂
If, instead, you have other gelling ingredients compatible with aloe vera pH, go ahead 🙂
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Ah! Thank you for the thorough explanation! Will look for another gelling agent. Merci beaucoup!
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No problem! 🙂
Just in case: there are many many websites that sell cosmetic ingredients online, and xanthan gum is rather cheap (usually it costs around 2 euro for 100 gr – looks like not very cheap but we use so little that it lasts at least one year 😀 ).
Here is a list of websites where you can find all the ingredients I use 🙂
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I just found your blog, it looks great and simple at the same time. I am a man and I decided to take matter in my own hands, hehe, I had enough with these plastic products on the market. Right now I’m lurking around here, and try to gather as much info and then proceed at doing stuff. I live in EU also, what country may I ask?
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Between Finland and Italy
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I have this question if you have time to think about it. I have almost half year since I started growing my hair into natural dreading. I wash my hair with soap nuts foam and rinse with a little ACV; and it’s been great, my hair is a mess but I have some little dreads coming up. Last week I tried doing an overnight treatment with some coconut product that I bought for 4 euros. It kinda detangled my hair, but It felt refreshing. I wanted to do another overnight session but this time with something that will not soften my hair just to relax it a bit and I can’t think of where to start. Like I said I’m going to start reading your site, but if you have any suggestions I’ll appreciate a lot.
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I am not sure what you mean with the sentence “I want to relax my hair but not soften it”.
The thing is: any product that relaxes/softens has conditioning ingredients, which naturally detangle your hair.
So I am not sure how to help with this.
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I want to relax my hair ” as in I wanted to invigorate it a bit. I was thinking about the dreadlocks shampoo ingredients, if I can make it myself. And I will. So thank you for the reply.
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I am sorry but “relax” and “invigorate” are not scientific words. What you mean might be different from what I understand.
If your hair look or feel dry, it is because you wash them with a soap and they get covered in salts which don’t make them slide on top of each other easily (that’s why they form dreads).
If you want to take these salts that remain from washing wish soaps away… You have to accept that the dreads won’t hold up as before.
A shampoo for dreads would have to be a “non-shampoo” as any shampoo would wish to have washing/spreading abilities and conditioning properties. All things you do NOT want if you want to keep your dreads.
So, if you want to make a shampoo for dreads, don’t really make one.
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OK ❤ I understand what you are saying. And I am already learning stuff, like I never knew that soaps are actually salts. I will think about making a soap then. Thank you.
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The stuff left on the boarders of a bath tub if you use soap are salts too 🙂 that stuff remains (in less quantity) on the hair too 🙂 making it possible to get dreads 😉
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Are you talking about soap scum?
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Yes
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So I guess soap scum kinda sticks to your hair when washing with soap and tap hard water?
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More or less with any water, but yes. That’s what helps the dreads to form.
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What can I use to substitute the protein powder, panthenol and hydrolized keratin? Can I use vitamin E, jojoba oil and almond oil?
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Hi Emily. No: oils have nothing to do with keratin, panthenol and proteins in general.
If you don’t have these ingredients, just add more water. 🙂
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How long is the shelf life? The preservative I will be using is Dehydroacetic Acid and Benzyl Alcohol.
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The only way to know is doing lab tests.
Do a very small amount just to be sure.
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