Avocado hair, avocado hair! No, it’s not a playground insult or a medical condition from outer space. In fact, according to Google, more than 8,000 people a month are turning to the Internet in hopes of getting avocado hair for themselves.

I have to wonder, how many of these searchers will make it to a real, truthful answer and how many will be distracted by commercially-driven efforts advertising low grade and even toxic products which are trading on the inclusion of avocado but are really mostly made up of unwanted, unnecessary ingredients.

This article aims to give you the real green scoop on using avocado for hair conditioning. It’s an awesome, eco-friendly aid to personal grooming that genuinely leaves your hair softer to the touch and glossier than almost any other natural substance…but only if you know how to go right to the avocado source. *Honest avocado hair recipe to follow!

Manufactured Avocado Hair Products: Know What You’re Up Against

If you own a TV, read magazines, or spend much time in supermarkets, you’ve already gotten all of the education you need on the subject of marketing. The personal care product industry is a multi-billion dollar one, and it markets its products as miracles that will change your unsatisfactory life into one long experience of unending bliss. Marketers just won’t give us a break from this kind of unrealistic messaging, but the impact of their insinuation that your life is deficient, disappointing, unfulfilling without buying their products is one that’s been repeated so often that many Americans end up buying the pitch and buying the products.

Things have gotten even more confusing with major corporations feigning leaps onto the green bandwagon, claiming that their products are healthy and eco-friendly because they include the semblance of some once-natural ingredient. Maybe it’s olive oil or wheat germ or apricots or avocados. But just look at the label on this hair conditioner bottle. This is a product that is marketed as being botanical, earthy, wholesome…all kinds of great things, but what are those weird ingredients? Honestly, who would believe that the health and cleanliness of human hair is dependent on the application of methylchloroisothlaolinone? Apparently, the millions of people buying this hair conditioner must, but all I can picture is Mother Nature having a migraine over unpronounceable chemicals like these being sold as natural and rubbed into the pores of the human scalp. It really doesn’t remedy matters that this concoction contains acai berry somewhere in the midst of all the stuff on this very typical label.

Marketing succeeds when ‘consumers’ (do you resent that word like I do?) are convinced they want or need something that isn’t actually essential to healthy living or survival. Instead of encouraging people to take pride in themselves by caring for their bodies in natural ways, people are encouraged to believe that chemicals and toxins hold the keys to a beautiful life. It’s a value system and world out of balance that ruins self-esteem, bolsters obsessive vanity, lessens health and pollutes the planet. But we don’t have to buy in, we don’t have to comply with the corporate messages that have money for CEOs instead of regard for human dignity as their goals. We can reclaim some authority over our own lives if we take just a few minutes to reflect on the very important difference between marketed hype and the basic purpose of grooming.

Reclaiming Your Authority By Understanding Grooming

In the 1700’s men and women wore large powdered wigs because they thought they looked elegant doing so. In the 1950’s, men and boys slicked their hair down with handfuls of Dippity Doo because that molded, ultra shining look was considered neat and tidy, no matter how artificial. Aerosol hairspray use was at record highs just as scientists were beginning to warn of holes in the ozone layer and the commercial backlash has been the modern inclusion of natural-sounding ingredients in hair care products, marketed with dubious promises of a better life and a healthier planet. All of that pomp and styling, spraying and conditioning has traded on the principle that, without manufactured hair care products, people are socially unacceptable. You won’t get that job, find love or have friends without volume, body, moisture or whatever hair conditioners purport to deliver…and all of this hype pointedly ignores the basic reason for taking care of your hair. Let’s get sane and back to basics about what ought to be a very simple concept.

All mammals groom. Just look at the well-kept fur of this fine coyote. Absolutely beautiful! Whether it’s your kittycat licking his paws or wild wolves spending hours a day in family grooming sessions, animals and birds devote time to self-maintenance for very natural and important reasons:

• To free the hair, fur or feathers of dirt that causes tangling which might snag on plants and rocks in the natural world, inhibiting flow of movement.
• To bring oils from glands in the skin to give hair, fur or feathers water resistance, shading, heating or some other desired practical quality.
• To get rid of insects.

We can take our cues from animals who know how to live perfectly without instructions from advertisers and these grooming concerns apply to us as well as to other beings. We definitely don’t want critters in our hair – lack of cleanliness can make a home for lice on the human head. Washing and brushing our hair distributes oils from our scalp throughout our tresses and this may be very important for protecting our heads and necks from the sun. And, just ask anyone with hair long enough to get a tangle caught on a door knob and you’ll know why dirty, tangled hair is hazardous to humans, just as it is for other animals. Marketing has played on our desire to have a goodly physical appearance, too, and while this has been oversold to extremes, there is nothing unnatural about taking pride in one’s mane and wanting to groom it well.

Where I’d love to see the line drawn, for the sake of psychological health, would be between good grooming skills and the unhappy preoccupation with physical appearance that causes some Americans to loathe themselves while continuing to spend billions a year on products.

It would be very healthy for us to be able to cleanse and brush our hair and then feel good about it, end of story. Manufacturers would like us to believe that we need some expensive chemical product for literally every part of the body, and they reap the profits of this while people are left with a feeling of lack and unfitness. Ask yourself, should so much of life be spent looking in the mirror with dissatisfaction? Should so much money be spent on the latest hair care products with the most outlandish ingredients? Just for the sake of achieving what ought to be the simple goal of keeping hair clean, untangled and critter-free? How can we turn our faces away from this state of commercially-induced vanity and confusion? How can we groom ourselves well without being duped and wasting time and money that could be better spent on things that would really bring us fulfillment and well-being?

It’s time to come back full-circle to avocado hair!

My Honest Avocado Hair Treatment Recipe

Avocados are the buttery fruits of a tree native to the Americas. The fruits are not only incredibly nutritious, but they also contain high amounts of healthy fats that can be a smart, natural aid to hair care. Both city and well water is treated with chemicals or contains natural minerals that can make hair rough and tangled. The oils in the avocado add an extra dose of sleekness to your tresses that will not only enable you to comb out snarls, but will also put a totally natural, non-toxic gloss on hair that has been damaged by commercial shampoos, conditioners and treated water.

Step 1
Take a ripe avocado (slightly soft to the touch) and peel it. Slice the fruit from the large brown seed and mash it up with a fork in a bowl. Mash it to the consistency of a creamy guacamole.

Step 2
Gently rub the avocado into all of your hair. Put a shower cap over your head or wrap your hair up in a towel and rest for 15-30 minutes.

Step 3
Get into the shower and thoroughly wash out the avocado with the most natural shampoo you can find. Do not condition and do not blow dry. Let your hair dry naturally after washing.

And that’s it. In 3 easy steps, you’ve given yourself a totally natural avocado hair treatment. You haven’t bought an avocado hair product or an avocado hair conditioner. You’ve gone right to the source of the fruit and used its goodness and nothing else for the care and health of your hair! I am always amazed by how lovely and fresh my own hair looks and feels to me after an avocado hair treatment and I think you will be, too!

5 Tips For Successfully Using Avocado For Hair Care

• Buy Organic Avocados – if you buy conventional avocados, you’ll be right back where you started from, putting chemicals on your scalp because of the toxic pesticides used in conventional agriculture
• Buy U.S. Grown Avocados In Season – between March and September, the United States has a national source of exceptionally good organic avocados, grown in Southern California. Though you can buy avocados from other countries most of the rest of the year, it’s better for the U.S. economy and the environment to support U.S. farmers. During the off-season months, find something else natural to use if you need a hair conditioner.
• Some Avocados Are Stringy – sometimes you’ll get an avocado that has little white or brown fibers in it. That’s perfectly fine, but you may notice some of these fibers left in your hair when it dries. No worries. They brush out in just seconds.
• Use Peak Ripe Avocados – while it may seem like a good idea to use overripe avocados for hair care, if the fruit has really gone bad, you will not like the smell it leaves in your hair. Peak ripe avocados leave no detectable scent on the head and are at their butteriest.
• Don’t Overdo It – TV ads may tell us we need to condition our hair every time we wash it, but this simply isn’t true. Conditioning your hair once or twice a month with avocado will likely be all you need to ensure soft, healthy, snarl-free tresses. Use all that time and money you save to do something great for yourself. Buy a new book, take a camping trip, donate to a charity!

America’s earliest inhabitants depended solely on the good things of the Earth to care for themselves. It was a common practice amongst many Native Americans tribes to take a turn in the sweat lodge and then jump in an ice-encrusted river! First Americans used plant and animal fats to groom their abundant hair and the first Europeans were often awed by how cleanly, neat and trim these earliest Americans were in contrast to the take-no-baths hygiene practices prevalent in Europe. I hope this article has not only helped you to understand what a gift avocados can be to your personal grooming, but that it also gives you sense of how this planet generously provides good things to humans who know how to look for them. I hope that knowledge gives you a sense of being cared for and accepted by our great Earth.

Readers show up here at EmersonCreekPottery.com because they are looking for non-toxic housewares, and, often, the first smart step you can take in greening your life is to green yourself. Imagine taking all of those fancy, expensive, chemical-laden bottles of hair conditioner and putting them in the recycling bin…and never buying them again! Talk about freedom from non-essentials. Less plastic, less headache-inducing perfume, less worry, less waste. Just fresh, clean hair that you can feel really good about, thanks to that greenest of fruits – the Avocado!

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Flickr Photo Credits: Avocado, Coyote.