Adventures with Nettles: Nettle Vinegar and Nettle Hair Rinse

Hi Everyone.

Wow! With all the rain we have had recently in San Diego (above our winter avg.)the Nettles in the canyon have grown to the kinds of height and glory you see in the photos. Last year when I first became nettle aware, they were small and a little dry, and I could only dream of the kind of nettles that grow in the east coast or pacific northwest.

So i have been doing some experiments as follows.

Nettle Vinegar for Salad Dressing and Cooking:

Vinegar (or any acid)makes the minerals in nettles (or any green veggie) more bio-available. That is one reason why its nice to add vinegar or lemon to cooked leafy greens. Of course it tastes good, too, as one of the properties of the sour flavor is it stimulates the appetite/digestive juices. So when you make Nettle vinegar, you are making a mineral rich vinegar, including calcium.

So I crammed a wide mouthed bottle full of Nettles and poured in as much vinegar as i could. I imagine any vinegar would do, this was grape vinegar from the Lebanese market. I let it sit on the counter-top (should it be in the sun or dark?) and wow, within two days the vinegar developed an incredible nutty smell and aroma. I plan to try it with balsamic next.


Nettle and Comfrey Leaf Hair Rinse:


My other experiment involved the marriage of Comfrey Leaf and Nettles. In a separate bottle, I inserted Nettles with Comfrey Leaf, which I grow in my garden, and which is very easy to grow, too. Eventually I will harvest the root, but for now I am using the leaves.

Again, I filled it up with the same grape vinegar. Now I have to tell you, I really dislike the smell of vinegar, in fact its one of the few things I find nauseating.
So the last thing I would want to do is pour the stuff on my head after a shower.

But again, with the Nettles and Comfrey Leaf added, a rather nutty fragrance ensues.

So all you do is after washing your hair with whatever you wash your hair with, pour a nice amount of this liquid into your scalp, and into your hair, and massage it in a bit.. Vinegar or lemon by themselves are scalp conditioners, but the added herbs have additional benefits, you will notice them in a lot of the herbal hair conditioners.

I would think that if you had scalp eczema or dandruff, it would be useful to leave the vinegar in for a while before washing it out.

What I did was, I added my normal conditioner and massaged that in, after applying the herbal vinegar hair rinse. My scalp came out especially clean and tingly feeling, and my hair felt somehow "stronger." Another great herb to add to this would be horsetail.








Ayurveda, Acupuncture, and Chinese Medicine in San Diego
http://www.bodymindwellnesscenter.com

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