Cassia

It’s been a while since I did a real, thorough deep conditioning of my hair. It would appreciate some cassia!

I have wanted to try adding oil to my cassia mix to see if it helps bind the cassia molecules and oils. And experiment with this cherry tea that hubby and I didn’t like. It develops the richest, deepest red colour I’ve ever seen in a tea. You know you’re a longhaired weirdo when you find yourself wondering “Can I use that in my hair?”

My intended products, left to right:

• The cherry tea. Look how dark red it is!
• Argan oil
• Schwarzkopf Gliss Ultimate repair (3x liquid keratin) for the cassia treatment
• VO5 to add some volume to the cassia mix and volume for the following moisture treatment
• Schwarzkopf Gliss Total repair (19 ingredient complex) for the following moisture treatment
• And in the front my cassia (“neutral henna”) whose box I took apart to get a more accurate weight on it.

Schwarzkopf Gliss Ultimate repair (3x liquid keratin) is one of my favourite conditioners because it really feels like it *does* something in my hair, but it leaves it slightly cranky after a treatment. Of course this is not necessarily a bad thing, since deep treatments will mess with the hairs structure and the little “scales” when ingredients are deposited in the core. But of course this means I want a quick glossing over afterwards to make my hair happy and manageable immediately after. 

Mixing up a test batch:

• 20 ml Schwarzkopf Gliss Ultimate repair
• 5 ml argan oil
• 10-15 gram cassia (My electronic scale only weighs to 5 grams)
• 5 ml VO5
• 5 ml cherry tea

To my surprise, the mix turned out to be pretty dry.

Very strange indeed, because usually I just mix cassia and conditioner with no extra moisture. I guess it is more cassia heavy than usual? I actually had to add more moisture than I had planned.

Scooped the mixture up in a bag and rubbed it into a ball of test-hair.

Tied a knot and left it against a heater. I completely forgot about it and left it for 3 hours.

Results looked like this: Test ball up top and a control at the bottom.

I’m surprised at how little colour difference there is. The extremely red tea didn’t do anything for the colour at all. I guess the pH of the tea influences the colour development?

It was nice and shiny though (Which the picture didn’t capture well) so I guess its not a bad idea to add oils to cassia.

I went ahead with a full sized batch of this.

Cassia mix:

• 180 ml Schwarzkopf Gliss Ultimate repair (Rest of the bottle)
• 50 ml argan oil
• 100 gram cassia (My electronic scale only weighs to 5 grams)
• 50 ml VO5
• 50 ml cherry tea

Unfortunately it was too cassia heavy and very difficult to smear out. I guess a near-full pack of cassia is too much for a single treatment unless I want to double the amount of conditioner. Of course that would feel like a bit of waste since I don’t really need more than a normal sized bottle plus a bit.

Even though the mix was so heavy, it started dripping horribly after an hour. I guess it’s the addition of tea that did it? My simple conditioner+cassia only mix doesn’t have those issues!

Next time I will try with a bit of oil but no tea.

After two hours of stuffing toilet paper up under the Sexy Smurf to keep the irritating dripping at bay, I gave up and rinsed it out.

Then followed with two hours of conditioning with the blue V05.

Rinsed, towel-dried, applied leave in conditioner and braided it to let it be cranky in peace.

The results this morning is one of these rare instances where my hair feels really, really soft.