Gnome is a neophile and so he always likes to try new things:
“Munchkin, howz about you try using the shampoo ginger on your hair?”
Munchkin is a neophobe and does not like new things,
“Eh…why don’t you try it first?”
He kinda of gave me a funny look and then I realised that he had just shaved his head again so there was no hair to wash. I had to change tact:
“Okay then, let’s try the cat…”
I got the same funny look. He didn’t need to say anything. We haven’t washed the cat for five years so I think that the cat bossie would be none too pleased to be grabbed and washed with a flower. There would be a lot of scratching and clawing…
Okay, so I realised that I was the prime candidate to use shampoo ginger (Zingiber zerumbet) ; the root and the leaves of this ginger are edible and can be used as aromatic flavouring in cooking. The red flower heads can be squeezed to extrude a soapy liquid which feels like diluted soap and smells like soap. Apparently the Hawaiians use this as shampoo and conditioner for hair. We always find that the same information (usually from Wiki) just gets re-hashed from one blog to another without anyone actually trying it out. Gnome reckons that it is important to write from personal experience so I decided to be the “guinea pig.”
I was a bit tentative at first because I have so many problems with itchy scalp in the past from hair products. I had to end up using dermatological preparations until Gnome formularised the coconut castile soap (AKA Can’t Believe it’s not DB’s) for my hair. Anyway, I harvested the “shampoo” by squeezing the flower heads into a bucket.
I managed to get about 1 litre (1 quart) of liquid from about 6 flower heads. I thoroughly wet my hair in the shower and poured the whole lot of juice onto my head. It was mildly soapy; I massaged my scalp for a bit and rubbed the juice into my hair right to the very ends. My hair felt very smooth with it. After drying my hair, my hair was clean, shiny and felt a lot softer and well conditioned. Oh, and no itchy scalp so I was doubly pleased. Okay so it does work so I recommend it and we might even make a hair product with it in the future.
Oh by the way, according to Wiki you can drink this juice as a refreshing drink. We tried that too…only drink under survival conditions…it tastes like mild soap. It’s drinkable but not exactly as thirst-quenching as a cold lemonade!