Is there anyone who doesn’t want healthy, strong, shiny and bouncy curls? Yeah, I guess we’re all on this journey working for this. When entering into our transitioning hair journey our hair is pretty much damaged and in an effort to take better care of it many of us resort to natural ingredients because of their proven benefits for hair. Lemon, a champion in the kitchen, is one of those ingredients that can also be used for cleaning purposes, to deodorise, as a non-toxic insecticide, in aromatherapy or for face masks in beauty. Additionally, the benefits of lemon for curly hair can be many and it leaves a nice scent on your hair.
Benefits Of Lemon
Lemon as long been studied and used to maintain healthy hair and you can use it in your natural hair regimen to help you grow healthy hair. Here are some of the benefits of using freshly squeezed lemon.
1| Fights Free Radicals
Free radicals is a natural occurring reaction that damages cellular structures such as our skin and hair. This happens as a result of ultraviolet radiation (UV), smoking, pollution or poor nutrition. Lemons are full of antioxidants because of their flavonoid content and they help to fight off the damaging effects of free radical on our hair such premature ageing and greying.
2| pH Balance
Your hair’s pH falls within 4.5 – 5.5, however, if your hair products are too stripping or alkaline they cause your hair to frizz and the cuticle layers to remain open, which in turn can cause brittle hair, split ends and breakage. Lemons have a pH of 2 and although it’s more acidic than our hair if you dilute it, it will help balance the pH, reduce frizz and increase shine.
3| Medicinal Properties
One other reason that makes lemon a good addition to your hair care regimen is that it has medicinal properties that can help you achieve healthy strong hair. Lemon is known to have antifungal and antibacterial properties that can help with scalp conditions, especially dandruff.
4| Health & Growth
Just as you can use lemon to help you clean the kitchen the acidic properties of lemon can also help you deep clean your hair. If you like using apple cider vinegar (ACV) you may also like using lemon juice, people have been using them interchangeably. Lemon can help get rid of dead skin cells, can help with product build up and unclog pores all to support a healthy clean hair and scalp, wich promotes hair growth and has also been shown to help with hair loss.
Ready To Try Some Lemon?
If you’re ready to include lemon in your hair care there are several products in the market that have it in their ingredients list and it’s named as “Citrus Medica Limonum (Lemon)”. Pay attention if it’s lemon extract/infusion or lemon juice. Extracts represent a very tiny percentage (1% or less) in a products’ ingredient list, even when they come listed in the first five ingredients, so any beneficial action is not as good as having lemon juice. Another thing to look for is that the further away from the beginning of the list the less impact it will have on your scalp and hair health. Anyway, you can test drive TGIN Moisture Rich Sulphate Free Shampoo which is available on Amazon.
Up For Some DIY?
All in all, as you can see, lemon can help you control dandruff, maintain a healthy hair and scalp, can work as a deep cleanser, it balances the pH, protects against the premature ageing/greying, and I’m sure many other things, as it relates to hair, are still under study. Here are a few ways you can include fresh lemon juice on your natural hair care practices.
- HAIR TREATMENT – Mix lemon and honey and apply it on your hair. The antifungal and antibacterial properties of the lemon juice will address scalp issues and the honey will hydrate and soothe your scalp. For a more nourishing session add coconut of olive oil.
- HAIR SCRUB – If you want to enhance the cleansing properties of lemon you can make a hair scrub and get rid of all the dead skin cells and toxins by making a hair scrub. Mix honey, lemon and fine grain sugar (preferably muscovado) and apply gently on the scalp massaging with your fingers pads.
- HAIR RINSE – Take 1 – 2 tablespoons of lemon juice and add it to 500ml of water. Make a final hair rinse after you’ve cleansed and conditioned your hair, let it sit for a while, rinse with plain water and style as usual. This will help with dandruff and help normalise the pH.
- LEMON SHAMPOO – If you have an oily or flaky scalp, or dandruff you can quickly concoct a shampoo to help you with that. Take a small container and add some lemon juice to your hair shampoo/cleanser and use it as normal. I would, however, only make this mixture at the moment of use on a separate container.
A Few Considerations
Although it is advantageous to include fresh lemon juice in your hair care, there are a couple of things to consider before you do that.
- Lemon is very acidic and if you have any scalp condition where there’s some sort of abrasion on the scalp it can cause an itching or burning sensation or even an irritation. Try diluting the lemon juice, even more, to see if those symptoms disappear or stop its use.
- Lemon is a natural bleach and can lighten your hair, especially if you have light coloured hair. Therefore, if you want to avoid that space its use, and whenever you do use it avoid going outside in the following 40 to 60 minutes.
- Frequent and prolonged use of lemon juice, especially undiluted, can leave our naturally dry hair more dry and brittle because of its pH. Try to offset the acidic value of lemon by diluting it with water and/or mixing it with coconut milk, honey and also using vegetable oils to add some nutrition.
Do you use lemon in you hair care routine? How?
2 thoughts on “The Benefits Of Lemon For Curly Hair”
what i do want to lighten my hair with lemon juice is that going to harm my curls? I also read other articles saying lemon juice can make your hair straighter, is it going effect my curls ?
Hello Yasmeen,
Lemon juice is great for a lot of things and a lot of people use it to lighten their hair. If you have dark or black hair it won’t work. It works better on light brown hair or lighter hair. However, frequently using lemon to lighten you hair will definitely damage it. It is too acidic and it will take all the natural oils on your hair leaving stripped and dry. You can have major breakage.
As for it leaving your hair straight, all I can say is that using lemon on meat makes it tender because it denatures the proteins. It breaks its bonds basically. So, I can imagine prolonged use of lemon on hair can eventually make you lose some curl definition. As you use lemon on your hair, it becomes dry and brittle and the cuticle layers remain open. This makes it easier for the lemon juice to penetrate the cortex of the hair, where your protein bonds are, and make some damage.
I have dark hair, so would only use for the purposes explained in this post, for it to lighten my hair I would need to use it a lot, and even then my guess I’d get a strange colour, more “orangy”. I hope this helps in some way Yasmeen.
Monica