Role of Honey as a Natural Ingredient in Hair Lightening Treatments

If you’re one of the many people who like to lighten or highlight their hair, you understand that the bleaching chemicals found in most treatments can cause more harm than good to your delicate strands. Have you ever taken the time to read the ingredients found in those hair-lightening treatments? Likely there are a ton of them, and you don’t even know what they are.

Many times the hair lighteners and bleach dry out your hair follicles, making your hair feel more brittle, frizzy, and likely to break. If you see that you frequently have split ends, your hair lighteners could be the problem.

Honey is a natural and raw ingredient without any synthetics or chemicals. It is packed with numerous minerals, vitamins, and nutrients that help to protect and nourish your hair. As an additional benefit, it can also work to help lighten your hair.

How Does Raw Honey Lighten Your Hair?

If you start to research, you will discover that there are multiple recipes you can create that utilize honey as a hair-lightening treatment. The key is to ensure you’re using only organic and raw ingredients. 

Honey can lighten strands of your hair because it produces small amounts of hydrogen peroxide, during glucose oxidation. Hydrogen peroxide is a bleaching agent and makes your hair lighter.

Hair Lightening Method With Honey To Use At Home

For example, here’s a step-by-step method where you can use organic honey to help lighten your hair:

1. Mixing honey and water in a bowl uses a 4-to-1 ratio (four parts honey to one part water). You can substitute apple cider vinegar for the water, which acts as a hair conditioner and helps bring more smoothness and shine.
2. If you’d like to lighten your hair with some red color, you can add ground coffee or cinnamon. 
3. Allow the mixture to sit at room temperature for an hour. 
4. Pour the contents of the mixture over your head in small amounts, massaging it all through. Do it over a sink or bathtub in case of spilling, and protect your clothing with a towel that you don’t mind if it gets stained.
5. Put a plastic bag or shower cap over your hair and leave it on for a couple of hours. If you can leave it on longer then it works better, so consider doing it and leaving it overnight.
6. Rinse your hair out with lukewarm water and leave it to dry naturally – it’s important not to use a hair dryer. 
7. Continue through these steps a few times to achieve your desired lightness.

You can incorporate other ingredients besides apple cider vinegar and cinnamon or coffee. For instance, lemon juice is another natural lightening agent (especially when you go out in the sunlight), so consider adding it and other helpful, natural ingredients to keep your hair soft (since citrus can strip oils), like olive oil and coconut oil.

Using Honey For Your Hair

Honey’s properties work from within the hair follicles to help provide a silky, lustrous appearance. It also helps aid in encouraging your hair to grow and reducing hair loss. The best honey shampoo by Gisou functions to ensure that your hair is protected, stronger, and healthier overall.

When you work the honey mixture to lighten your hair, it helps that your hair is clean and damp, so consider using the honey shampoo and then applying the mixture to sit. 

Your results will vary because it depends on your hair strand structure, texture, how porous the strands are, and other factors that come into play. It’s important to note that with this lightning technique, results won’t be immediate, and you may need to repeat making the mixture and setting it on your hair a few times. It’s a more natural way to get your hair lighter, without the use of any bleaching chemicals that take only minutes.

Honey Hair Tips

While it may take time, it’s a much healthier process for your hair, so you’ll experience far less breakage, brittle strands, and frizzy or unkempt-looking hair. If you notice your hair feels too greasy or sticky after using the honey mixture, you can lessen the amount of honey you use. 

Honey doesn’t lighten your hair permanently, and it doesn’t remove color entirely. But, it does have numerous beauty benefits. Since it’s natural it turns hair shades lighter. But the reason it’s better is that it doesn’t put any damage to your hair. 

If you already have hair that’s lightened or dyed, you can still use honey for all of its other added benefits and improve your hair’s appearance, strength, and feel. There are many natural and beneficial ways to care for your hair using honey and other organic ingredients that keep your hair cleaner and healthier, without the use of any unnatural or synthetic agents.