Conditioning Your Hair

What is hair conditioning?

Hair conditioning is hair care that changes the texture, appearance and health of the hair, making it healthy and manageable.  The traditional conditioners found in the market today have a thick consistency and are usually chemical-based that coat the cuticle of the hair.   Most of these conditioners also detangle the hair, give it shine, help de-frizz and make the hair soft and manageable.  Because of the world’s recent desire to want to use more natural and healthier products, there are now many products available that give you the same results without damaging your hair or the use of harmful chemicals and allergens.

History of hair conditioning:

For centuries, people have been conditioning their hair using natural botanical ingredients in the form of oils, powders, teas and other concoctions.  The ingredients used often differed from one part of the world to another depending upon the plant available in the region.  For example, in India, people used mustard oil and taramira (jamba) oil for deep conditioning effects.  In ancient Egypt, women used creams to moisturize their hair and prevent sun damage.  In ancient China, women used seeds from the Chinese cedar tree to make a hair conditioning rinse.  The Filipino women made hair conditioners using aloe and water.  The Americans in the 1600’s used oils mixed with eggs to condition their hair.  And in other parts of the world people made disgusting combinations to achieve conditioning benefits.  For example, in Europe, women made conditioners made from dead lizards boiled in olive oil.

Men, in the late Victorian era, used a greasy conditioner called Macassar oil, which pretty much greased anything it touched.  It wasn’t until the 1900’s that a less greasy product was created by a Parisian perfumer named Edouard Pinaud, to soften men’s hair.  He called it “Brilliantine”.  Since then, modern science has been creating products, mainly consisting of chemicals, to give the hair greaseless conditioning effects.

Today, people continue the use of chemical ingredients as well as natural botanical ingredients to benefit the health of their hair.

Hair Conditioning, The Natural Way

The regular use of shampoo, chemical hair colors and styling products make your hair dry, frizzy and damaged.  The products may also contain toxins and allergens that are harmful for not just our hair and scalp, but our overall health as well.  People are finding that products with simple ingredients that don’t contain preservatives and chemicals (e.g. jojoba oil, olive oil, mustard oil, etc.) are much more beneficial for their hair and without the side effects. 

Some wonderful ingredients that help condition our hair include:

• Jojoba oil
• Olive oil
• Mustard oil
• Amla oil
• Bhringraj oil
• Cassia obovata powder
• Brahmi powder and oil

What is cassia obovata?

Cassia obovata is a plant with over 400 species, grown in Egypt and Nubia (northeastern Africa).  It is also found in Pakistan, India and South China. The plant grows about two feet high with green leaves and yellow flowers. Cassia powder is used for hair care as well as in Ayurvedic and Unani medicines since the ninth century.

What it does?

From centuries, cassia powder is used for wonderful, safe and chemical free hair conditioning, hair care, shine and coloring.  For centuries, it has been used for the  treatment of eczema and psoriasis (skin diseases).Cassia powder is a good conditioner and it gives deep shine, richness and texture to your hair.   It has the benefits of henna but does not give the hair the orange-ish color that results with the use of henna.  Cassia will, however, add a touch of blonde tint to your blonde and grey/white hair. The color effects are not noticeable in darker hair. 

Use of Cassia with Brahmi:

Take Silk & Stone cassia and brahmi powder each in equal quantity (total 2 to 3 table spoons), add appropriate water to make a thin paste and apply on your scalp and hairs after every bath as a conditioner and wash off after 5 minutes for good hair conditioning and long strong hairs. It also prevent hair fall, loss and damage.

What is brahmi?

Brahmi is an edible flowering plant with small oval-shaped leaves.  The plant grows about 6 inches in height and is native to India and Pakistan. Normally it is used in powder form that is obtained by grinding dried brahmi leaves.

Benefits of Brahmi?

Brahmi has been used for centuries in hair care to help hair grow and thicken, nourish the hair and prevent split ends. It is also used in natural, herbal and Ayurvedic/Unani medicines to aid in the healing of many skin diseases. Regular use of brahmi powder keeps your scalp cool and promotes healthy hair that is longer, thicker and stronger.  People, for centuries, have used brahmi on a regular basis to prevent hair loss and keep the roots well-nourished so that it may be free of dandruff and an itchy scalp. Brahmi powder is normally used in combination with tulsi, neem and amla powder to create a healing hair pack that benefits the hair and relieves itchiness.

Hair Treatments:

Use of Silk & Stone Brahmi Powder for Hair Care:

Take 50 to 100 grams (according to your hair length) Silk & Stone brahmi powder, add water to make a paste and apply on your scalp and hair twice a month.

Use of Silk & Stone Cassia Powder for Conditioning:

Take 3 to 5 table spoons Silk & Stone cassia powder, add appropriate water to make a thin paste and apply on your scalp and hair as conditioner after every bath and wash off after 5 minutes for good conditioning of your hairs.

Victory in the campaign to ban circus animals

MPs voted to ban wild animals in circuses last night after David Cameron's attempts to bully Conservative backbenchers into voting against the measure backfired and ended in a humiliating public defeat. In a decision hailed by campaigners as an "historic victory for animal welfare and protection", MPs of all parties unanimously backed a ban and the Government signalled that it would introduce one, ending forever the days of lions, tigers, elephants and other wild animals in the big top.

In an act of desperation, Conservative whips had warned they would impose the most serious parliamentary voting sanction, a three-line whip, to bring recalcitrant backbenchers to heel and get them to support the Government's alternative proposal of a licensing system. But in a victory for The Independent's campaign for a ban and for the long campaigns waged by animal welfare organisations, Downing Street backed down when it became apparent that it would lose the vote despite what backbenchers described as "desperate" measures. One of the three MPs who brought the cross-party motion for a ban disclosed that he had first been offered a government job – and then threatened that the Prime Minister would look "very dimly" on his recalcitrance – unless he amended or withdrew the motion. Mark Pritchard, a Conservative backbencher, stood firm and insisted that the measure be voted upon.

As astonished MPs listened, Mr Pritchard said: "Well I have a message for the whips and for the Prime Minister of our country – and I didn't pick a fight with the Prime Minister – I may just be a little council house lad from a very poor background but that background gave me a backbone. It gives me a thick skin and I'm not going to be cowed by the whips of the Prime Minister on an issue I feel passionately about and have conviction about.

"There may be some other people with backbones on this side and they will speak later, but we need a generation of politicians with a bit of spine, not jelly. And I will not be bullied by any of the whips."

MPs from all sides of the House including the Liberal Democrat MP Don Foster, Labour's Nia Griffiths and the Green leader Caroline Lucas attacked the Government's position, saying that both public and parliamentary opinion was in support of a ban.

The motion was to "direct" the Government to introduce a ban.

Shortly before the vote, the Animal Welfare minister, Jim Paice, said: "If at the end of this debate the House were to approve this motion then of course we will have to respect that."

Animal welfare groups were ecstatic. The RSPCA said: "This is a win for democracy as well as animal welfare." It said it hoped the Government would quickly and formally announce a ban.

Animal Defenders International, the group which shot undercover footage of the beating by a Romanian groom of Anne the elephant at Bobby Roberts Circus, said: "This debate and vote has exposed the Government and demonstrated just how out of touch they have been with their peers, the public, and animal welfare groups."

Mary Creagh, the shadow Environment Secretary, said: "The public will be absolutely delighted that MPs from all parties have stood up to the Tory-led Government on this issue to achieve such a fantastic result. The vote brings to an end 48 hours of chaos and confusion from the Government about their position on a ban. It is extraordinary that David Cameron used such bully-boy tactics to threaten his own MPs and tried to impose a three-line whip on the vote."

The Government had initially planned to ban wild animals from circuses but the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs was forced to do a U-turn, and instead proposed a licensing system, after Mr Cameron, a keen hunter and shooter, blocked the move.

Mr Paice blamed a court challenge to a ban in Austria for the decision, but there was no court challenge and he was forced to admit during an emergency debate, called because of the misinformation, that he had misled the Commons. The Government's subsequent claim that a ban could be challenged under the Human Rights Act or the EU Services Directive was challenged by lawyers and the European Commission.

The Government and MPs came under intense pressure from voters. More than 32,000 signed The Independent's online petition calling for the Government to change its mind, and supporters of the protest group 38 Degrees, which had forced Defra to abandon plans for its forests sell-off, deluged MPs' offices with hundreds of emails, letters and phone calls.

During the debate, MPs said the issue was emblematic of wider animal welfare issues. But the most astonishing contribution came from Mr Pritchard who had secured the backbench debate, which should have had a free vote. He said: "On Monday if I offered to amend my motion or drop my motion or not call a vote on this motion – and we're not talking about a major defence issue or an economic issue or an issue of public-sector reform, we're talking about a ban on wild animals in circuses – I was offered reward and incentive. If I didn't call for a ban – I was offered a job. Not as a minister, it was a pretty trivial job.

"Then it was ratcheted up to last night and I was threatened. I had a call from the Prime Minister's Office directly and I was told unless I withdrew this motion that the Prime Minister himself would look upon it 'very dimly indeed'."

He told MPs: "It remains a mystery why the Government has mounted such a concerted operation to stop there being a vote on this motion.

Why build-up of fresh water in Arctic could spell trouble for Britain

Studies have shown that a surface layer of fresher water in the Arctic Ocean has increased in volume by about 20 per cent over the past two decades. Scientists believe this is the result of melting sea ice and an increased flow of rivers from Siberia and Canada carrying large volumes of meltwater from permafrost regions.

In the Canada Basin area of the Arctic to the west of Greenland, for instance, scientists are monitoring a huge pool of icy meltwater more than 7,500 cubic kilometres in size, which is about twice the volume of Africa's Lake Victoria. This pool of cold freshwater, which is less dense than the saltier seawater on which it floats, is being kept in its place by circulating winds.

The scientists are concerned that a sudden change in wind patterns might send this fresher water south via the Labrador Current into the North Atlantic where it could interfere with the complex "thermohaline" ocean circulation. These currents, which keep the warm Gulf Stream flowing towards Britain and the rest of north-west Europe, flow between the sea surface and the seabed and are controlled by the relative saltiness of seawater.

"In the past we know that a sudden change in Atlantic currents has happened because of a relatively sudden release of freshwater into the North Atlantic. We can imagine that it could happen again," said Benjamin Rabe, of Germany's Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Bremerhaven.

"If that amount of freshwater is going to be suddenly released it would influence ocean currents, for instance the thermohaline circulation of the North Atlantic. I think we should definitely look at this further. The thermohaline ocean current has only been monitored for a few years," he added.

Scientists from 17 research institutes in 10 European countries have collaborated as a consortium known as CLAMER in documenting the build-up of fresher water in the Arctic. One of the techniques involves sending salinity gauges down to different depths of the sea from the RV Polarstern ice-breaker, a German research ship.

The scientists have collated about 5,000 salinity profiles of the Arctic and estimated a 20 per cent increase in freshwater over the entire region since the early 1990s, when measurements of this type began. This corresponds to a rise of some 8,400 cubic kilometres of freshwater over this period, which is roughly equivalent to the entire volume of freshwater and ice that is released each year from the Arctic into lower latitudes.

Laura de Steur, an oceanographer from the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, said that for the past 12 years a mostly clockwise pattern of winds has kept a huge volume of this fresher water within the Canada Basin. This body of relatively salt-free water has probably resulted from increased river run-off and melting ice, she said. "The volume of water discharged into the Arctic Ocean, largely from Canadian and Siberian rivers, is higher than usual due to warmer temperatures in the north causing ice to melt. Sea ice is also melting quickly, adding even more freshwater to the relatively calm Arctic Ocean," Dr de Steur said.

"In addition, sea ice that is thinner is more mobile and could exit the Arctic faster. In the worst case, these Arctic outflow surges can significantly change the densities of marine surface waters in the extreme North Atlantic. What happens then is hard to predict," she added.

John Toole, of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, said that when seawater gets as cold as it does in the Arctic region, salinity becomes a crucial factor in determining whether water floats near the surface or sinks deeper. This is critical in terms of what drives the pump of the thermohaline ocean circulation.

"There is a suspicion that if the Arctic continues to store up low-salinity surface water, it's just a matter of time before it ships it further south and into the North Atlantic where it may impact the intensity of the thermohaline circulation. This is what happens when we simulate this in computer models," Dr Toole said.

"What we are seeing is a build-up of fresher water in the Arctic and that this build-up of liquid freshwater is bigger than we've seen over the instrumental records which extends over several decades. It's difficult to say what the consequences of that may be," he added.

However, one scenario depicted in the Hollywood movie The Day After Tomorrow, in which the Gulf Stream is turned off, causing a sudden ice age in New York, is firmly discounted by the scientists. Dr de Steur said: "Ice ages occur on geological time-scales of tens of thousands of years. However, large regional changes could be in store if the ocean circulation changes."

Global warning: climate sceptics are winning the battle

Climate sceptics are winning the argument with the public over global warming, the world's most celebrated climate scientist, James Hansen of NASA, said in London yesterday.

It is happening even though climate science itself is becoming ever clearer in showing that the earth is in increasing danger from rising temperatures, said Dr Hansen, who heads NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies, and is widely thought of as "the father of global warming" – his dramatic alert about climate change in US Senate hearings in July 1988 put the issue on the world agenda.

Since then he has been one of the most outspoken advocates of drastic climate action, and yesterday he also publicly criticised Germany's recent decision to abandon its new nuclear power programme, formerly a key part of German climate measures, in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan earlier this year.

"I think it was a big mistake," he said. "And I think the Prime Minister [German Chancellor Angela Merkel] knows that, as she's a physicist, but I think the political reality is she couldn't stay in office if she expressed that opinion."

In a briefing at the Royal Society , Dr Hansen, pictured, was frank about the success with public opinion of what he termed "the climate contrarians", in effectively lessening public concern about global warming. He said: "They have been winning the argument for several years, even though the science has become clearer.

"There's been a very strong campaign by those who want to continue fossil fuel 'business as usual', and the scientific story has not been powerful enough to offset that push."

Part of the problem, he said, was that the climate sceptic lobby employed communications professionals, whereas "scientists are just barely competent at communicating with the public and don't have the wherewithal to do it."

The result was, he said, that in recent years "a gap has opened between what is understood about global warming by the relevant scientific community, and what's known by the people who need to know – and that's the public. However there's nothing that has happened to reduce our scientific conclusion that we are pushing the system into very dangerous territory, in fact that conclusion has become stronger over that same time period."

Asked if anything might re-alert the public to the dangers of climate change, Dr Hansen said: "Mother Nature."

Significant climatic "extreme events" were now occurring over 10 to 15 per cent of the planet annually, whereas between 1950 to 1980 they occurred over less than 1 per cent. He added: "So in places like Texas this year, Moscow last year, and Europe in 2003, the climate change is so big that they are undeniable. Within 10 to 15 years they're going to occur over 15 to 20 per cent of the planet, so people have to notice that the climate is changing."

Burning issue: Hansen's evidence that the world is hotting up

Texas, summer 2011

The US state this year has had its driest summer since record-keeping began in 1895, with 75 per cent of the state classified as "exceptional drought", the worst level. Shortages of grass, hay and water have forced ranchers to thin their herds – where this cow died, in the San Angelo area, there has been less than three inches of rain.

Moscow, August 2010

Russia experienced its hottest-ever summer last year – for weeks, a large portion of European Russia was more than 7 °C (12.6 °F) warmer than normal, and a new national record was set of 44 °C (111 °F). Raging forest fires filled Moscow with smoke, forcing the cancellation of air services and obliging people to don face masks.

Northern Europe, 2003

Shrivelled French grapes at the end of Europe's hottest summer on record, in 2003. The heatwave led to health crises in several countries and more than 40,000 people are thought to have died. Britain experienced its first (and so far only) 100+ F air temperature – 101.3°F (38.5°C) recorded at Brogdale, Kent, on 10 August.