by
Black Girl With Long Hair
CHERRY LOLA: This has been my big “issue”; frizz – mostly at the roots. This treatment totally calmed the frizz down and made the roots behave the way the rest of my hair does. It has become curly from root to tip. I was floored by the results. I still am. I’ve done the treatment three times now over the course of a week and the results seem to just get better. I haven’t changed anything else in my regime and have been using Lustra Silk and my own handmade conditioner, or the Henna Wax Treatment, and co-washing every other day with Boots Coconut and Almond Oil Condish. But judge for yourself, here are the pics
In total there are twenty amino acids:
Alanine
Arginine
Asparagine
Cysteine
Cystine
Glutamic Acid
Glutamine
Glycine
Histidine
Isoleucine,
Leucine
Lysine
Methionine
Phenylalanine,
Proline
Serine
Threonine
Tryptophan
Tyrosine
Valine
Minor Amino Acids
GABA
Taurine
There are two types of amino acids:
1. Non Essential AAs – these are the kind that your body produces on its own.
2. Essential AAs – these are the kind that you must get from edible sources. Proteins such as chicken, fish, nuts, and (to a lesser degree) soy are all great sources for essential AAs.
From my research I’ve concluded that all AAs are important for hair health, but the following ones play the most important roles in hair:
Essential Amino Acids
Methionine
A powerful antioxidant;
A good source of sulfur which helps in the prevention of hair, skin and nail disorders;
Prevents the premature loss of hair;
Works in the body to detoxify many harmful elements;
Works as a good anti-fatigue agent;
Aids the breaking down of fats to prevent the buildup of fat in the arteries and liver.
Non essential amino acids
Cystine
Makes up 10-14% of the skin and hair, vital for healthy development of skin and hair;
Encourages better recovery from burns and surgical procedures.
Cysteine
(Cysteine and Cystine are interchangeable; two molecules of Cysteine make Cystine.)
Great Antioxidant and a natural detoxifier;
Essential in growth, maintenance, and repair of skin and hair.
One of the three main sulfur-containing amino acids, along with Taurine and Methionine.
Tyrosine
Produces melanin, which is the pigment that gives the skin and hair its color;
Vital to the body’s overall metabolism;
Can improve your moods and is used to treat depression, insomnia, and anxiety.
Now let me just say; I LOVE AMINO ACIDS. I don’t know why, but they cheer me up. At night, C and I usually have a big salad and I always spritz on some AAs for flavor and almost immediately I get an uplifting effect from them. I get a little giddy. After looking around a bit, I think it has something to do with the Tyrosine.
So the burgeoning mixtress in me got all fired up. I decided to put AAs in my hair.
I thought about it a little more. I couldn’t just pour them on my head; I didn’t think that would work as they’re thin like water. So I mixed it up, and here is my recipe:
Yogurt 2 parts
For the protein and the conditioning properties.
Baking Soda 1/2 part
To make my hair more porous.
Amino Acids 1/2 part
To see what they did.
I’ve used yogurt and baking soda before, mixing them with other things, and they were okay.
But together with the AAs – AMAZING!!!!
I sectioned my hair into eight parts and applied the concoction with my fingers, making sure to coat from root to tip. As soon as I put the treatment on I could tell something was different.
My roots! My roots started to clump together.
**this review was taken by permission from cherry lola’s website
ok, so i’m DEFINITELY going to try this 🙂 the research is so detailed and the concoction can also be used as a cleanser/clarifier. thanks for sharing cherry lola!
to hear more from cherry lola, check out her very cool, 1950s-pin-up-girl-style website here.
and if you’re interested in doing a product review, email me at co************@*****il.com
thoughts?
14 Responses
I am new to this!
There are lots of amino acids! Which one did you use for your reciepe?
Question!
Exactly what kind of yogurt/where do you guys buy the yogurt that you use in your hair?
Pardon my ignorance, but are Amino Acids different from "Silk Amino Acids"? I bought some SAA after I saw people raving about it on the Long Hair Care forum. I'm still waiting for my parcel to arrive but I hear it's great when you add it to conditioners.
Please PLEASE HELP!
I tried this after reading this review, and I too, was amazed. It decreased frizz and the curl definition was ridiculous. Of course the frizz came back because I had some SERIOUS hand-in-hair-sickness, but I’m definitely doing this again.
I’ve got to try this and also up my consumption of soy, fish and brown rice!
Oh for the anonymous commenter, ammonia is quite different from amino acids. I wouldn’t recommend ammonia in hair, but amino acids are quite harmless. I have not tried this at all but I’m guessing, it doesn’t smell too bad – probably like yoghurt. Amino acids in liquid don’t really have a smell.
Please don’t put ammonia in your hair.
(Pokes head out cautiously) – Well it is a little more complicated than that. To form a protein you need hundreds (500 plus) in some cases thousands of amino acids. While you can break down proteins with acids or alkali, it is just not possible to mix some amino acids and let them link up spontaneously. Forming a peptide bond (the linking group of amino acids)requires you to have the right enzymes so that the amino acid can be dehydrated and linked. Also proteins are highly ordered structures meaning each amino acid must be correctly placed. To form a proper protein, you need to repeat this for hundreds of amino acids.
In short, you are likely to do this in your body. You will see that amino acids are very soluble in water, so you can imagine that adding them to your hair then washing, probably means most of it is washed off. However, if you take protein, such as egg protein, it doesn’t really mix well with water, therefore, something is likely to be left after you rinse your hair which is what you want.
I have seen this type of clumping with Teri’s method of applying conditioner to the hair. It didn’t work for me but if your hair type is the kind to clump up then it may work for you.
I did this treatment twice. Once with conditioner and once with yogurt. Both times it really reduced the frizz but the yogurt definitely brought out more curls.
Please excuse my ignorance, as I haven’t experimented with home-made concoctions much, but is anyone concerned about the ammonia/burnt maple syrup smell? I’d like to try it, as long as it doesn’t chemically alter my hair…chemical smells remind me of relaxers and texturizers…
great comments!
I too think that the amino acid and the yogurt are linking together. And that the baking soda is assisting in the absorption. But I could be wrong.
Either way this treatment allowed curls to form in a way I have not experienced before. A few others that have tried it have posted on Naturally Curly their results, which sound similar to mine. Which make me happy:)
Yes the second picture is a twist out. If you head over to my blog (www.cherrylola.com) there are a number of photos that show how my hair differs from twist out before to twist out after and also after a number of treatments.
I would love to hear if this treatment works for you! Please keep me posted. Thanks BGLH for posting!!
@ Jc… lol. you won’t be ‘shot’. there are no BGLH drive bys, lol. but couldn’t the protein in the yogurt link with and activate the amino acids? i mean, it sounds like something happened between the AAs, yogurt and baking soda.
just me 2 non-scientific cents
I would imagine mixing the AAs with the yogurt would create the protein and I’ve read that hair absorbs protein. I plan to try it. I may not understand the science behind it, but if it takes away the frizz COOL.
Question, were the curls in the second picture assisted in any way? I ask because the first picture looks like my hair, but I’d have to do finger curls to get the look in the second picture (I think).
Ok don’t shoot me but I think the amino acids are better in your food than in your hair. They are the building blocks of protein but in order to make proteins, they have to be linked up and this is more probable in your body in the presence of the right enzymes. Applying amino acids to hair directly doesn’t really seem useful to me.
Protein itself has some benefit in temporarily strengthening hair so remedies like egg and mayonnaise probably have some effect.
This is not to put anyone off trying this remedy, just saying, eat more of it than you put on your hair!!
I saw her post last week on this and was real excited!! I’ve purchased the Amino Acids @ Vitamin world, and the yogurt so I’m all set to try it out this weekend!I’m hoping it works just as well as my ACV;-)