Further Misadventures with Home Spa

In November of 2010, I tried a DIY spa treatment at home. I made a brown sugar/heavy cream scrub for my scalp, which exfoliated and moisturized well, but smelled terrible. I wrote:

This should put me off any more home spa attempts for a while. Until I forget, and then I’ll be all, “I don’t know if this is a good idea, but I’m going to do it anyway.” Story of my life, I swear.

Two years and 17 days, people, is how long it took me to forget. Yesterday I consulted Curly Girl for a natural, shampoo-free solution for itchy scalp. I’d tried the brown sugar and conditioner before, and it worked OK. The newer edition of the book recommended quinoa plus conditioner. Directions: 1 tablespoon raw quinoa in 3 tablespoons conditioner. Scrub scalp and rinse. Hey, I thought, if I use it in my hair then we don’t have to eat it! (Not a fan of quinoa, or of how much 9yo Drake bitches and moans when we make it.) Plus it’s bigger, so it should scrub better than brown sugar.

It actually felt very nice and scrubbly, but as with past home-spa disasters, things started well but ended badly. Quinoa, unlike brown sugar, does not dissolve in water. And it’s a fast cooking grain. So by the time I finished scrubbing, rinsing, conditioning and showering, the walls, floor, shower curtain and my feet were covered with partially cooked grain. How had 1 Tablespoon produced so much? The hair trap was full, the water was backing up. The grains were no longer hard, but soft and more difficult to clean up.

So, here I was again, cleaning up another home spa mess. On the bright side, the scrub worked great and my scalp is in great shape.

2 Responses to “Further Misadventures with Home Spa”

  1. Wendy Says:

    I did the quinoa scalp scrub. The thing that got me was the barnacles in my ears the next morning. Guess I’m not a good rinser.

  2. girldetective Says:

    Wendy, when I next used the bathroom, I found a few of them still in the drain–they’d sprouted!