For the last 3 weeks or so I have been experimenting with a spritz that consists of fresh rosemary, a few dried rosebuds and a tiny bit of dried sage. The rosemary you see in the picture above is one of three shrubs from my very own garden…that I’ve been growing for 6 years! And, I’ve not used any of it until now. Can you say, DUH?! Yeah, I’ve been Rip Van Winkle, sleeping big time on this.
Rosemary is an herb/shrub that is very easy to grow. It likes a well draining soil and is drought tolerant once it is established. I planted these in the spring of 2004. Our winter, spring and summers have been drier than normal since ’03 with the worst year in ’07. It was so bad that we had pretty severe watering restrictions but my rosemary made it through just fine surviving on whatever rain Mother Nature gave it. I do not and have not given it any additional water since the first year after it was in the ground. It’s pest free, trouble free and loves the heat and humidity we have. Now that’s my kind of plant. It’s Latin name means “dew of the sea” because it was first discovered growing along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea.
It also smells absolutely wonderful when you brush up against it or run your hand across the leaves. Much better than the essential oil to my nose, but the essential oil is more concentrated. I’ve read somewhere, that it takes 70lbs of plant material to get 1lb of EO. Don’t quote me on that, but I know the ratio of plant material needed to what you get as an EO is pretty wide. You know, kinda like cooking collard greens. When you are picking those big bunches, it looks like you are gonna have a whole mess of greens, but when they finish cooking, you swear somebody stole some out the pot. lol
For hair, fresh rosemary is awesome!! Now I have used the essential oil in the past and it seemed to dry my hair out which I think is why I was afraid to try the fresh or dried but the fresh plant is the exact opposite. And I had no idea how to use it, so that’s probably why it’s taken so long for me to try it. It seems to kick up my herb infused shealoe up 360 notches, takes away the oilyness and leaves my locs nice and soft. Even when there is not much humidity in the air or I’m in an air conditioned place for awhile, my locs are not feeling crunchy like they were before as ,it started to get hot around here. We really don’t have a spring season so it starts to get hot in April, where business feel the need to turn on A/C. A/C draws moisture out of the air so I’m figuring it means it’s doing the same thing to my locs. Since I don’t use A/C, I was noticing that when I did go out, my locs were fine before I left and when I returned home. But they felt crunchy while I was out somewhere, inside under air conditioning. One of the benefits of HIL syndrome I guess, because I may not have noticed that otherwise. I’m also spraying it on my scalp to see if it will stimulate growth along with conditioning my scalp. Rosemary has been used for a very long time as a hair conditioner and for darkening the hair.
I’ll type out how to make your own rosemary water later in the next post and post the video. If you want to see the video sooner, it’s already posted on my YouTube channel, titled “How to make Rosemary Water”.
TTYL
Edited 1/30/2012 while re-tagging after the move to WordPress:
I no longer use rosemary water as a spritz. It was too much for my hair and scalp but I’m considering using rosemary water/tea along with with the sage tea that I use to cut my herbal ACV mix for my scalp. I’ll post about that at a later time but I’ll post the video on the blog here.
CeraIsis 
Ooh, I wonder if we have any rosemary seeds in this land of ours or if we only import the dry type. i wonder if it would work with the dry type…
I bet it would work just as well. I'm gonna do a post on another spritz I just did Sunday using all dried stuff.
I've tried this rosemary spritz with fresh rosemary sprigs since my early days of being a loose natural, and I still use it from time to time to this day on my locs. It does work. It smells lovely. Even though I use rosemary essential oil, I can't really say that the Eo is better than using the fresh real thing, there's something about using the fresh stuff that is I think far more effective and potent. Good luck hope it works as well for you as it did for me!
Interesting, I never tried it fresh or dried before. I think I have some Rosemary seeds lying around, I might give it a go. I'm really trying to go all natural products for my hair, however I have relapsed lol, I'm on the mission again, though. Thanks for sharing this post.
I like this especially since I used rosemary oil (in jojoba) to encourage my hair to grow after my last bout of post-partum hairloss, so I'm looking for it again.Thanks
I use fresh rosemary from time to time on my locs and I love the way my hair smells and feels afterwards. However, I caution anyone who has problems with high blood pressure to use it sparingly. Rosemary stimulates that scalp and will make your blood pressure rise a little bit. Last year, when I went in for my biopsy, I spritzed my hair, out of habit and they noticed that my blood pressure was higher than normal during the pre-op exam.Peace Lovie!!
omg! would you be willing to send some of that in the mail! I would pay! lol! That is so much fresh wonderful rosemary! Please?? Let me know, gracias!
I am so glad I found your blog! i follow you on youtube. i must try these on my locks.Please checkout my bloghttp://ohmysisterlocks.blogspot.com
@ V: I'd be interested to know if the seeds would work just as well. @ Afrolady Yes you do have to be careful when using it especially on the scalp. I'm mainly just using it on the loc. I sprayed some on my scalp one day and checked my blood pressure later on just to be sure.
@ Bajan Lily: Your welcome. It's another option especially for those who can use it but their scalp cannot tolerate other oils.@ NESSessary: It's interesting that you think the fresh is more potent. I can say that my locs did not feel this good when using the EO in water as my spritz but I was using a different shampoo and conditioner so maybe that changed the effect.
@ Goldilocs: Sure. Send me an email @ msfullroller@yahoo.com
omg! would you be willing to send some of that in the mail! I would pay! lol! That is so much fresh wonderful rosemary! Please?? Let me know, gracias!
I like this especially since I used rosemary oil (in jojoba) to encourage my hair to grow after my last bout of post-partum hairloss, so I'm looking for it again.Thanks
Ooh, I wonder if we have any rosemary seeds in this land of ours or if we only import the dry type. i wonder if it would work with the dry type…