Homemade Hydrating Hair Tonic Recipe

Discover a simple recipe for a homemade hydrating hair tonic that quenches dryness, controls frizz, and moisturizes hair ends with botanical extracts. Perfect for dehydrated and thirsty hair!

Lisa Harper

6/27/20253 min read

taking care with curly hair with hair tonic
taking care with curly hair with hair tonic

There are plethora of hair products in the market that address various hair concerns. It is always good to know your hair type, texture, porosity and curl pattern can really help you to make in selection of products that can suit your hair needs.

If you have dry and dehydrated hair then hair tonics can be great for you! Hair tonics can make your hair hydrated and soft. For those with curly, kinky and coily hair using hair tonic can help define hair curl pattern. But also for individuals with oily hair and greasy scalp, using hair tonic can reduce the chances of oiliness on hair and scalp.

DIY Hair Tonic

Hair tonics can be infused with botanical extracts, essential oils and hydrolyzed proteins can be added to your hair tonic formulation to make them more potent. Hair tonic can help balance scalp pH and promote hair growth.

This hair tonic formulation can deal with defining curl pattern and encourage hair growth, if you want to make your hair tonic you've come to the right place. With simple steps you can make moisturizing and hydrating hair tonic, now let's go!

Selecting Ingredients

  • Distilled water: When formulating any cosmetic product, you cannot use tap water or bottled drinking water in making this hair tonic. Tap water can be hard water that contains impurities like salts, lead from pipes that can ruin the final product consistency and pH. But also bottled drinking water has added salts to boost electrolytes in your body but can't be good for your product. Using water sources other than distilled water can cause bacterial growth in the final hair tonic product.

  • Horsetail extract: This botanical extract can be helpful to hair. It contains anti-oxidants and minerals such as silicon and selenium that can strengthen hair roots and strands and hair growth.. It can increase hair shine and radiance. But also due to its anti-inflammatory properties that can soothe scalp.

  • Hydrolyzed wheat protein: This kind of protein which is hydrolyzed means it has been broken down into small micro proteins that can easily penetrate the hair follicles and hair shafts. This can boost hair growth, boost hair volume and repair damaged hair strands and split ends. Adding it to your hair tonic formulation.

  • Rosemary hydrosol: Rosemary itself is not only used in cooking but can be used in beauty products too. It has anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory properties that can be beneficial to your hair and scalp. There studies to support that rosemary can promote hair growth and reduce hair fall. Rosemary hydrosol can hydrate hair strands and moisturize your hair strands.

  • Phenoxyethanol: As part of making your hair tonic formulation adding preservatives to avoid bacterial growth in the final product. It is usually added as one percent or less is enough to cover the whole product. But also it can increase shelf life of the product by slowing down breaking down and separating of the other ingredients.

Ingredients

  • 6 tablespoons of distilled water

  • 1¼ teaspoon of horsetail extract

  • ½ teaspoon of hydrolyzed wheat protein

  • 1¼ teaspoon of rosemary hydrosol

  • ¼ teaspoon of phenoxyethanol

    *All metrics are US based.

Just gather your utensils that you're going to use in preparing your hair tonic. Prepare your measuring spoons, heat-resistant beaker, measuring scale and well-sanitized spray bottle. Make sure your spray bottle is clean to avoid impurities in your formulation.

DIY Hair Tonic
DIY Hair Tonic

Instructions

  1. Measure out your ingredients: distilled water, horsetail extract, hydrolyzed wheat protein, rosemary hydrosol and phenoxyethanol.

  2. Combine all ingredients in a mixing bowl and stir well till you get uniform mixture.

  3. Transfer your homogenous mixture in your well-sanitized spray bottle.

  4. Shake well before each use.

How to Use Your DIY Hair Tonic

  • Prep your hair with this DIY hair tonic to create a scalp and hair environment for other haircare routine.

  • Apply leave-in hair conditioner to your hair followed by hair cream or hair oil pairing it according it to your hair porosity, for low hair porosity, you should apply leave-in hair conditioner, hair oil and hair cream for high porosity hair. If you have low porosity hair swipe hair cream place for hair oil.

  • You can also spritz hair tonic every now and then to boost hair volume, reduce hair dryness and control frizz.

About me

Hello, my dear gorgeous! Welcome to my blog and learn with me as you walk in your skincare journey. I'm skincare enthusiast and a student. I like sharing my passion of beauty and skincare with the world. I like blogging, reading and binge watching YouTube vlogs and Netflix during my leisure time.

pink rose on wicker basket
pink rose on wicker basket