Chocolate Conditioning Hair Mask Recipe #1

Shame on me for not putting all my homemade beauty recipes in one place. The advantage of this blog? I can store all my little tidbits of hair, beauty, skin recipes and notes that I have had squirrelled away for the past 10 years.

Here is one of my favorites. The only problem? I always want to eat this. And you can. There are no preservatives. Since this is messy, I recommend putting this conditioning hair mask on while standing in the bathtub or standing on some clean old towels. I tend to be very messy, so I try to cover everything that can be messed up.

Chocolate Conditioning Hair Mask Recipe

Ingredients

• 1 very ripe small to medium sized banana (depending on your hair length and fullness) for easy mashing at room temperature
• Use a metal fork
• 1 tablespoon of natural honey at room temperature
• 2-4 small squares of Hershey's dark chocolate
• Microwave or double boiler

Peel banana and place into a ceramic or glass baking dish. Use the fork to mash the banana into a paste consistency.

Melt the Hershey's dark chocolate until it is the consistency of a thick liquid. If you melt the chocolate in the microwave, be sure to use a very low setting to avoid burning. Pour the melted chocolate into the banana paste. Add a few drizzles of honey.

Mix well with a fork until all the ingredients are blended together.

Make sure the mixture is not too hot to touch. When warm but not hot, use fingertips to test on your wrist to make sure it is not too hot but is still warm.

When mixture is ready, apply with fingertips to the middle and end sections of your dry, detangled hair. Do not apply to root area to avoid adding excess oils near the scalp. After the mask is applied, wrap with Saran wrap or a large towel. The advantage of the Saran wrap is that will hold in heat from your head and help the cuticle to slightly open and absorb more of the mixture.

Leave the mask on your hair for up to 1 hour, or longer if you desire.

To Remove The Mask: Unwrap your hair. Use your fingers to remove the bulk of the mask and discard to avoid clogging up the drains. Try to remove as much of the mask as possible before getting your hair wet.

Get your hair wet with lukewarm NOT HOT water. Use a diluted form of shampoo and drizzle shampoo down over your head. Pat the suds into your strands. Use only one shampoo application.

Rinse the shampoo well. Apply a rinse out conditioner from the ears down. Leave on for 5-10 minutes. Rinse well. Finish with a cool/cold water rinse.

Towel blot, apply leave-in conditioner, detangle and if possible, air dry. If you decide to blow dry, use a heat protection product.

Style as desired, finished with a swipe of shine product and viola....you have shiny, conditioned hair.

Note: As a special bonus, this recipe can also be used on your skin as a chocolate facial, on your hands or on your feet, for a chocolate smoothing manicure or pedicure. You may substitute cocoa powder for the melted chocolate but will not get the same aromatherpy and softening benefits as with the melted dark chocolate. Do NOT use any type of chocolate but cocoa powder or dark chocolate.