Raw Eggs Grew My Hair Fast: Here's My Historical Hair Care Secret

After going down an historical fashion rabbit hole a while back, I eventually entered the realm of historical hair care practices, which lead to many recipes including today's magic ingredient – raw egg.

I have been using raw eggs to wash my hair now for approximately a year, so I was a little surprised to learn that I had adopted a Victorian hair care routine, without even knowing it.

In this video, I explain why I started using raw egg in my hair in the first place, along with how I wash my hair. I also show off my handsewn 1880s Victorian bathing suit a little bit!

For the thumbnail, I decided to go to great lengths, even cracking a raw egg on my head which was a bit shocking.

I hope you enjoy this fun little video that hopefully proves to be at least somewhat educational.

Do you clean your hair with any strange household items?

Thank you so much for watching, and see you all on Thursday for another video.

Sources Used:
-The Fountain of Youth, 1905

-Marin Journal, Volume 41, Number 19, 25 July 1901, pg. 5

-Health and Beauty Hints 1910, pg. 40

-The Era Formulary. 1893 pg. 192

-The arts of beauty; or, Secrets of a lady's toilet
by Montez, Lola, 1858

Image Sources:
Courtesy of the Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis, Attribution, via Wikimedia Commons

Time Stamps:
0:00 Why I Wash My Hair Like a Victorian
3:14 My Historical Hair Care Routine
5:54 Final Thoughts

#Victorian #HistoricalHairCare #RawEgg

[VBirchwood]

I hope you all have enjoyed this short video which felt quite silly to film!

Do you use any strange household items to wash your hair?

[rayagantcheva]

Here in the Balkans we don't use the whole egg, just the egg yolk. Otherwise there is a great possibility you will end up with cooked egg whites in your hair because they cook faster than the yolks and begin to harden just by being close to the heat of your head. We use one egg yolk and mix in a spoon of honey to make it less runny and apply to the roots and scalp, leave it in for about 15 minutes, and then wash it out using lukewarm water. By using less egg at once not only do you save yourself some eggs, but you can also eat the egg whites you separate from the yolks. Also adding the honey helps for it to smell better.

[pomegranatepixie]

We often think of the Victorians as ignorant, uneducated people who had no idea how to live healthy lives, however I think that when you look closer you might just find that some of their ideas were actually quite ingenious and clever. These people were actually more similar to us than we think, and I thank you so much for showing this to us in your videos!

[maryannedaugherty]

Very interesting! Back story. My mom was raised in an orphanage from 3yo in 1918 til 18yo. All the children's hair was washed with lye soap until she got a job and was able to buy a commercial brand. She had beautiful brown curly hair but told horror stories of those days. When I was born with very light blonde curly hair she swore no matter the limited money in the family I would have the very best shampoo. She used a brand called Vita-Fluff. It was made with EGGS! She rinsed with vinegar! I had not thought about that for years until seeing your video! Amazing! I had the softest, fine, gentle curls ever. Don't have a clue how long she did this. Probably till I was 7-8yo. I may have to try your method on my now white curly hair. Thanks for the memories! 💖

[kitdubhran]

I actually just use a homemade violet powder to wash my hair. It picks up the oils and dirt and I can comb it straight out. I comb often with a boxwood comb from Japan. It absorbs and redistributes the oils, and helps keep my scalp healthy. Then if my hair gets actually dirty I can just use the violet powder to clean it. Works like magic.

Edit: my hair is very thin straight strands and I have combination skin. This wouldn’t work for everybody.

[Rukawagf]

This is so interesting because my mother, born and raised in South Korea in a wealthy family at the time (born in the 50s) has a similar hair care routine. So this is her routine. She separates the yolk and whites. Bring a bowl of milk. and cucumber slices if you want. Sit in your bath, preferably without water yet (or little lukewarm water. you'll have to have the bowl in your lap later). First, you use the yolk on your face, the rest into the roots of your hair. Then add the whites into the hair. Place cucumber on your face. Sit for about 5 minutes and relax in your bath.
After 5-10 minutes, wash your face with milk. Try to have the milk drip back into the bowl. Then you use that entire milk + yolky mixture back onto your hair and let it drip down your body. Try to leave it in another 3 minutes then rinse with lukewarm water. Now that the bath has a nice mixture of milk and egg all over your body and skin, that is fine, it's also good for skin, according to my mom. Just wash it all off at the end. She told me to do this every two weeks. It's kind of a long process so I stopped doing it once i got busy with my job but watching this video makes me want to go back to doing it again. How long do you normally keep the egg on your hair? It seemed like you just rub it in and wash it, without really letting it seep into your hair, so that was very different from my mom's method.
Great video, hope to see more.

[RalucaTifreaNailDesignEducator]

Hi! I’ve been trying this recipe and it seems very good to me: 1 whole egg, 1 tbsp olive oil, 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar, 1 tsp honey, 5 drops rosemary oil, 5 drops lavender oil, 2 drops chilli extract. I put this blend on my hair and scalp for at least 15 minutes to one hour. I rinse it with lukewarm water. If my hair is too dry I put a few drops of argan oil in my hair. I have less and less hair falling, and my hair never looked better before.

[SimpleDesertRose]

When you said egg I immediately pictured Bernadette Banner trying to wash partially cooked egg out of her hair, because she used warm water. Smart that you use cold water. I have a couple of Victorian hair recipes, one of which is using honey as a hair mask. And yes it is as sticky as it sounds. The idea is to coat you hair in honey, wrap it up for a half hour then rinse with warm water. The effect is nice but getting it in your hair and not all over the place is tricky. The other is using mayonnaise. This was a recipe passed on to the author from her grandmother who had been a beauty queen, who got it from her mother who grew up having her washed once a month with mayonnaise. Because it contained raw egg, it suggested rinsing with cold water. I find it strange how the Victorians seem to get a lot of bad hype when really they were right at the beginning of what we consider modern society. They had all kinds of cleaver things to help them out in life. I would say they had the best of the industrial revolution. They brought awareness to a lot of things that no one had ever considered before. Like arsenic. Really we could be called hypocrites since up until the late 70's we were still using leaded paint. Even into the mid 80's you could still get leaded gasoline for your cars. Even though the health problems that came from lead were well known. Even asbestos, which is known to cause cancer, was used in construction up until the 90's, even though the ban went into effect in the 80's. Many of the things the Victorians used beauty that were passed on to them from their families. You can probably go back 100 years and find their ancestors using the same beauty products if nit very similar. I imagine that even in medieval times ladies were probably washing their hair with eggs. Cleopatra who was considered to be exceptionally beautiful, is famous for bathing in milk. Yet its the Victorians who are considered to be backwards and odd. 🤔

Anyways this was kinda fun. I need to break out my natural beauty books and see what unique recipes I have and try some out. I won't be trying any egg based products in my hair until my chickens are done molting and the younger flock starts laying. 😉 See you next week.

[cheekyghost]

A lot of my older relatives like Aunts and Great Aunt's have always used homemade egg shampoo. In some rural areas like Appalachia the old practices never died out. They mix eggs and mayonnaise for dry hair, which smells foul but seems to work, my great grandmother still had a lot of healthy brown hair in her 90's.

[mint]

Hi Vossey! So I wanted to tell you, I tried this, and OMG. My hair feels so soft. At first I was like, wtf, how do you wash your hair with eggs?! But. But. It's awesome! I love it. Thank you!

[lordluciferisgod]

I washed my hair with eggs. At first it was the most disgusting, gooey texture that I've ever felt on my hands, but then as I continued to massage it into my wet hair, it started to feel kind of more slippery, but not overly heavy, like dollar store shampoo. I followed up with a clove, rosemary and olive oil rinse as a leave in conditioner. My hair is extremely clean and my hair doesn't feel "hard", but it feels "reinforced", and stronger. After my hair dried, I didn't get any breakage or hair fall when I ran my fingers or a fine-toothed comb through it. It's very effective, but I wouldn't recommend doing it more than once a month if your hair is in good condition. For damaged hair, once every two weeks for 1-2 months should help, then then you can step it down to once a month.

[KraccatiusManor]

I think so far this is my favorite video of yours. I feel like you're much more relaxed and expressive in this video. Not just in your voice but your body language/facial expressions. I much prefer videos where I can SEE who the person is and what they might be like outside of their videos. I'm stubborn when it comes to pressing the subscribe button but the thing that always pushes me in one direction or the other is whether or not I can see a genuine person behind the content

P.S. - I went to school for hair many many years ago and ended up doing it for a whileee as a hobby-job. Its best not to rinse hair with hot water especially after doing the apple cider vinegar. The vinegar isnt just balancing your hairs PH and clarifying it (aka dislocating build up such as hairspray and other hairstyling products) but its VINEGAR, vinegar is a tonic (things with a sour/astringent taste are often tonics) so it "TONES" the hair in a sense... Our hair strands have something called "cuticles" which basically look like the shingles on a roof. When we damage/dye our hair it LIFTS those shingles so that the hair can be styled/dyed (the color is deposited under the cuticle). So when we put a tonic on our hair it TIGHTENS up those shingles and helps to make the hair feel healthier/stronger as well as shinier and sometimes makes hair color last longer (depending on your hair type). Using cold water can close off those little shingles and using hot water BLASTS THEM OPEN which is often why people with a particular hair type (usually curly or damaged hair) get bad frizz after they wash their hair and let it air dry after wet brushing it. Its better to rinse your hair (especially after the vinegar) with cold water as you'll get the best results from the vinegar, your end up with less frizz, less damage from combing your hair after a shower, etc etc etc... I ESPECIALLY recommend cold water for people with curly, fine/straight, dyed or damaged hair. And I also recommend never brushing your hair after a shower unless you use a wetbrush and a detangling/conditioning/serum product in your hair or else you can end up ripping your hair without even feeling it/realizing it. If you have really bad split ends or frizzy ends, brushing your hair incorrectly when its wet might be the culprit!

Anyways TLDR; use cold water after apple cider vinegar rinses otherwise you'll only get like 15% of the benefits from the vinegar!

Why do I always

[Miniver]

I cannot recommend heartily enough rinsing your hair in a white vinegar/water mixture after your shampoo. About 1 part white household vinegar to 3 parts water. This helps remove any soap residue, closes the scales on hair strands for a glossy appearance, and it kills bacteria.

[NouriaDiallo]

Egg whites coagulate at 62°C, yolks at 68°C. There is no risk of scrambling eggs at 38°C the recommended temperature for kids bath, or any comfortable bathing temperature. You might want to sieve your beaten eggs to remove the coils, though.

[catherinejustcatherine]

I enjoyed this video.

I watched Bernadette's video about raw egg last year, and got curious. I didn't start washing my own hair with raw egg until reading the comments in depth of the Pretty Shepherd's hair care video.

Everyone has immensely different hair.

I use **very diluted egg** yolk to wash my hair once a week. I use a technique Emmymade taught to get the runny part of the yolk out of the its membrane. I don't wash with the whites. When I Googled it said they do something I didn't want at the time, so I make omelettes with them instead.

If anything, my hair is richer, softer, smoother & fuller than it was several months ago, when I began.

I only put the diluted mixture on my scalp, and only a dollop at a time, rubbing it in as thoroughly as possible, and, parting my hair in 3 or more places to get the best coverage. Then, I wind up my hair, and let it sink in for a few minutes.

I use very warm water to rinse (thoroughly), and, have never cooked the yolk, so far.

I don't use a finishing agent of any kind on my hair.
I have heard that apple cider vinegar is too harsh on hair, even diluted one tablespoon to one quart water, so, I stopped using it at all.

[SewSewDrew]

I have zero desire to put egg in my hair. But it was really fun watching you do it!

[redrumax]

i thought i will go bald. 3 days of egg yolk, olive and rosemary oil and next was only lost about 5 hairs when i used to lose a handful

[latassedethe]

victorian : So, how do i clean my hair ?
his probably drunked french friend : omelette

[roastedpepper]

This is how my mom washed my hair in the USSR when I was a kid, until I was about 8 when we moved to the US. Though I think she used just the egg yolks… I’m gonna have to ask her. It’s so interesting, reading the various comments, that so many different cultures used the same thing!

[wonton.soup.]

This is really cool! I've been worried about my hair health for a while now, and a month or so ago I gave myself a buzzcut after having long-ish hair to try and start over with more care and attentiveness. I'm definitely going to try this out, hopefully it works out well! The people in the comments seem pleased so I'm optimistic. Subscribed :))