By Karimah Bit Dawoud,

Qualified Clinical Nutritionist and Award winning Cook Book Writer.

What we forget is that the skin is the biggest organ of the body, with a surface area of 1.5- 2 metre squared, woman/man. That’s a lot of surface area that absorbs and detox whatever we put in our bodies and what we put on our bodies, as well as the environment around us, seen and unseen. Phew!

As more scientist become whistle blowers and more research is done on chemicals that we are sold for hygiene and cosmetic purposes, more and more of us are saying “if we can’t eat it then it’s not going on our body!”.

This attitude is gaining traction much to the dismay of cosmetic companies, with Alicia Keys debunking her makeup bag for fresh face beauty and more and home people returning to the traditional ways of making beauty products at home.
There is also a true feminist stance that is commanding “accept my natural beauty as a woman, a real woman”
A few days ago we posted a hair food smoothie that feeds hair, skin, nails and bones from the inside out. We also gave reasons that hair could be thinning including menopause, hormonal issues, male balding , thyroid and stress.
This hair mask, feeds the hair from the outside in.
Today’s inspiration came from a post we saw today citing egg, beer, honey and banana for hair re-growth, the die-hard Muslim that we are , not really happy sticking beer on our heads. We would have to buy it for a start and that’s not a good look for a hijaabi , lol going into a shop to buy a can of beer.

Hmmm beer is fermented … so we googled “banana, honey, vinegar hair growth “ and came up with this amazing video from TomisColourPavilion on Youtube.
It looked like an interesting possibility and seeing as today is am supposed to be a rest day, ha-ha very funny, we thought we would start doing some papaper sessions, using Karimah’s Cuisina for outer health as well as inner beauty.
I was tempted to add some rosemary and thyme oils as I’m currently study aromatherapy but my sisters told me to take one step at a time as I sit here with a head full of the most amazing tropically fragrances around me. It making me feel as sweet as Meriemme maashallah. Lol whose Meriemme maashallah? That’s another story.

So let’s go.
HAIR MASK

INGREDIENTS
• 3 soft bananas
• 1 tablespoon of each
• ACV apple cider vinegar
• Honey, the best you can afford and give thanks to Allah for the bees and bee keepers
• Coconut oil, you can get raw organic from Aldi very cheaply
• Castor oil, West Indian from the Asian shops
• Olive oil, once again the best you can afford you have to start somewhere
METHOD
• Get yourself a big bowl and hand held blender or put all ingredients directly in the blender
• Measure out all ingredients starting with honey first as you don’t want to stick a spoon with oil on it, into the honey jar.
• Give your hair and good brush first, especially if its curly tangled
• Blend and apply to your hair in sections
• Start with front hair line and go round the back
• Divide your hair down the centre parting and apply from front to back
• Then divide hair from ear to ear over the top and apply along this parting as well
• Your hair should now be divided into 4 section
• Divide each section roughly and apply mask
• If the weather is warm like now, just twist up with your hair and leave on as long as possible without washing off
• If the weather is cold put a plastic cap on to retain the head of your hair
• We cannot tell you about the end results as this is the first time but we can tell you this
• Honey, olive oil and bananas are all mentioned in the Quran and are sacred foods
• Castor oil is taken from the gourd tree which was the tree that Jonah was flung at as he was spat out of the whale
• Vinegar is mentioned in the sunnah, prophet Muhammad (salah la alaihi wa salem), said that vinegar was the best condiment and he ate it alone with bread
• So all in all pretty special ingredients which will not do you any harm except maybe if you have kidney problems, in that case use only 1 small banana instead of 3, as they are high in potassium which is hard for some people to ingest.
• For now all we can say is keep on watching this totally tropical space
• Alhmdulilah praise Allah.