Hey everyone Kayley your friendly neighborhood hairstylist here and today we are fact checking all of these viral videos about rice water lets go Hello welcome in It’s Friday, I have gone full at leisure just to take a nice little respite If you’re watching the day that this goes up you’re also watching on Friday and thank goodness guys It’s almost the weekend If you’re new here My names Kayley, I love to teach you guys how to style your hair but I also love to teach you the science.
Behind hair care every now and then to help you guys really take advantage of everything that you’re doing when it comes to hair Today we are fact checking because I have seen so many videos on social media and I bet you have too of all these different rice water concoctions I mean Essentially, people are putting rice in water and they’re doing a lot of different preparations, but at the end they’re applying that water to their hair and claiming that its going to help with hair growth,.
Shine and elasticity among Other things Now I don’t take hair growth claims lightly at all There is a wealth of misinformation out there for people trying to sell some snake oil to well-meaning blog posts And I want to make sure that I am really basing this on science so I went through and read as many journal articles as possible and I’m gonna be citing those.
In the description box below So this is gonna be a very science-based review Were really gonna put on our glasses and be ready for some hair-nerd talk But I think it’s really gonna be helpful because we’re gonna talk about some things that are really good just to look for in haircare in general So next time you’re shopping in the store this information might help you Or if you want to try out rice water this information will help you So I’m excited Let’s jump in Now I’m gonna be honest, I see a lot of DIY concoctions come across.
My different platforms and I just usually keep swiping away because it’s not usually that good But this one caught me because of its host Or The beginning of the game of telephone that has created all of these different social media rice water recipes is the recipes that the Red Yao women in China created that they have been using for thousands of years on their hair And when we look at this community Their hair is all.
At least four feet long, down to their ankles It is lust rousit is shiny and it stays, jet black until they’re 80Like no grays until eighties And that that was interesting because I do understand there can definitely bee genetic factors there that are really enhancing that hair growth and everything But if they have honed this recipe over thousands of years and they are attributing that beautiful growth to it There might actually be something to it Now I think it’s super important whenever we talk about something that is a cultural heritage.
Or tradition that we don’t just look at it and say Oh that’s useful and fun let me take that But we take a minute to actually understand and respect and learn about the culture and history that’s created it And then if have been invited in we can participate Thankfully the Red Yao Women have been sharing their recipes with anybody that comes to the village I think we are welcomed in So let’s learn a little bit more about it So broadly The Yao are one of the 55 recognized racial minorities in China There are about 2 million and they span.
Over the continent of Asia Essentially over the course of a few thousand years through different wars and uprisings they’ve really migrated quite a bit and they are agricultural communities so they tend to cluster End each of those different communities has their own history and traditions So today we’re talking specifically about the Red Yao community and their specific traditions They’re called the Red Yao because of the clothes that they wear Their handwoven and embroidered.
It takes months and years to make and a beautiful red color Thus, red They also have super strong traditions around the hair in their community Obviously the riche-water haircare is a big part of it, but they also have a few things around like when hair is cut and how it’s worn For example They only cut their hair once in their lives Its incredibly symbolic It happens during your coming of age ceremony at age 18.
And then that hair is collected and kept because you use it later in different hairstyles in your life So when you’re single you wear your hair on top of your head with a scarf over it because men are not allowed to see a single lady’s hair Once you’re married, then the hair comes out and a married woman’s hairstyle is all this massive like twisted wrap around the head Almost kind of like we do crown braids, but just a massive twisted bun And they help create that fullness.
By using the hair that was cut when they were 18 years old to really fill it out And then they secure it with just a comb Like they really said Nobody pin challenge who A comb for all of that hair and it stays up and they work throughout the day and it’s there I am impressed Then when a married woman has children, she gets her next hairstyle, which includes a little bun up at the front and a second bundle of hair If you will.
And that is all the hair that has been collected from her comb throughout her life So if you’ve seen that girl on TikTok that’s like saving each of her hairs so she can document like how many hairs she loses each day and stuff It’s similar to that They keep it they have it in a bundle And then they add that in for their married-lady bun hairstyle Le It is very much kind of original extensions Its beautiful and its been passed down through their culture for years and years and years.
Their community primarily farms rice and tea and I think it’s very cool that rice and tea are both major ingredients in their hair water and their hair is also washed in the brook adjacent to their village which is already better than what we have going on because the water is a fresh spring Its unpolluted I’m assuming its nice and soft and great for the hair.
So the I already have that going for them In this community hair symbolizes beauty and denotes longevity and prosperity basically the longer the hair The more luck And generally within this community there is a rich folklore of strength and empowerment for the women And it’s really beautiful to see that hair is something that connects you to your cultural past Its something that connects you to the community around you Its the way that you tell people about yourself.
It’s a way now of actually bringing me Net into the village because tourists come in to see the women and to see their hair And therefore its actually bringing economic expansion to their community So its just so intertwined I feel like rice water is this tiny chip on this beautiful giant iceberg So I had to talk about it for a second because its so beautiful I’m going to link some more videos down below if you want to learn more about these women.
I was so enraptured I spent an entire day just on that Now lets actually look at the ingredients The Red Yao women have been generous enough to share their ingredient mixture with the world So lets take a look at what they’ve been telling people I do need to note that each family has their own kind of like secret concoction and secret ingredients.
So we don’t have those disclosed which is totally fine with me like absolutely But this is like the base that everybody works off of First off they have natural spring water which is a fantastic base Next we have rice, which they actually farm On the launching terraces on which they live I took a look to see what kind of rice is grown in this area and widely its Indica rice.
Which is a little bit more long grain And you would be looking for kind of Jasmine or Basmati Next they use pomelo or I have a grapefruit Pomelo is a citrus fruit that is a very close sister to grapefruit So if you can’t get your hands on pomelo this is a very good substitute Next they use fleece flower root which is also known as for it or he Shaw Wu I’m always doing my Best with these pronunciations, but please forgive me if Im not quite accurate This is a traditional Chinese medicinal You can probably find it a local Asian market.
Or health food store, or definitely online The next ingredient is tea bran because their village grows both rice and Long jing tea They have a lot of brand is carded in the process of making tea and that’s what they use in the hair mixture Unfortunately in the U S its not quite easy to find tea bran if you can, definitely use it, I research Ed what kind of benefits are in tea bran.
And found that very similar ingredients and benefits can be found in tea seed oil So that’s what I’m gonna recommend for communities that have a hard time finding tea bran Do not mix it up with tea tree oil that is very different And final ginger So that is the history, those are the ingredients Now I think it’s time to break down the ingredients and use the scientific journals and research that we have at our disposal to see what things we can definitely see That these ingredients do for our hair.
Because clearly there’s a lot of anecdotal evidence of how great this is for the Red Yao women I would like to understand exactly what benefits we can expect based on what research we have on the matter So very first of allwe have the main characterrice Were gonna talk a lot about her becauseMain character So I guess actually what I need to note first.
Is that when we talk about hair growth because that is one of the biggest claims here When we talk about hair growth there are a lot of factors that go into hair growth You’ve got the nutrition that you are ingesting You’ve got hormones that are going on within your body That can be everything from stress to just your body’s natural balance You’ve got scalped health because that is where your hair grows So you obviously want.
That being very healthy And then you’ve got your hair strength All four of those come together to create good hair growth Today were only gonna be discussing two of those Scalp health And hair-strength, health Keep in mind also that things that you can ingest that will help with hair growth do not always help topically Biotin is a really good example of that Biotin taken orally can do really great things.
For hair growth Applied topically it doesn’t do anywhere near as much And so we’re going to be looking exclusively at how these ingredients react topically And because we’re talking about things that are edible lets go ahead and take all of the ideas of what we have digestively for these out of the picture Like rice It’s a starch, it’s blahblahblahout of the picture It doesn’t matter,.
Was applying it topically okay cool Okay, so I wanna start with hair strand health I had a little bit of a hard time finding the information I was looking for And then finally it clicked and I was so excited First We know that rice protein is between 60 and 3000 Daltons What the heck does that mean? That is the weight of the protein And it helps us to know the size of it.
Smaller The more likely it is to actually go into the hair and have reparative properties inside the hair cortex The largerthe more likely it is to really do a coating around the hair and give a nice smoothouter layer which will help with shineBut also protection of the inside of the hair, which is gonna help with things like reduced surface friction because your comb is gonna be able to go more easily.
And nicely through your hair So less breakage from just friction working against it But we also know with that enhanced protein that you get more elasticity in your hair So that means when your homes going through and it hits a snarl Your hair is more likely to stretch and going back into place a little bit And we want that because when your hair stretches and Boings It doesn’t break.
And that way we’re keeping these hair strands getting nice and long We want as many getting to the Finish Line as possible The more at the Finish Line, the thicker your hair looks Moving on to the next benefit of rice This one I loved this study honestly It’s not that hard to read All of them will be linked below take a look at it They decided to take a look at two different antioxidants They used rice and then they used artichoke leaves Apparently.
And they found that rice actually did a really great job of protecting care against UV damage I actually found this article to be so helpful for me because Id have a hard time visualizing what UV damage means for hair They were evaluating things like protein loss lipid lossless of shine the texture of the hair cuticle the tensile strength or the elastic city of the hair And what we saw across the board is that UV radiation or essentially like bangs plus the sublots of it Caused damage in all of those areas of hair.
But hair treated with rice showed significantly less of those damages and in some arenas it actually looked healthier after having been treated with the rice and the UV than it was before anything happened to it I actually want to pop up this image that they have the cuticle layers Just so you can see the difference So you have the beginning, one that hasn’t been treated You can see a little bit of cuticle.
Kind of fraying up a little bit That’s gonna mean that you’re gonna lose a little bit of shine when the cuticle frays up You’re gonna have more tangles and the hair inside like the cortex inside is gonna be a lot more open for damage So now lets look at the hair that has 36 hours of UV exposure Boom see all the cuticles that are raised More That’s just from UV exposure Nothing else was added to that.
No like heat styling or brushing or anything like that That’s just from the sun But then if we take a look at the hair strand that was treated with rice boom it is smooth Nothing is frayed Nothing is sticking up Everything is taking a nice little nap and laying down and that’s what we want That’s how you get shine That’s how you protect the hair on the inside.
That’s how you keep it strong Like this makes me so excited So based on this study, rice does great things for the hair strand and those claims that people are making of increased elasticity and shine definitely have scientific basis Rice is also full of amino acids and there are some studies Though I do need to note, these studies were done for cosmetic companies that wanted a certain result.
So the big piece of salt with this, but there are studies that have shown that when hair is damaged it loses its core amino acids And then when you put those amino acids back in it restraightens the hair like it wasn’t damaged before So rices have a lot of the key amino acids you would need for that process Including cystine which makes up about one quarter hairs protein So that’s very important.
So, assuming that there was no bias in the study, we could assume that we would be able to replenish lost hair nutrients with rice as well And that is what it does for the hair strand Basically strengthening, protecting shining and smoothing all the things that we want All the things that all of the shampoo commercials say they do That’s exciting, love that knowledge So I found a few studies that looked at the effects of rice bran applied to the scalp and they were able to find that it can actually.
Elongate the antigen phase of your hair You might not totally understand what I just said, but it’s very exciting So your antigen phase is the growth phase of hair It determines exactly how long your hair can get So the longer your antigen phase the longer your hair can get perhaps up to four feet, down to your ankles Your typical antigen phase is gonna last from three to five years Up to seven And your typical hair growth for the average person within a year is about six inches.
So you can do the math If you have a shorter antigen cycle, you would only be able to grow your hair so long And some of you guys might actually be running into that Whereas if you have a longer antigen cycle your hair would be able to grow longer So there are studies here that show that it is possible for rice Bran extracts to actually increase the length of your antigen phase and therefore increase.
The amount of your hair output Now another study that I found showed that rice bran extract can actually really help in melanogenesis Which is essentially the creation of melanin We know melanin is in the skinhelps give it its color, but its also in our hair and gives our hair its color Enhanced melanogenesis would mean that we would have more pigment-full hair for longer So hypothetically no grays till eighty Yes, I love that so far science has completely backed up this cultural tradition Now there is one caveat that I want to make of all this.
Just a really quick note on this one is Kayley Hi I’m basing this off of the articles that I’ve read but this is my conjecture I think given all of this Especially given that the last two studies were based on rice bran extract I think if we want to get the full benefits of what I’ve just said its gonna be really good.
To use brown rice because brown rice has the bran already still attached on the outside Its what makes rice, brown Once you mull that off it becomes white rice White rice instead brown rice in case you didn’t know But everything that’s discarded in that process becomes Brown And that is where all of the nutrients are So I’m gonna say that given that a lot of us.
Is gonna using this like a once-off treatment? Like a deep conditioner, maybe once a week I think it’s a good idea to go straight for the brown rice and really make sure that you’re gettingGall the benefits that I just talked about Instead ofI think its almost a fifth or a six of the nutrients from white rice I did notice that the Red Yao women use white rice My hypothesis that is that they’re doing it.
Once to twice a week for their entire lives And so it might be a little bit more watered down, but it is consistent And I think that those benefits would still be available to them Its just more like a daily conditioner kind of situation as opposed to a deep conditioner And I tHim because this is not going to become my daily treatment I want it to be more of like a one-off really powerful treatment hence brown rice Okay I told you she’s the main character.
We had to talk a lot about herbut wow In my mindrice is a starch that I really really love, but I need to limit because health reasons that may or may not be right I’m not a dietician But for the hair it does a lot There is so much in it And I’m very very excited about all of the different possibilities that it has, I meant only in this mixture, but just for cosmetics as a whole But moving on to the supporting characters We’ve got grapefruit Now she is full of vitamins C.
But vitamin C is also very unstable, so I’m pretty sure at home mixing this up in our Mason jars were not gonna be able to stabilize it enough to benefit from that part of it However it is also anti-microbial, it is also an antioxidant it is also anti-fungal all good things It smells good were gonna need that And it plus the fermentation The hat needs to be done is going to add a little bit of a cleansing property to it.
So it is a very good co-wash You are both cleansing and conditioning and treating your hair at the same time We love I am gonna mention this now The Red Yao women deferment their rice water and that is incredibly important That is what brings out the vitamins and amino acids and proteins in this concoction Like that’s what we need And if you don’t ferment it.
You are not getting all of the goodness so PSA Okay tea oil not to be confused with tea tree oil Very different things This one has very similar benefits to rise You get protection from UV damage we love, We get increased elasticity, its antimicrobial and you know its moisturizing I’ve got some lipids in there Your hair loves lipids We got it The dark horse that nobody saw coming.
The girl that was kind of cute at night one, but didn’t get a lot of screen time and then is suddenly the front runner in the season of The Bachelor fo-ti root And this is Ive already mentioned very popular in Chinese medicine I found some really exciting studies on this one Buggle the heck up There is strong Strong evidence for enhancing hair growth You wanna know why? You wanna know why? I’m so excited about this.
It induces the antigen phase I find that incredibly exciting, but the study also showed that it increased the number and size of hair follicles, which is also great So more hair thicker hair Those are big claims And so have seen it in one study in precisely ideal conditions Were gonna be doing this at home Concocting it ourselves So lets not go too crazy with the expectations, but there is some scientific basis for awesomeness there.
And finally we have ginger I thought this one was gonna go great This one is kind of known to be a good topical hair-growth stimulant Oh boy was I wrong Found a study that decided to check it for hair growth stimulus And they took Gingerol six which is like the key ingredients in ginger and found that not only does it inTo stimulate hair growth it actually inhibits hair growth The conclusion of the study was that it should be researched more as a hair remover because there is a possibility that it would be good.
For that and could then be used in products to remove hair So this is getting nowhere near my rice water Like heck no techno we are and not putting that on my head Nopenot even a little bit I’m gonna make wellness shots with that not putting it in my rice water Oh guys that was so much, but I am really excited about what I found and Im very Very excited about this But as far as fact-checking TikToks specific.
I have some things to say First of all I didn’t see a lot of people calling out the Red Yao tradition behind rice water And I would love to see more of that That’s why I spent some time on it in my video kind of disseminate it out to the internet so more people can talk about this amazing culture beyond even just what we’re able to do with rice water But also I did notice that in a lot of it His videos it was kind of like a game of telephone Like We had the original recipe and then it, kind of.
Morphed over time to like over here have got somebody putting rice and water in a Mason jar, shaking it up and dumping it on their head All completely well-intentioned just a very good example of things that can happen on the internet So some of them were a little bit more accurate to the original recipe than others and therefore more accurate to the claims than others But overall when we take It’s back and we look at the actual traditional method of preparation there is a lot of scientific basis for it.
And for the claims behind it So I find that really really exciting and real really promising So I hate to do this to you but I feel like have already talked a whole lot in today’s video If you’re like me You’re feeling a little dizzy right now from all the information And so I’m gonna come back in part two and I’m going to show you how I put this recipe together and trying it out on me Hair and give you just the experiential feedback on how it goes If you have any questions after this video.
Please leave them in the comments Ill incorporate it into that video so I can make sure we hit as many points as we need to over the course of this little tiny mini series’ cause I think there might be a part three where I show you like the cumulative results of using it several several times cause II want to use it now I’m very very Very excited that this point.
With that said I think we are about at the end of today’s video If you enjoyed it Please hit that like a button Help support my channel helps support all the hours of research that went into this video Maybe share it with a friend who needs to know a little bit more about hair growth or you can try the rice water method with you If you’re new here hit the subscribe button We do so many fun things here.
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Because it’s my favorite – This is the Anna Lauras favorite hoodie this is Anna Lauras favorite pullover – It is – And she’s allowing me graciously to wear it today Thank you sister – Cause I’m the best sister ever