Swathy

From the Archives : Turn your regular shampoo into a homemade herbal shampoo {DIY}

Swathy · September 1, 2013 · 22 Comments

Today, I would be sharing with you a recipe which I have been using for long for my hair and believe me, it has done wonders. I no longer believe in buying hair products according to your needs like a hair fall shampoo as a solution to hair loss or a damage repair shampoo for a heat burnt hair. I have got rid of these things using simple home remedies and I would suggest you to practice them regularly to see quick and long lasting results. You can use tomato repair the dry dull hair or fenugreek for hair loss. ~~If you feel like, you can top your treatment with such fancy hair products too. They might do you some good, who knows!!!~~

Coming back to the topic, the recipe is very simple.

Ingredients (practically everything you think is good for hair and worth boiling in water)

– Indian Gooseberry (fresh or sun-dried amla)

– fenugreek seeds and leaves (methi)

– curry leaves

– sage leaves / basil leaves (tulsi)

– hibiscus flower and leaves

– mehendi leaves (henna)

– jasmine flowers and leaves

– rose petals

– lavender and rosemary flowers (if available)

Method
Soak ~~them~~ all the ingredients in two liters of water overnight. Boil next morning till water remains half of the original quantity. Let the water cool and strain. You can use this directly as a shampoo but it would not lather and I don’t know if it removes the oil completely. And, you might not get satisfied with it.

So, take a fresh clean bottle. Pour your regular shampoo to a one-third quantity of the bottle. And, pour this liquid over it. Shake well. Your herbal shampoo is ready. ~~Do not worry about diluting your shampoo. It is good for you as less number of chemicals are applied on your hair and your shampoo lasts longer.~~

This shampoo works better than the regular shampoo. And, it will definitely give better results than the regular application. Do not judge it until you try this out. It might sound weird to some people. But, if you have ever heard, many people advice that one should dilute the shampoo with water to decrease the harshness of chemicals on the hair. I will request you all to give it a try.

You can use a shampoo sachet for a trial. And, then, you can decide for your own self whether this shampoo will suit you or not. And, it surely does help in hair growth too.

Words of Caution
Please refrain from using any ingredient, which you already know, you will be allergic to. If you want to dye your hair some color, you can continue with using henna leaves. But, remember that though henna is conditioning for hair, it is extremely drying too. So, you can skip it.

You may put some green tea ~~(or your favorite flavor)~~ too in the boiling water. Do not add anything which has short shelf life as it will spoil the whole recipe like lemon peels, soapnuts or shikakai. Use them fresh. You can use lemon juice as a hair rinse for shine. But, lemon causes hair to get dry. So, you might want to try out other remedies for shiny hair.

Have you tried something like this ever?

Vaadi Herbals Aromatherapy Body Oil Pure Lemongrass and Lily Oil {Product Review}

Swathy · August 29, 2013 · 6 Comments

I simply love body oils and this one is fast growing on me. Though I don’t like the fact that it gets finished off too soon for me, it sure smells really fresh and lemongrass-y. I love the citrus-y smell which hits the nose as soon as you open the bottle.

The fragrance is strong but not overly so which does make me a bit suspicious if it is natural or not. I have never actually smelled lemongrass essential oil, hence, my suspicions. I have had bergamot though it wasn’t this strong. But, it was equally refreshing!

Pros

gets absorbed easily

smells refreshing

moisturizes the skin well

cute packaging

Anyways coming back to the product, it comes in a cute green bottle with a stopper. You have to pierce the stopper but I, being lazy, chucked it out altogether. Don’t do that because then you don’t really know how much of the product is enough for one use.

Due to that issue, earlier I used to end up using a bit too much of the oil but then slowly I decreased to using around 5-10 drops of oil for each body part. Applied on damp skin, the product gets absorbed really easily and moisturizes the skin well.

Cons

doesn’t do anything for the tan and blemishes as it claims!

can be sticky if overused

smell might get too strong for sensitive noses

I won’t say that it made my skin glow or remove the tan or did what it claims but it is definitely worth a try. I think a 100ml would last around a month of usage. And, the price is decent for the quantity.

Price: Rs 65 for 50ml

Availability

Website: Vaadi Herbals, Flipkart

PS: Product provided by brand.

Have you used this product?

Get from flipkart:

Blogging Series Vol. 13 – How to improve traffic on the blog?

Swathy · August 28, 2013 · 11 Comments

So, if you follow me on the blog’s facebook page, you would have seen a particular status update. Actually what it was about was something on these lines.

Just day before yesterday, I was talking to my colleague. He was asking my opinion on a launcher or landing page he had created for his sister’s upcoming food blog. And, we got talking about blogging. Suddenly he asks me if I blog and without thinking I give him an affirmative answer. Well, if you are not already aware, no one in my close friend or family circle knows about my hidden hobbies. So, he was obviously interested in the domain name and what I blog about when my self-preservation instinct took over and I kept my lips sealed.

But, then the topic moved to hosting of the blogs and everything when I told him it is too expensive actually to host the blog instead of using blogspot where you get away by paying 10$ a year. Well, actually, let me say that this is not necessarily true but we will debate over this in some other post coz its highly technical. But, the whole point he said was the entire costing depends on how much traffic the blog gets. I was like yeah that’s true! And, then, he asked me about this blog’s traffic. I was like its 5k right now but generally its 8k a day. And, he was like wow! that’s awesome. It must have taken a lot of work and many years. I was like yup. It did. 3 years almost and then I realize its gonna be 4 this December. So, yup, we have definitely hit a good threshold and its all thanks to all my lovely readers who make me blog.

Now, coming back to today’s blogging topic, how to get traffic and what are the principles. Actually, the blog hit a major snag this Independence Day weekend. The traffic had a spike drop from 8 to 5k a day and its not raising up even though I am doing all what I have been doing. Well, we can always say that it might have been excess of spam visits in such a case but whatever it be, it is quite disheartening. So, to avoid such downward spikes in the blog, you can do your own bit.

Write the Content in advance

This has to be the only principle of blogging if life was easy but unfortunately its not! But, still, its the 90% stakeholder. So, write and write and write and don’t copy or plagiarize or steal. Create! The content might deliver the same message but give it your own voice. Tweak it to your style. But, whatever you do, make it your own.

Blogging remains exciting in the starting but after a while it can become monotonous so try out some different ways or diversify your blog enough that you do not go out of your niche or specialization but it keeps you excited enough to keep writing. And, I have also mentioned some of the ways to overcome Blogger’s block sometime back. Keep a chunk of posts in the drafts which you can publish or schedule when you don’t feel like blogging.

Post regularly

Most of the bloggers are part-time! So, I would say daily but twice a week or thrice a week. Whatever you do but you should time your posts properly so that your readers get what they expect and a proper posting schedule gets registered with the search engines as well.

Of course, posting daily does keep the blog updated so it ranks higher in the searches. That is why you would find multiple posts on professionally managed blogs or community blogs. But, for a personal blog, it can be a bit ambitious to achieve. So, set targets which you can plausibly reach.

Here I would like to add that howsoever much you might try, sometimes its just not possible to put up the posts on a timely basis so expect a traffic crunch at that time. Do not be disheartened and keep trying. Also, scheduling of the posts works really well in such cases.

Spreading a Word

Publicizing your blog is obviously important. Use social platforms like facebook, google+, twitter to give regular updates. More your content is exposed, more traffic it gets. Now, this is something I totally suck at. I have hardly tried to publicize my blog and whatever meager efforts I have put have definitely borne results.

I have recently started posting status messages on the blog’s facebook page. But, let me also say that posting on blog’s facebook page is more to interact with your readers than to publicize the blog but that has also worked in my case. If you are using twitter or facebook groups, it then becomes a way to promote the blog to other audiences who do not know about your blog.

One of the simplest way to reach out is to comment on other blogs. But, always remember to leave a meaningful comment. No one likes to read great blog or this is amazing, follow me back! Create a relationship with the blogger. And, yes, it does take a long time so don’t be impatient.

So, I would again say that content is the key and it does take a bit of time to get faithful readers to the blog. And, stop comparing your blog to other blogs because they might be doing something which you are not and reaping those benefits. But, at the end of day, every blogger works hard whether it looks like it or not.

What do you say? How do you improve your blogs traffic and statistics?

Blogging Series Vol. 11 – Setting goals for the blog!

Blogging Series Vol. 9 – Reviving Old Posts!