How To Make Fab Flaxseed Gel For Curly Hair

Looking for a natural gel to give your curls some hold?

Heard good things about DIY flaxseed hair gel?

Ever tried it?

If not you’re in for a treat.

Even better once you get a routine down this is so easy to make and cheap too!

You may well discover that the little bit of time it takes to go homemade is so worth it.

To help we dug up pretty much everything you need to know to start enjoying the benefits of flaxseed gel like:

Quick Section Navigation

• VIDEO: Simple Homemade Flaxseed Hair Gel Recipe For Curly Hair
• VIDEO: How To Strain Flaxseed Gel
• How To Store Flaxseed Gel to Make It Last Longer
• Reusing Flaxseed For More Gel
• Does Flaxseed Gel Smell?
• How Long Does It Take To Make Flaxseed Gel?

Simple Homemade Flaxseed Hair Gel Recipe For Curly Hair

From our research seems everyone has their favorite DIY recipe for making flaxseed gel.

They vary the amount of seeds, water or length of time the seeds are left on the boil.

Differences can result in a thinner or thicker gel. Which is why it’s best to play around until you find what produces gel that can be used the way you like to use it.

This video is a good starting point for how to do it. Tweak as you will from there.

The basic recipe you’ll find many places online is:

• Quarter cup of whole flaxseeds
• 2 cups water

If you want a smaller batch cut that in half or 2 tablespoons flaxseed and 1 cup water.

• Pour water into a pan on high heat
• Mix to submerge the seeds
• Stir as you bring to boil
• Lower the heat
• Keep it frothy for about 5-10 minutes or long enough to get a mucus trail forming stirring the whole time
• Turn heat off – continue stirring
• Strain

Not quite the same as in the video but not that different either.

Literally demands less than five minutes of attention. Easier to make than a frozen TV dinner.

You may find if you soak the seeds overnight it’s even faster.

So that’s how you make flaxseed gel!

A few other tips?

Note this uses whole seeds – not ground not roasted.

Strain IMMEDIATELY. The gel will continue to thicken and at some point become next to impossible to separate from the seeds.

Don’t worry if you don’t get all the gel. You’re going to dump the seeds and all back into the pot, add another cup of water and repeat the process. You can use the seeds up to three times.

Some wonder if brown or golden flax seeds work best. Use brown flax seeds. Golden ones produce less gel.

It’s also a good idea to clean up your work space immediately. The longer you let this stuff sit on your counter top, stove, or even the pots and stirring spoon the more work it will take to get it off.

Remember …

This is 100% natural. So no worries about the ingredients.

It’s 100% chemical free, fragrance free, and cruelty free.

Plus it’s 100% curly girl approved – if that matters to you.

The gel by itself is fine and works just fine.

But like Susie we noticed some like to enhance it one of two ways:

• By using essential oils trying to push out the expiration date or for the scent.
• By adding other hair product ingredients like Jamaican Black Castor oil to get your hair to feel soft and silky.

There. That should be enough to bring you up to speed on the how to make it part.

How To Strain Flaxseed Gel

Now you may have heard there’s a problem with straining the gel to separate it from the seeds.

Fact is some may be making it out to be a bigger deal than it is.

Admittedly it can be challenging. Especially if you don’t get to it right away. As the gel will continue to thicken as it cools and will reach a point where straining is next to impossible. Just saying.

So you saw how to strain using a strainer in the video above. Easy, right?

Another common way is to squeeze it through pantyhose BEFORE letting it cool like this:

So

• Stretch the panty hose over your jar
• Pour the mixture in – seeds and all
• Remove the pantyhose and squeeze the gel out

As you can see you can also use tongs to get all the gelatinous goodie possible outta each batch.

If straining isn’t your thing just for giggles here’s two other gel separating tricks.

For one you could try sticking the seeds in a tea ball strainer sometimes referred to as infusers.

They come in different sizes and are often found in Asian stores. Maybe like this or this one from Amazon which holds four tablespoons.

Just fill the ball with your flax seeds, lock it tight, then drop it into the boiling water.

When boiled just take the ball out then drain the gel into your storage container or ice cube trays. (More on that next.) No muss. No fuss.

Or if you have a deep enough fine mesh strainer you could simply put that in the boiling water. Then dump the seeds into the strainer making sure they’re submerged, and wait for the mucus to form.

Remove the strainer remove the seeds. Easy peasy.

How To Store Flaxseed Gel to Make It Last Longer

Next up should be the how to best to store flaxseed gel question so it lasts longer.

At the least you most definitely want to keep this refrigerated in an air tight container. Because leaving it at room temp is only inviting it to go bad faster.

But even at that about two weeks is the MOST you can expect from this stuff even if you try to preserve it in the fridge. And that’s at the outside. 10 days may be more on the safer side.

HINT: It’s always to good idea to take a whiff BEFORE APPLYING to see if it’s unexpectedly hit its expiration date sooner than expected. Don’t want to put anything funky smelling on your hair, right?

Now some will recommend you use Optiphen as a preservative. And you can certainly do that.

But for what it costs on Amazon, and I’ll link to it on Amazon here, it may not make sense given how quick and easy this stuff is to make once you get the hang of it.

But assuming by “last longer” you mean by any means necessary, well, the best way of preserving it would be to freeze your latest batch in an ice cube tray.

Yep!

Once frozen you can pop out those cubes of lusciousness and stash them in a zip lock freezer bag.

Repeat until the entire batch is safely frozen and stashed.

Then just take out a cube or two and thaw as needed. Grab the number you need, depending on how long your hair is obviously, and leave them in the fridge overnight.

Guess you could always speed the process up the next morning in the mic though too. Thawing them for 10 second intervals and then giving it time to cool down before application

Others say they simply take the cubes in with them into the shower. Holding them in a plastic bag under the hot shower if need be to melt them back into their gooey state.

Oh and in case you’re wondering freezing doesn’t affect the consistently.

But whatever you do when it comes to storing this goop, don’t be this girl. 🙂 Too funny.

Just shows what can happen if you wait too long and let it get too thick.

• A solution for her would have been to dump the gel into a baggie or ziplock bag.
• Cut out a corner of the bag.
• Squeeze the bag and the gel effortlessly flows out into your squeeze bottle or whatever storage container you want.

Reusing Flaxseed For Even More Gel

Most miss out on as much as half of the gel potential of their seeds. Wasting an opportunity to store even more curly styling goodness away for future use.

How’s that?

They don’t reuse the seeds they just boiled.

Smart divas know that not unlike a tea bag you can often get two uses out of the seeds. Some just stick ‘em in the fridge for later. Other prefer to freeze ‘em and thaw before round two.

But since you’ve got things all ready to go again, why not just repeat the process while you’re at it?

How much mileage you can get out of your seeds probably depends on the quality. Dunno for sure. But some claim a batch of flax seeds can be used to create gel like three times!

Here’s one way to do it …

What some do is create a batch. Strain.

Create a second batch with the same seeds. Strain and mix with the first.

Create a third batch – same seeds. Strain. Then mix with the rest.

Yes the third try’s gel output may be a bit thinner. But by mixing them all together you’ve got an over consistency that is still pretty fabulous.

Then freeze it all and you’re good to go for a good long while.

One other concern some have is…

Does Flaxseed Gel Smell?

No. You shouldn’t notice much of a scent at all.

Typically there’s just the hint of any odor when wet. Then once dry you won’t detect any smell at all.

Finally

How Long Does It Take To Make Flaxseed Gel?

Following the approach in the Curly Susie’s video above and it’s about 5 minutes. 10 minutes tops. Then you’re good for a least two weeks. Longer if you freeze it.

Again, it’s so super easy to make once you get the hang of it.

The small amount of time it takes to make it is so worthwhile

Anyway you may find that flaxseed gel is indeed nothing short of amazing. If you haven’t tried it yet, why not give it a try and see what it can do for your hair? Maybe you too will become a flaxseed gel kind of gal!

If you want more DIY ideas like this be sure to follow our curly hair board on Pinterest so you don’t miss even one curl inspiring tip or trick.