I’ve tried out another old homemade shampoo recipe: the 1893 glycerin-lime juice-shampoo. 😀

It says: ‘Occasionally the hair may be cleaned with a mixture of glycerine and lime juice.’ (Manual Of Useful Information, 1893) But the Victorian instructions don’t tell how much lime juice and glycerin to use. So I’ve just used a 1,5:1 ratio which may be wrong. As I feared the shampoo would be too runny like other Victorian and Edwardian shampoos I already tried, I’ve added some starch this time.

Ingredients:

• 150ml lemon juice
• 100ml glycerin
• 2 teaspoons starch

I’ve cooked the lemon juice with starch, and later added the glycerin.

With the starch, the consistency of the shampoo was better. The shampoo had a wonderful, strong lemon smell. The washed and still wet hair also had a slight citrus scent, but the scent was gone when the hair was dry. Directly after washing my hair, I thought what a wonderful shampoo: 😉 my hair looked fluffy and clean as if washed with store-bought shampoo. But when the hair was air-dried, it looked very greasy. However, after a throrough combing, the greasy look was gone, and the hair looked clean, but as if I’d used a bit too much hairspray! 😉 The shampoo makes very voluminous hair. But I don’t like to use the shampoo again, as it needs so much glycerin and lemon juice to clean the hair.