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Child: Welcome to my Mommy’s podcast.
Katie: Hello and welcome to the Wellness Mama podcast. I’m Katie from wellnessmama.com and I am back today with Dr. Marisol to talk about castor oil for hair, how it can be helpful in creating thicker looking hair, lashes, brows, and so much more. If you aren’t familiar with her, Dr. Marisol is the world-renowned thought leader on all things castor oil and castor oil packs. With over a decade of experience in her clinical practice, she’s helped many people transform their lives through naturopathic medicine and through castor oil use. And out of necessity, she created simple, clean, and convenient ways to make castor oil usable in our daily lives, realizing that it can be messy and difficult to use. And so she simplified this process and created some products that really, really help and that are staples in my home and in my bathroom.
And in this episode, we talk about things like how to properly use castor oil for your hair. The myth that castor oil grows hair and what it actually does instead, the different types of castor oil and how they work differently, how to use which ones, what to know about lash serums, lash support, skin support, oil pulling, castor oil packs, and so much more. Dr. Marisol is a wealth of knowledge and an absolute joy to chat with. So let’s jump in. Marisol, welcome back. Thank you for being here again.
Marisol: Thank you. I’m so excited. Hair is a hot topic these days. So especially with castor oil.
Katie: Absolutely. And I will link to, we’ve actually had several previous conversations on this podcast. I will link to all of those in the show notes. If you guys are listening for the first time with Marisol, we’ve had such fun conversations, but in this one, I really am excited to learn and go deep with you on the topic of castor oil specifically for hair, because this is actually how I first learned about castor oil was when I was having thyroid issues and I felt like my whole eyebrow had fallen out and I was researching ways to help bring my eyebrows back and nourish my skin, which was dry and came across castor oil. And it led to what’s been now a decade long, beautiful journey with this. And then I’ve learned even more since meeting you. But I guess to start broad, let’s talk about castor oil as a support for hair. We covered it in depth for skin in our last episode, but let’s shift and talk about castor oil and supporting our hair.
Marisol: Yeah. One of the myths I really want to bust here, because I had the opportunity and platform to do it, thank you, Katie, for having me, is that, you know, there’s a lot of misconception with castor oil and everyone is claiming that it helps to grow the hair. That really isn’t necessarily the case. What castor oil does do is it deeply nourishes and it richly, deeply, sorry, deeply hydrates and richly nourishes the hair, the root follicle, the shaft, and the tips and the ends.
And again, you know, the body is magic on its own. We don’t need to be forcing it to do different things. It knows what to do, but it just needs the right ingredients in order to be able to do that. And that’s where castor oil comes in. And mainly because, you know, there is no other oil like castor oil. Like castor oil is super rich in vitamin E. Castor oil also is a mix of omegas. So the similar omegas that you find in olive oil, olive oil has also been used for a beautified oil along the ages. You know, I remember Sophia Loren. Again, I might be dating myself. My mom loved Sophia Loren, but she owed olive oil to the beauty of her hair and her skin. Cleopatra loved her castor oil. Sophia Loren loved her olive oil. J-Lo loves her olive oil. So, you know, castor oil has these components of all the richest types of oils, including even sesame oil.
The benefit of castor oil is that castor oil is low on what’s called the comedogenic scale. And we talked about this on the last episode. But the comedogenic scale is its ability to block pores. So if you’re using other oils that block pores, such as things like coconut, sesame oil, all of those oils actually have a high comedogenic number. And if you’re adding that into your scalp, into your hair, well, then you’re probably going to be blocking the hair follicle and that could cause problems.
So that’s what we want to avoid. But with castor oil used in the hair, it doesn’t have those issues. And it really works on, you know, giving the hair what it needs in order to do its right job. So it’s not growing the hair. What it is doing is simply nourishing and helping to condition a hair that it could be brittle or heat damaged or dry. And, you know, it is just a super tool in the help for hair.
And not only that, like if there’s dryness of the scalp as well, too, because it is so deeply nourishing, like if people are having, you know, dandruff or white flakes coming in, it’s just like a super dry scalp. Again, castor oil will come and condition the scalp as well, too.
So I love it so much, but I’ve learned to work with it. And I think this is where people get worried about working with castor oil because common questions include like, you know, is it easy to get out of my hair? Right. Will it make my hair greasy? These are common questions. And what I’ve learned over time is, you know, number one, you need to know which castor oil is right for your hair type. And then less is more with castor oil. So those are two topics I want to cover here, because if you know this, then you know how to work with castor oil for your hair.
When it comes to the skin, we’re always using golden castor oil. No matter what type of skin color you have, it’s always golden. So if you’re doing you know, for your face, your eyebrows, your eyelashes, your oil pulling, your dry brushing, whatever you’re using castor oil for on your body or your skin, you’re using golden castor oil.
When you’re working with the hair on the head, it’s different. So if you have darker than olive skin, and kinky, curly, coily hair, then you’re going to be going and using black castor oil on the hair. If you have anything olive skin or lighter tone, you could have curly hair, you can have flat and straight hair, then you’re going to be using golden oil.
And it just has to do with the different, like, just the way that the hair is and the nature of it. Black castor oil actually is a burnt castor oil. So there’s actually an ash in it. And this ash makes it slightly more alkaline. And so it just is more supportive for people who have, you know, darker hair, more melanin. It just supports the body in that way.
So we’ve seen, and if you look traditionally, some traditional use cosmetically for the hair, in the South Indies and in India, black castor oil is used more for darker skin colors in the hair. Then again, golden for the skin. So that’s a little point that can be confusing for people, but it’s, it’s traditionally what’s used and we’ve kind of, we’ve stuck to that. Again, there’s no research that demonstrates yes or no, but we do have the eclectic use of the castor oil for that reason with the hair.
Now, how much do you put in your hair? Very, very little. Honest to goodness, a little goes a long way when it comes to castor oil in the hair. Like I literally use a dime to a quarter dollop in my hair. And I basically like I’ll take a dropper. I’ll put a dime size to a quarter size. I’ll move it all through my hands and through my tips. And then I’ll literally go over all of my roots. And then I go through the shafts of the hair. And then I focus any remnants that are left on the tips of my hair. And then what I created in order to make it easier and to almost create like a hot oil hair treatment of like the 80s and the 90s, do you remember those? Where the little pockets and you put them in water?
Katie: I do remember that. That was like middle school for me and like sneaking around my friends making a huge mess.
Marisol: A total mess. But with this, so what I did is I wanted to recreate that because I quite enjoyed the heat. And I don’t go into the sauna with mine like you do because that’s actually really smart. Like you put the castor oil in your hair and then you go into your sauna.
So if you don’t have a sauna or you don’t want to do it in that manner, what you can do is you can get one of our hair wraps. And our hair wraps are actually developed and designed. It isn’t a traditional like hair towel. It actually has an outside layer that protects from castor oil going anywhere because, again, castor oil can be messy. But it also serves in to hold in the heat. So it almost becomes like a little bit of a sauna for the head.
And what you do is literally you put the castor oil in your hair, and then you just take, I’m not doing it the right way, but I’ll do it as best I can for the video. You basically just take the wrapper, stuff all your hair in there. And of course my hair would have already had castor oil on it. And then I do this. This is like my favorite. I do this on Sunday.
So castor oil, again, going back to the less is more, you don’t need to do it repetitively during the week. Honestly, if you do a good hair oil treatment like once a week, it’s sufficient. Except if your hair is very damaged and very, very dry, well, then you might want to be, you know, maybe a couple times a week might be better indicator for you, but it really just depends on your, on your hair type.
For me, I don’t use a hot iron or curling iron very often. Honestly, the only, the last time I did was when we were at the last event a couple of weeks ago. And then when I came home, I’m like, I’m in need of my, my castor oil hair treatment. And I did the treatment and then my hair was back to normal and it was fine. And so like, I didn’t need to do it excessively.
So as long as you’re balancing those things out, this once a week is a great routine. I’ll sit there, you know, watch a movie or I’ll relax on my computer or I’ll just do a spa day, depending on how I’m feeling. And then, but this, this, I make it part of my practice every Sunday. And I’ve noticed a huge difference in my hair.
I started working with castor oil back in my like late twenties and thirties for the hair, much like you, it’s kind of like the first thing people hear. I remember even going to conferences later on as a naturopath and people from Russia, like there’s a big tradition in, in those countries of using castor oil and that for the hair. And I was like, wow, it really is one of those, one of those self-care practices that is like, expanded over the globe. Right. And really just depending on the geographical area that you’re from, you either use the golden or you, you use the black castor oil.
So for me, what was always my issue was that I could never grow my hair past this length. And I was like, oh, that’s so frustrating. But it would crack. It would go brittle. You know, then I would get flakes in my scalp. So just it would never grow. And it was really upsetting to me because I wanted to grow my hair now like it.
Now I choose to have my hair short like as you’ve known me for years now to have my hair short but before when we first met I had long hair so I choose to have it short because I just like the look on me. But now like I’m in between a haircuts, like my hair is growing so fast and like I can’t even control it. Right. So like typically I’m having my hair like short like that. But yeah, now it grows well. And, you know, there’s no stopping it.
But again, it’s not the castor oil that is growing the hair. What is happening is, is my hair is well conditioned and it’s nourished. And when it’s nourished and it’s not dry, it’s not going to be brittle. It won’t break off. And then it can do its thing, which is do what it does best, which is hair grows just like nails grow. Right.
Katie: Well, for anybody watching on the video, I love that you can even like rock the hair towel and look adorable in it. That was so cute. And I need to be more consistent about that because if anybody watching on video, my current like hair styling routine is that I go swim in the Gulf in the morning and kind of have like salty hair on podcasts. So some nourishment from castor oil would probably be helpful for my hair. But I think that’s an important tip of like not doing too much. What?
Marisol: You know what you can do before you go in, you can put a wee little bit of castor oil in your hair and then goes into the salt water. That’s a phenomenal, that feels great on the hair. Yeah. And it wouldn’t be too greasy as long as you don’t put too much, just like a little bit on your hands. Just, just a little tip.
Katie: That’s a good idea. And for my daughters who lifeguard, who have like really thick, long hair before they braid it, like they could put some castor oil to keep it from tangling when they’re out there swimming all day. That’s a great tip.
Well, okay. So also I know we talked about the hair. I’m glad you dispelled that myth that it causes hair to grow because it’s more nuanced than that. And I would say from my background in nutrition, obviously when it comes to oral health or skin health or hair health, also support your body from the inside out with good nutrition. That’s also a big key. And then support it from the outside in with natural things like castor oil.
What about lashes? Let’s talk lashes because I know there’s a lot of things floating around. I see on social media, people putting all kinds of synthetic serums on their lashes to make them grow, but then their eyes are changing color and they’re getting all kinds of weird redness on their skin. And I just, I’m concerned about what people are putting literally in their eyeballs when they do that. Let’s talk about castor oil as an alternative for that. And, or what do we need to know about healthy lashes?
Marisol: Awesome. You know, in the area of the eye, I mean, this is obviously an area of preoccupation for women, right? Not only, you know, again, with thyroid problems, like you said, you experience like losing part of your eyebrow. That’s a classical clinical sign that the outside of the eyebrow starts to diminish in the amount of hair. And then, of course, lashes like this. These are all signs, natural signs of aging. And as we age too naturally, thyroid does do some shifts. But then also you’ve got like crow’s feet, you know, drooping of the palpable area here above the eye.
So, you know, there’s a concern in this area in general for women. I don’t love the trends of using chemicals for the eyebrows and lashes. And I know everyone is just, you know, so into like fake lashes and that different thing. But, you know, there’s so many problems. The glues are acrylic based. And of course, being acrylic, it’s based on plastic. So you’re absorbing that into your skin. And plastic is always based from petroleum. So that’s all stuff that you’re absorbing, not only into the skin, but also into the eye. And the eye is nervous system tissue and directly into the brain.
Again, around the eye area, just so that I can add this little tidbit. Eyeshadows, you know, even though they might be clean or look clean, they’re still adding ingredients that even though they test okay over a short period of time, like I don’t really feel comfortable with using eyeshadows that contain things like aluminum. Like if you actually look at the fine detail of like the ingredients and cosmetics and the things that we put around our eye, they can be, they can be very, very toxic. So we really have to, you know, start looking at things in a different way, literally and, and start doing things differently.
So castor oil, again, is just an easy, simple thing for the lashes and eyebrows. And again, you’re using a golden, no matter what skin tone you have or hair to hair color you have. You’re using golden for the lashes and for the eyebrows. And it’s as easy as taking like a little spoolie brush and applying it to the eyebrows when you go to bed, as well as to the eyelashes.
Some people really, really, really love applying castor oil to the eyelashes, like as a primer before their mascara. It just makes their mascara easier to take off and they find that it just sticks better, especially if you’re working with natural mascaras. So I like that. But some people I know, including me, now I have an issue with my bangs. I’m really, really interested in the trend of where women, you know, I forget the name now. I can’t believe I forgot it. But they’re lifting up their eyebrows with chemicals. It’s escaping my mind.
Katie: Is it lamination?
Marisol: Yes, thank you. Eyebrow lamination. It is. Yeah. But I’m experimenting with things like talc and different powders to mix with castor oil to see like natural, of course, to see what it would do. Cornstarch, I mean, let’s see what it would do to help with eyebrow lamination. The only thing is you can’t do that if you have bangs, because then your bangs will be there and it’ll capture the oil throughout the day. And then so that won’t work.
But yeah, I think there’s a lot of possibilities and ways that we can work with castor oil. When it comes to the eyebrows and eyelashes, my favorite thing is to do it to going to bed. And I actually take advantage like so in the last episode, we spoke about washing the face before going to bed. After I wash my face to do kind of like my skincare routine, then I go and I roll castor oil all around my eyes because it’s again, it helps appearance of fine lines and wrinkles. It improves the appearance of dark circles around the eyes. And then again, you’ve got that benefit to the eyebrows and the eyelashes. So I just roll this around and then I’ll also use like a spoolie brushes to really get it deep into the roots.
And then I use a pack over my eyes. Number one, I don’t want to transfer the castor oil all over my sheets. And number two, it just, it just adding a pack, no different than in the traditional classical castor oil pack, just adds a little bit of warm heat. And that adding of the warm heat also helps with like the, the, the absorption and also helps with like the ability for it to really nourish and give the eyebrows and eyelashes what they need in order to do their thing basically.
And again, you can see, you know, Prian posts online all the time. And again, it’s just like in the hair. It’s not that castor oil is growing the eyelashes or eyebrows. It does not do that, but it deeply, deeply hydrates and it nourishes them. And when things have like in nature, when things have moisture and when they have nourishment, like a garden, a flower can grow. And that’s basically the principle to it.
And then always heat and sunlight, like with wearing the pack is a great thing. I literally like before I don’t leave home without my castor oil or without my eye mask is especially important to me. Because it just might, I sleep better. I feel better. I feel, I look better in the morning when I wake up and it’s just, especially when you’re traveling and there’s like, you know, going from city to city-to-city kind of lives we have sometimes, but it’s such a benefit.
And again, I think with castor oil, you can Google all you want. You can check out Instagram all you want. You can see TikTok. You can see people talking about it positively and some people not talking positively about it. But I think at the end of the day, when it comes to castor oil, and I needed to learn this was, I just needed to try it for myself. And I think that when you try it for yourself, then you’re like, okay, this is interesting, like different oil, different smell, different everything. And, and then, and then I think over time you notice a difference, right? Just, but again, it’s not a quick fix. This isn’t going to, you know, day to night, give you like long, beautiful lashes. Like again, it’ll just support the look of fuller brows, lashes and, you know, improve the, the look of the lines around your eyes.
Katie: That’s a good primer on all that. And yeah, to echo what you say, I say this on the nutrition side too. It’s like, we sometimes get those false expectations of how rapidly things are going to solve all of our problems. And like with nutrition, I’m like, people will eat healthy for one meal and be like, why am I not now healed and thin and like all the things, like it takes a while. The body will always move toward a state of optimal health, but sometimes we have to be a little patient with it and continually give it what it needs.
It’s funny that you brought up the brow laminating. I’ve seen this trend and I’m like, man, that would not work for me with my Irish Scottish hair. They would be like halfway up my forehead now that I fixed my thyroid issues. I have like gigantic eyebrows.
Marisol: I love it. I think, I think there’s a way to do it naturally. I’m, I’m experimenting with it because like for me, like I could, I could do it well. Like, I don’t know if you see, you can’t even see in the video, but I, my eyebrows now are just like, they’re wild. And I love them like that because I, I just really liked the natural look when it comes to eyebrows. Like I’m, I’m blessed. I never really over plucked except me. Maybe just a little bit of an area here, but honestly, I feel it’s all being nourished now. I’m noticing that it’s like, it’s, it’s really taking over and I’m like, this is great. I’m excited. I see my daughter, you know, fortunately she grew up in an era where it was all about the thick eyebrows and she just has the gorgeous eyebrows. So that, that to me, she’s inspiration. And I do, I do love the castor oil for that.
Katie: Nice. Well, okay. So I want to make sure we get to touch on one more topic before we get to the end of our time, which is the topic of, you mentioned briefly castor oil packs. And this is another thing that’s been part of my routine for a really long time, mainly just because I enjoy them. I love how I feel when I do them. And I feel like, especially just like anything abdominal, like I’ve had six babies, my skin’s been through a lot. So anything I can do that’s like nourishing my body externally there, I feel like is a win. But this is another area where I feel like there’s so much floating around on the internet about it. What do we need to know about castor oil packs if we want to try them? Like I said, I do it because they feel good and I enjoy them. But what are the best ways to try them if we want to?
Marisol: Awesome. So castor oil packs, again, that was the first way that I’d heard even about castor oil. And, you know, it was, it was placed over the abdomen and then you’d sleep with it for at least an hour or overnight. And then, you know, you would just, you would feel better. I just thought it was complete woo-woo from the beginning. I’m like, okay, this is like what natural crazy people talk about. This was me back in the day. Now I’m like polar opposite. I’m like, no, this makes a lot of sense.
And, you know, what I realized with castor oil packs was that in my, in my schooling, I got really, really sick in my last year and I was doing everything right. I was eating all the right foods. I was, you know, from a physical perspective, I was eating all the right foods. I was taking all the right supplements, doing all the right meds, talking to the doctors. I was, I was doing, I was doing all those different things.
But what, what ended up being the issue was that I completely lost like my ability to get out of bed. I was dealing with like things like mold, like just like just condition over condition over condition over condition. And then I thought to myself, hey, light bulb here. The one thing I haven’t done is the castor oil pack.
And no one really knows what it does. They have really no idea. But I think what I’ve come to the conclusion over the years of working with it is that, you know, ultimately, we are constantly focused on what we can do from a physical perspective for our body. And oftentimes, we forget about the fact that we are actually an energetic being. You know, we are an energetic being like our cells, you know, they run like a battery with salt and potassium and like electricity is moving through our veins. It’s what gives us life is what it’s what it’s, it’s like known as the body electric. Right.
And what I noticed with castor oil packs is that castor oil packs, as you said, soothed, they soothed the body. So when I first put one on, I literally felt to me like, like the sky opened up and angels began to sing. Like I literally, for the first time in my life, I had been trying to meditate like ad nauseum and I could not, I could not sit down because I was just in such a place of stress that I could not, I could not relax my body enough. I could not self soothe enough to allow myself to just sit there and be at rest and be peaceful.
And then when I put the castor oil pack on, that is exactly the feeling that I got. So that opened up my ability to like then learn how to meditate. And what I didn’t realize is that there are all these skin benefits. And, you know, for me, I never had babies. But I, I went up and down in weight when I was a child because I was put on prednisone. So as a child, I was actually quite heavy. And so I, and it was a rapid weight gain because of the prednisone that I was put on for misdiagnosed asthma, which actually ended up being anxiety. Surprise, surprise, right? I can’t calm down. I can’t relax. I can’t do all those different things.
And so I had a lot of loose skin on my belly as well as like stretch marks. And, you know, of course it was a point in place for me that I was very tender and sensitive about. And so when I started using the castor oil packs really just to like connect to the energetic side of myself and to like what I call the divine, what I started realizing that my belly started to get nicer and tighter and my skin started to actually look better. And so I just continued to use it as a regular practice. Number one, for the soothing effect that it had on my body physically, but then also for the cosmetic appeal of what it does with the skin.
So, you know, for women, I think it’s a powerful and impactful, especially, you know, the moms out there who may have cesarean sections. Right. And might have scar tissue there that they might not find pleasing. You know, ultimately our, our goal is to love ourselves exactly as we are, but, you know, why not? If there’s something that you can do that can help or help you feel better. But when you look in the mirror, I think that’s really powerful because when you, when you feel better, you think better, you do better, you act better, you just take care of yourself better.
And so castor oil packs, you know, they’re part of my daily practice as yours, because it’s something that you do to take care of yourself because it’s soothing. Adults, we don’t, lots of us grew up in traumatic experiences. have had trauma with partners and we might not be the best at self-soothing. And castor oil packs is a great way to be able to learn how to self-soothe again. Like the same way, you know, moms will allow their babies to self-soothe so that they know that they’re not alone and that they’re okay. Mom will check in. I’m here you know, walk away, you know, the baby knows they’re okay.
But like, it’s the same thing that it’s one of the things that we need to do independently as adults for ourselves so that we can live better and exist better in this world of stress. Right. So I just absolutely love them. They’ve been, they’ve been a proponent of my practice since the beginning of that I started as a naturopathic practitioner. And then now I’ve always continued them and just learned how to educate people differently about them. And hopefully I can open up people to that side of us that we’re, we are energy. A lot of us are, is that we are energy and we can’t just only look at our problems from a physical perspective. There’s more to it than that.
Katie: I agree. And you mentioned that the body is electric. I will link to a couple of books that really helped me to understand and shift how I related to my body in that realm. And I will also, of course, in the show notes, link to all the things we’ve talked about from all the different beauty uses to the castor oil packs, to the sleep mask, all of it.
And I need to do videos. You guys keep an eye out on Instagram because I will do a video about all the funny ways I use castor oil, how ridiculous I look at night when I go to sleep, but how that helps me wake up looking less ridiculous and all that.
I know, Marisol, you also have some great beauty tip videos as well that I will link to as well as to your website. And I know you have special things just for our listeners. So all of that will be at wellnessmama.com in the show notes. But you are just such an absolute joy and pleasure to talk to you. I learned so much in this episode. I hope we get to have many future conversations. For today, thank you so much for being here and for everything you shared.
Marisol: Amazing, Katie. And thank you to every woman out there listening. I hope this becomes a staple in your beauty care cabinet and that you just learn to work with it and teach your daughters early. Let them be empowered that there’s so much that they can do from a natural perspective. And hopefully we can start to remove all those toxins that are coming into their beautiful skin. Awesome. Thank you.
Katie: Agreed. And thank you as always for listening, sharing your most valuable resources, your time, your energy, and your attention with us today. We’re both so grateful that you did. And I hope that you will join me again on the next episode of the Wellness Mama Podcast.
If you’re enjoying these interviews, would you please take two minutes to leave a rating or review on iTunes for me? Doing this helps more people to find the podcast, which means even more moms and families could benefit from the information. I really appreciate your time, and thanks as always for listening.
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