In DIY, Essential Oils, Evergreen, Homemaking
DIY Men's Hair Pomade

DIY Men’s Hair Pomade

Don’t let your man walk around with harmful chemicals in his hair. With three ingredients and five minutes of your time, you’ve got homemade healthy hair texture.

arlier this year we were going through all our household, beauty and food products and checking the score/ingredients on EWG.org. Yes, that sounds daunting, but it all started with a list!

One of the products I was startled by (and quite frankly had overlooked because I don’t use it) is my husbands hair pomade. It scored a whopping 10 on EWG’s scale of harmful chemicals (in case you’re unaware, 10 is the worst score possible). 

Gulp! Sorry Hubs!

We quickly did a little searching and stumbled upon Badger Hair Pomade, which filled in nicely for a while, but was still more than I wanted to spend monthly. Then a friend of mine came up with a killer beard balm recipe and a light bulb went off! I altered the recipe slightly, reducing some of the oils so The Hubs wouldn’t look like a hipster, and he said it was near identical to his old stuff! #WIN!

Because we can’t keep a good thing to ourselves, here’s the recipe! Whip it up and store it in a little tin like this, or seal it up in a glass jar. And just remember, a little goes a long way!

DIY Men's Hair Pomade

DIY Men's Hair Pomade

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Course: Essential Oils
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 10 minutes
Author: Full of Days

Ingredients

Instructions

  • Measure out first three ingredients and place them into jar.
  • Place a jar in a small saucepan and add water to the pan so it comes about half way up the jar.
  • Turn burner on to medium heat and bring water to a simmer.
  • Stir oils until everything is melted and combined.
  • Once your ingredients are melted, remove jar from pan and allow to cool slightly.
  • Once mixture is beginning to firm up, stir in essential oils and allow to cool completely.
  • To speed this process up, place jar in a pan of cold water, stirring occasionally so oils don’t separate.

Notes

  • We choose to use Plant Therapy essential oils for their strict standards, quality products and affordable prices (plus free shipping!). To save $10 on your first order, follow this link and sign up for their email list. You'll automatically get $10 off your first purchase!
  • Grab a 4 oz. mason jar and mix this recipe up right in the jar!
  • * For my husbands pomade I used a blend of Lemongrass (12 drops), Cedarwood (10 drops) and Frankincense (3 drops). Choose oils that your husband likes, after all, it’s him who will be walking around smelling of them all day!
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Showing 7 comments
  • Avatar
    Anne
    Reply

    2 stars
    I was recently diagnosed with severe contact allergies to fragrance mix and propylene glycol. At first I tried finding products that I was not allergic to, and that hasn’t gone so well. Now we’re going the DIY route, one product at a time. I chose to start with this particular pomade recipe because it had the fewest number of ingredients to start with. I like that it makes a small enough batch to fit into a 4 oz tin, which lets us try out the product a while and decide what our next iterations will be. I did not personally add essential oils because I’ve only found three so far that I don’t have a reaction to, and my husband doesn’t particularly enjoy those scents.

    We found this recipe to be very very hard to the touch, though it softens some with some significant hand rubbing before applying it. It would probably be good for straight mohawks, though. It is also significantly greasier than I had hoped for, though perhaps others will enjoy that shine. I think we will try adding arrowroot powder in our next iteration to address the greasy factor and to see how that will affect texture. Then we might start messing with ratios of beeswax to other oils to get the hardness we are after. I will undoubtedly be experimenting for the next several months, but I am very glad to have found a clear, straightforward recipe with minimal ingredients to start from. Thank you so much for posting this!

    • Kelsey Steffen
      Kelsey Steffen
      Reply

      I’m glad we could help with the base product! Yes, this pomade is quite thick and my husband and older boys use it to style their hair post shower. I will say that for my husband’s hair (who is quite salt and peppery), it does not look greasy in his hair. However, for my boys, who have both blonde and light brown hair, it does look a little “wet” in their hair. I imagine it depends on the consistency of your hair.

      Do come back and update us if you find a variation that works well! I’d be happy to update this post with your tips! 🙂

    • Avatar
      Anne
      Reply

      Back again after having used about 3/4 a batch. A few things: my husband describes the look on himself as “high shine” rather than “greasy.” I still classify it as greasy, but know that this is apparently a matter of opinion. That said, my husband’s preference in pomade is for low shine or no shine pomade, so we will still move our iterations in that direction via bentonite clay, arrowroot powder, or adjusting ratios of ingredients. My husband and son are both very blond and their hair has not been cut in a long while due to pandemic closures; both of these things may well be contributing.

      It also looks like part of my original negative review was because I omitted the essential oils and therefore also omitted the final stir in step #6. That step incorporates the essential oils, yes, but it also breaks up the hard beeswax and whips the texture a bit, which is why my results differed so significantly from the posted pictures.

      Because I’m still trying as few ingredients as possible (to avoid an allergic reaction), we will continue to avoid essential oils for a while but just stir the pomade at the indicated time or wait for it to cool and then whip it with a dedicated non-food hand mixer.

      Moral of the story: follow the recipe (c’mon, self!). But I’ll continue tinkering over time and let you know what I find.

  • Avatar
    Samantha Monet
    Reply

    Interesting, sounds like a recipe I use for my skin care routine (minus the beeswax of course). Thanks for sharing.

    • Kelsey Steffen
      Kelsey Steffen
      Reply

      Awesome Samantha! Yes, many DIY recipes start with the same base ingredients.

  • Avatar
    Twin Pickle
    Reply

    Good for you for tackling all the nasties we are exposed to everyday. And I’m sure hubs will smell delicious!

    • Kelsey Steffen
      Kelsey Steffen
      Reply

      Thanks Twin Pickle! He seems to like the way it smells! 🙂 Yes, tackling one thing at a time really does make a dent in our chemical exposure!

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