Olive Oil Hair Benefits & Recipes For All Hair Types

You take pride in your hair, and that means being picky about the products that you use. You always steer clear of haircare products with long ingredients lists or harsh chemicals and preservatives. You’d like to go more natural, and you hear olive oil can be great for your hair. What kind of benefits would you enjoy?

Olive oil is advantageous for your hair in the following ways:

Softens hair
Reduces scalp itchiness
Increases hair manageability
Combats frizziness
Leads to more shine
Increases hair strength
Fixes damaged hair
Reduces split ends
Lessens sebum for longer hair faster
Eliminates dandruff

Those are just some of the many, many benefits of olive oil for your tresses. In this super in-depth guide, we’ll share every olive oil perk under the sun when it comes to hair. You will not want to miss it!

The Benefits of Olive Oil for Hair

Makes Hair Softer

Everyone wants touchably soft hair. Yours may start that way when you first shampoo and condition it, but as the day goes on, it feels grungy and greasy. You then wash it again, but daily washing can have adverse effects on hair. It’s possible that too-frequent shampooing may strip your hair of its natural oils, leaving it drier. As we’re sure you know, dry hair is not exactly soft. It tends to feel more like straw, brittle and sad.

The next time your hair is in such a state, why not try some olive oil instead? In 2017, the journal Molecules published a report on what olive oil can do for our health. While the Molecules study talked about the benefits of olive oil when consumed, it explored how the oil can improve the condition of our hair as well.

It turns out that olive oil contains a handful of helpful emollients. An emollient, in case you’re not familiar, is a type of moisturizer. The emollients found in olive oil are oleic acid, palmitic acid, and squalene.

Oleic acid is a type of fatty acid that’s derived from oils and fats, typically those in vegetables and animals. This acid, despite its name, is an oil that has no color or odor. Sometimes, when produced commercially, it looks yellow.

Like oleic acid, palmitic acid is another kind of fatty acid. This one comes from microorganisms, plants, and animals. While often sourced from palm oil, olive oil has its fair share of this beneficial acid as well.

Then there’s squalene, an organic compound that comes from shark liver oil. The name squalene refers to a shark genus known as Squalus. Sometimes vegetable oils are also used to produce squalene, among them olives, wheat germ, rice bran, and amaranth seed.

Each of these emollients in olive oil can produce softer strands!

Lessens Scalp Itchiness

You woke up with a slight itch on your scalp one day, but it hasn’t gone away since. What’s worse is the itchiness has only grown worse with time. There are many conditions that can lead to an itchy scalp. Here’s an overview:

Shingles: When chickenpox resurfaces in adults, it’s known as shingles. This condition can cause a rash across the body that’s red, inflamed, and itchy. If shingles occurs on the scalp, this too can itch.
Diabetes: If you have diabetes, it’s possible to develop bodily itching as well. This has a name, diabetic itching. It occurs when the nerve fibers on your skin’s outer layer are impacted from diabetes. Diabetic itching can affect the scalp.
Anxiety and stress: High rates of stress, especially when accompanied with anxiety, can manifest in physical symptoms as well. For instance, you might break out in a rash or hives that’s localized to the head (scalp) or other parts of the body.
Head lice: The louse, the singular term for lice, is a type of insect without wings that relies on the blood of humans for survival. These insects can land on the head and burrow deep into the scalp, making it very itchy.
Atopic dermatitis: Skin inflammation is also known as atopic dermatitis. While this happens mostly in young children, almost anyone can develop atopic dermatitis at any age. This can occur anywhere on the body as well, leaving a red, itchy rash.
Allergic reactions: If you’re allergic to products like hair dye, clothing detergent, and even dryer sheets, you could have a reaction. This would appear on the skin, leading to itchiness and redness around the head.
Fungal infections: From ringworm to tinea capitis, some fungal infections can also cause symptoms that leave you itching.
Psoriasis: The autoimmune condition psoriasis occurs when too many skin cells cluster together to create patches of skin that are itchy and uncomfortable.

There are many home remedies for the above conditions, but warm olive oil might be one of the most comforting. You’d want to put this directly on the scalp, focusing especially on the areas that itch the most. Rub the olive oil in, making sure to cover the entire scalp as you do so. Gently massage it in, then leave it over a few hours.

By doing so, several things happen, and all of them are good. Your skin’s scales and crusts, such as those caused by psoriasis, begin to break up. This alone can reduce itchiness. Also, your scalp is softer and more moisturized, making it naturally less itchy.

Leads to More Manageable Hair

Ugh, another day with unruly hair! You hate how your hair never wants to behave. You have to wake up a lot earlier in the morning so you can spend more time wrestling and wrangling your tresses. Otherwise, you’re late for work, school, or any other arrangement on your calendar.

It’s also a major pain to take care of your hair after a shower. You feel like you’re spending forever pulling at knots. This is also incredibly painful, as we’re sure we don’t even have to tell you. You wish your hair could be easier to tame. Perhaps you’ve switched shampoos and even conditioners hoping your strands would feel softer and tamer, but to no avail.

It may be time to switch to olive oil. In almost all cases, unmanageable hair is that which is lacking moisture. There’s also the possibility you could have a condition known as uncombable hair syndrome. With this, your hair grows in several directions and never sits flat. It’s caused by genetic mutations and is not at all common.

Let’s say your unruly strands are attributed only to dryness rather than a genetic condition. If so, then once you restore some moisture to your hair, it should begin working with you without such a big fight.

You can use the same olive oil treatment we recommended for a dry, itchy scalp. Not only will the skin on your head appreciate it, but so too will your hair. As we said earlier in this guide, the emollients within olive oil make your hair softer and thus less likely to become a tangled bird’s nest each day.

Controls Frizz

Speaking of a bird’s nest, that’s a pretty apt descriptor for your hair most of the time, sadly. Sure, you can manage your hair at the start of the day with a bit of product, but by the time you’re heading home after work or school, your hair is a frizzy mess. It’s even worse if you try exercising or if the weather is humid.

By understanding what causes hair frizziness in the first place, you can begin formulating a plant to combat it. There are several causes, so let’s talk about them more now:

You use a towel to dry your hair right out of the shower: The first thing you reach for when you’re done showering is a towel. You dry your body and then you squeeze the water out of your hair with the towel, too. It turns out that towel fibers are incredibly hard on hair. They also suck up too much moisture, leaving your hair frizzy and messy.
Damaged hair ends: Whether through coloring your hair too often or otherwise mistreating it, the ends of your hair have split and feel quite dry and brittle. They also become frizzy.
You wash your hair too often: Remember what we said before about how you shouldn’t wash your hair daily? Not only are you stripping your hair of its natural oils, but a shampoo with drying ingredients could be frizzing your hair out.
You use hot styling tools: It’s okay to reach for the hot hair styling tools on those days when your locks truly won’t do what you want them to. Everyday use though? That’s not so great. Your hair becomes dry, fried, and frizzy from too much heat.
You shower in scalding water: Also on the note of heat, you have to be careful about the direction you crank those shower knobs. A hot, steaming shower may feel good (especially in the winter), but it hurts your hair.

No matter which is causing your dry, frizzy hair, you don’t have to live with the frizz every day anymore. A small amount of olive oil, as little as a drop, can make a huge difference. After you get out of the shower, smooth the oil over the strands that are especially prone to frizziness. You can also use olive oil on your hair once it’s dry.

Improves Shine

You know the kind of hair shininess you see in TV commercials? You wish you could have that every day. Sure, when you visit your favorite hair salon, your hair looks and feels gorgeous, but it doesn’t last. Within a few days, the shine disappears and your strands are kind of dull.

If your hair is already dry or textured, then maintaining hair shininess feels even more difficult. Well, it doesn’t have to anymore. If you already use serums and creams but with minimal success, treat your hair to some olive oil instead. By leaving the oil in your strands for a while, they’ll come away looking glossier than ever.

It’s ideal to use either refined or extra-virgin olive oil for shinier tresses. These are better than even the lightweight hair products you’re using for shine for a few reasons. For one, the oil is a lot thicker, so not only does it shine up your hair, but it moisturizes it as well. That’s the opposite of what your light hair products might be doing, as these can actually dry out your hair.

Wait, how? It’s due to the chemical additives in many haircare products. These are more drying than you may have realized. Once you switch to olive oil for shine, you may never go back to using anything else again.

Boosts Hair Strength

You may not think of your hair as strong like you do your muscles, but it’s time to start. By failing to pay attention to the strength of your hair, your strands could be more likely to fall out. Also, you have to be careful when you use heat products, as these can be very damaging on weak hair.

How do you know if your hair is weak? Well, do you have a lot of split ends? That’s typically a dead giveaway. If your hair always seems oily, even when it’s freshly washed, that’s another symptom to look out for. So too is very dry hair that never seems to feel shiny and soft, even if you treat it to a leave-in conditioning treatment.

Speaking of conditioner, by swapping it out and replacing it with olive oil, you’ll build up your hair’s strength. It’s like your strands hit the gym each time you condition your hair. The antioxidant content as well as vitamins A and E found in olive oil all keep your hair’s keratin at its healthiest.

You may have heard of keratin before, but are you truly sure you know what it is? If not, here’s a definition for you. Keratin is a type of fibrous protein that provides structure to hair. In the scleroprotein family, keratin also forms the structure of our nails. Animals like vertebrates have keratin too, which is present in their calluses, hooves, claws, horns, and even their feathers.

Getting back to us people and the keratin in our hair, without it, our strands lose their elasticity and yes, its strength. There are many ways to remove keratin in your hair, often without even realizing you’re doing so. If you use chemicals on your hair a lot (such as through processing and home dying), you heat style regularly, or you’re guilty of overstyling, then your hair probably has a lot less keratin.

While you can buy keratin treatments for use at home, there’s no need to when olive oil can restore keratin and the strength of your hair.

Repairs Hair Damage

Hair damage happens to even the best of us at times. There are lots of reasons for hair damage, some of them more common and obvious and others less so. For instance, if you dye your hair frequently, then you put your tresses at risk of damage. That’s doubly, maybe even triply so if you bleach your hair between dying sessions.

Too-frequent bleaching reduces your hair’s moisture, drying it out and making it brittle. It could then break off. Speaking of drying out hair, overdoing it on the heat treatments is another way to damage hair, like we’ve said. Using hair straighteners, blow dryers, curling irons, and the like day in and day out saps your hair of moisture and leaves it looking and feeling fried.

Here are some other causes of hair damage to be aware of:

Eating disorders: Failing to provide your body with adequate nutrients through malnourishment can stop hair growth and lead your current hair to break.
Hypothyroidism: The condition known as low thyroid disorder or hypothyroidism occurs when your thyroid gland makes insufficient thyroid hormones. Without a properly functioning thyroid, your hair growth, heart rate, and metabolism all suffer.
Hard combing and brushing: The way you brush your hair can also directly influence the health of your strands. Yanking, tugging, and pulling on knots is no good, but so too is over-brushing. The more you brush, the more hair you can pull out.
Using elastic hair ties: Pulling your hair up with an elastic hair tie can too rip hairs out, not to mention it applies pressure on your hair cuticle and your scalp. Rubber or elastic hair ties can be quite damaging, so switch to fabric ones without metal parts, please.
Roughing your hair with a towel: Towel-drying your hair after a shower may absorb excess water, but it could also hurt your hair, as mentioned. If you must use something to sop up the water right after you step out of the tub, try a soft t-shirt instead. It’s much softer on hair.
Diet: Just like having a lack of nutrients from an eating disorder can cause hair damage, the same is true of a poor diet. If you don’t consume enough folic acid, iron, or zinc, then your hair is more prone to damage.

While revising the above can help you prevent future breakage and other hair damage, what if you’re already dealing with dried, brittle hair now? Incorporate some olive oil into your routine, stat. Use it in lieu of conditioner, letting your hair sit for 45 minutes in an olive oil bath. Then, rinse, wash with shampoo, and clean your hair again. It should look and feel amazing.

Keeps Split Ends at Bay

We hope you remember the above causes of damaged hair, because many of them can lead to split ends as well. In case you’ve never had one, a split end affects your hair ends only. These fray and turn dry.

There are several types of split ends, although none are good. Here they are:

The knot: With this split end, your ends can actually loop themselves into a painful little knot. Yanking at it with a brush could damage more hair.
The right angle: Although you didn’t apply any product, your hair ends still dry facing sharply towards the right.
Crinkle: A sure sign of damage is a crinkled split end. This has uneven waves and jagged parts.
Incomplete split: This painful type of split end occurs when your hair begins to separate but doesn’t do so completely. You have an open loop that can hurt a lot.
Thickening: Although a thickened split end may seem like a good thing, it isn’t. Two hair ends are attached to one another, having not yet begun their separation per the incomplete split or full split.
Offshoot: Sort of like the right angle, the offshoot differs because it’s thicker.
Taper: A tapered split end is thinner on one side and then thicker on the other.
Baby: The baby split end has begun separating, but only just barely, hence the name.
Deep: A deep split is much more noticeable. This split end has a somewhat sharp angle, but not as much as an offshoot or right angle.
Long: Longer split ends don’t always split at the very tip of the hair. Instead, there may be a little bit of extra growth beneath the split.
Double Y: Not only has a double Y split end separated once, but now it’s beginning to do so again. It looks like two Ys.
Tree: A tree-shaped split end is another disaster. It has many offshoots or side splits along the hair strand.
Feather: The feather split end resembles a feather with various splits on either side.
Triple: Just as bad is a triple split, in which the hair separates down the middle as well as on either side.

If you fried your ends off or they’re broken and split, then it’s olive oil to the rescue once more! Focus your treatment on the ends, at least two inches up.

Speeds up the Hair Growing Process

When you hear the word sebum, you probably think of your skin, right? After all, our skin releases this substance from our sebaceous glands. So too does our hair. Sebum is comprised of environmental matter, sweat, and skin cell lipids as well as cholesterol esters, squalene, wax esters, free fatty acids, and triglycerides.

Sebum is both good and bad. Yes, it provides moisture to our hair and skin, but it can also lead to acne breakouts on the skin. As for hair, it has its downsides, too. If too much sebum accumulates on your scalp, it’s possible your hair won’t grow as quickly.

Now, some people can regrow hair like it’s nothing while others struggle at it. Your body might not be helping if your head is covered in sebum. One great way to rid your scalp of all that sebum is to do a scalp treatment with olive oil. The buildup will dissipate.

Oh, and did we mention that the hair you grow may be thicker, too? It’s true! The nutrients and vitamins in olive oil can produce thicker hair growth. If you have already thinner strands, then it’s worth it to give yourself an olive oil scalp treatment from time to time.

Reduces Dandruff

The bane of existence for many, dandruff may linger in the hair, but it’s actually classified as a skin condition. Your scalp itches and sheds skin, which comes off in the form of flakes. Dandruff is typically visible in the hair, and the skin flakes can show up on darker clothing if they fall to your shoulders as well.

Dandruff may be caused by environmental factors or genetics, but it’s not quite clear why it happens. What is known is that is skin cell growth goes into overdrive, producing more cells than the scalp needs. The condition is also incurable.

That doesn’t mean you should give up if you’ve received a dandruff diagnosis. While you should always try a salicylic acid or antifungal treatment at the recommendation of your doctor or dermatologist first, you should also ask them about using olive oil for your dandruff.

When you apply olive oil on the scalp, rubbing it in vigorously, and then remove the flakes with a comb, your scalp may be less itchy shed fewer skin flakes.

Which Type of Olive Oil Is Best for Hair?

If one or more the common hair maladies above are those you deal with regularly, then you may be interested in using an olive oil hair treatment, stat. The only problem is you’re not sure which type of olive oil would work best for your tresses. Are they all sort of the same or are some classes of olive oil better than others?

There are definitely better olive oil types out there, and these are delineated by grade. All types of olive oil receive a grade, which is sort of like a totem pole from the worst kinds to the best. The classification of olive oil by grade is something we’ve discussed on this blog before, but we figured we’d recap it here in case you missed it.

Pomace Olive Oil

The first grade of olive oil is known as pomace. You may never have heard of this grade because it’s not something you see on store shelves all that often. Pomace is a word that refers to olive pulp. In other words, during the olive milling process, some of the parts of the olive get left behind. These include the pits and the skin.

Rather than waste these parts, they get milled a second time and made into pomace olive oil. Hexane or another solvent will get the most oil out of pomace olive parts. Then, this olive oil goes through a process of deodorization, bleaching, and refinement so it’s suitable for sale.

Pomace olive oil is a little uncommon due to its production process. If you happen to have any in your kitchen pantry, it wouldn’t hurt your hair, but it probably won’t restore moisture, shine, and strength the way that higher-graded olive oil would.

Refined Olive Oil

A slight step above pomace olive oil is the refined stuff. Before it goes through this refinement, this type of olive oil is not suitable for sale. Through a second round of processing and improvements, the stability, flavor, and odor of the olive oil is all enough that it can be sold to consumers at your local grocery store.

By the time refined olive oil makes it to you, the consumer, there’s nothing wrong with it. Again, if you had it, you could use it and see healthier hair. It just won’t do as much for your strands as purer olive oil does.

Light Olive Oil

Now we’re getting into much more common olive oil, with light oil the next one. It’s a common misconception that light olive oil contains fewer fat and calories, but it has the same amount of both. Instead, it’s earned the light nickname because of its color, which is decidedly paler than your average bottle of olive oil.

That’s really all that’s different about light olive oil. It’s fine for your hair, and if you have color-treated or dyed hair (more on this in the next section), it may even be the type of oil you reach for specifically.

Pure Olive Oil

Here’s your standard olive oil, the middle-of-the-road variety. It’s called pure because it’s freer of impurities compared to light, refined, and pomace olive oils. That’s partly because it’s got virgin or extra virgin olive oil in it, but only a small portion, up to 15 percent. In some pure olive oil brands, manufacturers will use refined olive oil as well, sometimes as much as 85 percent.

It’s the best non-virgin olive oil around, so you might as well use some as a hair treatment if you’ve got it handy in your home.

Virgin Olive Oil

The next time you shop though, hold out for virgin olive oil. This has a bit more acidity than extra virgin olive oil, with the cap at 2.0 percent. This acidity is determined by the quality of the olives at harvesting. It’s nothing you’d taste as a consumer, especially one who doesn’t professionally taste olive oil. As such, it’s great for your hair, and you may see markedly higher improvements.

Extra Virgin Olive Oil

It doesn’t get better than extra virgin olive oil or EVOO though. This grade of olive oil is at the very top of the totem pole because it’s free of so many impurities. To achieve the grade of extra virgin, each bottle of this olive oil must undergo stringent testing. Even before that, it’s processed in a specific way to maintain the quality of the olives so they have the purest odor and flavor.

If your hair is especially damaged, then extra virgin olive oil will certainly help. Even if your hair is in decent enough shape but you want to treat it to something luxurious, EVOO will not disappoint.

Which Hair Types Can Use Olive Oil?

Okay, so you’ve got your olive oil ready, but there’s just one question: is it right for your hair? More than likely, yes. Most hair types can benefit from an olive oil treatment, whether to reduce dandruff flakes, treat damage, strengthen and moisturize hair, or so many other benefits you can get from this amazing oil.

In case you’re curious about your hair type specifically, here’s an overview of various hair types that can indeed use olive oil on their tresses.

Processed Hair

If your hair is processed, then that means it has received both a chemical treatment and a lot of styling. This chemical treatment often consists of a bath with a very high acidity. The purpose of this is to remove hair characteristics and cuticles so it may be in a better position to take to the dye or bleach.

If you go to a professional hairdresser, then before you leave the salon, your hair stylist will use a silicone product on your strands to nourish it and restore some shine and freshness.

You can process your hair at home, but the risk of doing so is that you may not use products that are of as high a quality as what you’d find at a salon. This can lead to even more damage compared to letting a professional hairstylist work on your tresses.

Lots of people will process their hair at least once, sometimes a couple of times. There’s nothing wrong with doing this to your hair every once in a while, especially if you go years between processing. If you process your hair every few months or even every couple of weeks though, then your hair is in possibly its worst condition. It’s probably stripped of all its moisture, so it feels dry, brittle, and fried. By using olive oil as part of your hair treatment, within a few days, most of your hair’s shine, strength, and moisture should come back.

Bleached Hair

One of the most popular means of processing your hair is bleaching it, so we thought it deserved its own section. When you bleach your hair, you use a chemical dye to remove all color. Your strands will look platinum blonde in some cases and in others, maybe even patchy and yellow. It all depends on the state of the hair you were working with in the first place, how often you dye your hair, and what the last color you dyed your hair was.

Some people like the bleached look and leave it as is. Others bleach their hair to make a drastic hair color change, like going from black to blonde or red to teal.

Like with processing your hair, you can get this service done at a hairstylist’s or bleach it at home. Bleaching your strands is always damaging to an extent, but pro hair salons know to use professional-grade bleaching materials that can preserve the state of your hair better.

At home, you might use whatever bleaching agent is most convenient, not necessarily caring about the integrity of your tresses along the way. This is incredibly problematic. Few hair treatments are as damaging as bleach. After you wash all the bleach out of your hair, shampoo, and condition, you may be shocked when your hair starts coming off in clumps.

You may have changed your hair color only a time or two. Since it’s chemical processing, bleaching isn’t the end of the world if you do it very seldom. However, if you’re one of those people who gets bored with your hair color every few weeks, then more than likely, you bleach much more often.

You’re a good candidate for using olive oil to restore your hair’s quality and appearance. It’s recommended that, before applying the oil all over your hair, that you take an inconspicuous piece of hair and test it there first. Since olive oil is naturally green, there’s a possibility that color can be deposited in your very light hair.

If you notice the green lingers, then try light olive oil instead. It’s mostly colorless and shouldn’t interrupt the color of your bleached hair.

Color-Treated Hair

As we said above, bleaching is often the first step to getting a desired hair color. This may be in the more natural range of blondes, blacks, browns, or reds. You may also wish to do funkier colors like pink, bright red, yellow, blue, green, or purple.

For the latter especially, you’ll almost always have to bleach your hair at least once. For other dye jobs, the color you’re starting with will directly impact whether the desired color will turn out the way you want.

Some people dye their virgin (untouched) hair, love their color, and stick with it. Many more will shift colors often, which can leave hair in poor condition. If your strands are limp, fried, and exhausted after all the bleaching and box dyes, some olive oil can work wonders for you.

Depending on the hair color you currently have, it may be a good idea to use light olive oil, especially if your hair is a lighter hue or colored a shade that could visibly clash with green.

Thick Hair

You know from reading this guide that olive oil can thicken hair with time, but what if you don’t need thick hair because you already have it? Well, how’s the texture of your hair? Sometimes with thicker hair, it has the propensity to be coarse, or feel rough to the touch. If that’s the boat you’re in, then you know by now how olive oil can soften up those strands. Now you’ll have hair everyone is jealous of.

Thin Hair

You’ll gladly take advantage of the thickening properties of olive oil for hair, thank you very much. Your thin hair can make you feel self-conscious. Not only is there not a lot of hair to go around, but it lacks life and volume.

The omega-3 fatty acids in olive oil may be able to pump up that volume, which you’ll have naturally. It’ll be nice to skip the volumizing products that could dry out hair. Between that and the ability to generate thicker strands, there’s no reason to refrain from using olive oil as a hair treatment on thinner hair.

As a word of caution, though, since olive oil is quite thick, you want to take a less is more approach here. Too much of the oil can make your strands heavy, which is not a good feeling when you already have thin hair.

Dry Hair

Of every hair type, those with dry hair may benefit the most from regularly applying olive oil. Whether it’s scalp dryness you’re trying to combat, hair weakness, split ends, or frizz, olive oil can do it all. It’ll become your new best friend and your best-kept hair secret.

Curly Hair

Speaking of frizz, this is something that those with curly hair know all too well. While you’re blessed with great curls that come naturally (no curling iron here!), having loose or tight waves can create problems at timeas as well.

Frizz is at the top of the list. When the weather gets hot or rainy, your hair poofs up almost uncontrollably. It’s especially embarrassing at the gym or during yoga class. Olive oil can combat frizz, taming it so your strands stay manageable no matter the humidity.

If you ever get sick of your own curls, you may begin straightening your hair. On special occasions, this is okay, but regularly, heat styling is a haircare no-no. By giving your hair an olive oil soak, it’s possible to reverse the damage, but you’ll have to mostly retire the heat tools as well.

Applying Olive Oil to Your Hair: Here’s What to Do

You’re utterly convinced your hair can look and feel better with olive oil, no matter the condition of your strands. While we’ve mentioned in vague terms what kind of treatments you might try, now we want to talk details. Here are some haircare tips and methods for applying olive oil to your hair today.

Prepping Your Ingredients

There’s nothing wrong with sticking only with olive oil if that’s what you want to do. You can also take your haircare one step further by mixing olive oil with egg and almond oil. These extra ingredients are ideal for adding more nutrients and beautiful shine to your tresses. Alternately, you can try jojoba oil or tea tree oil in lieu of almond oil.

Let’s say you stick to the olive oil, almond oil, and egg mix. You want up to two spoonfuls of olive oil, or one and a half if you think you need less. Keep the raw almond oil to only a teaspoon, so not a full spoonful. Then, add your egg, cracking it and holding on to both the egg white and the yolk, or the yellow part.

Stir the three together until the yolk breaks up a little bit. You can use a kitchen spoon or a whisk for this.

Readying Your Hair

If you have yet to wash your hair for the day, you can use olive oil on it dry. Should your strands already be wet, that’s okay, too. Just keep in mind you will have to wash your hair a second time, so maybe plan the olive oil treatment for a day when you didn’t already shower.

Head to the bathroom with your mix of olive oil, raw almond oil, and egg. Lean over the tub or get into the shower, but don’t turn the water on yet.

You don’t have to wear clothes while treating your hair with olive oil, but if you do, choose ones where you don’t care if they get ruined. Not that the oil will wreck your clothes, per se, but it could stain them. We wrote a post about how to clean olive oil out of almost anything, so check that if you have unwanted stains.

Deciding on Your Treatment

Next, you have to figure out what you want to do with your hair. You have two choices here: using the olive oil (and almond oil with egg) in lieu of conditioner or applying it as a leave-in treatment.

The longer the olive oil is in your hair, the more work it can do in rebuilding its shine, strength, moisture, and more. If your hair in especially bad shape, then it may be worth doing the leave-in treatment. Once the condition of your hair improves, then shorter bursts of olive oil conditioner can maintain its quality.

Applying the Treatment

If you’re going the conditioner route, then, as we said before, you can start with dry or wet hair. You want to pour some olive oil mix in your hair, and then rub it through your strands with your fingers. You can also just dump the stuff on your head, but we don’t recommend that for thinner hair.

Tip your head so it’s facing down or back into the shower while you do this. The excess oil should drip off. You can rinse this down the drain now or wait until later. After all, there’s going to be a lot more olive oil in your shower stall or tub soon.

For a leave-in treatment, you start the same way, rubbing the olive oil over wet or dry hair. Then, you want to take a clean shower cap and pop it over your head. Wait at least 15 minutes, but try to stretch it to 30 minutes or even a full hour if you have the time.

Rinsing Your Hair

Once the time has elapsed, you want to next rinse the olive oil out of your hair. As helpful as it is, you don’t want sticky, green strands.

Take your shower cap off and unpin your hair if you put it up. Step into the shower and disrobe if you haven’t already. Then, turn the water on and clean all the olive oil out of your hair. Feel your hair as you do this to ensure the oil is coming out. Turning the water temperature warmer (not necessarily hot) will speed up the process.

For right now, you only want to wash out the olive oil. Refrain from shampooing, but condition if you want to do something else to your hair. As we’ve talked about, shampooing can rid your hair of essential oils, so all that work the olive oil just did will have been for naught.

Drying Your Hair

Continue showering as usual, making sure there’s no olive oil residue on your body. When you’re done, step out. If your hair has a somewhat greasy texture, there’s no need to get back into the shower and rinse again. It’s normal for your hair to feel this way for now.

What you should notice above all is how soft, healthy, and full your hair looks.

You can repeat the above steps about weekly to maintain the great quality of your strands going forward.

How to Make Your Own Olive Oil Hair Products

A luxurious hair mask with olive oil will make your hair look and feel like a million bucks. Even better is that it’s so easy to make your own. Here are a few DIY recipes all starring olive oil and one or more other ingredients.

Olive Oil + Baking Soda Hair Mask

If you’ve decided to go poo-free (that’s shampoo-free), then you may have begun incorporating baking soda into your hair-washing routine. Not only is baking soda a lot cheaper, but it doesn’t strip oils nor does it interrupt hair pH. Oh, and it’s a natural antibacterial and antifungal product as well.

You want to create a hair mask here that’s paste-like. Take some baking soda at a quantity necessary to coat your hair at its length. Then, mix in just as much olive oil. By mashing the ingredients together, you’ll get that paste. Rub the paste through your strands. Let it sit for five minutes, then rinse it and follow up with conditioner.

This monthly treatment can cut down on dandruff flakes, as the texture of the paste is a natural exfoliator.

Olive Oil + Coconut Oil Hair Mask

Coconut oil not only tastes good, but your body loves it for reducing scalp itchiness and assisting hair that’s thin and/or damaged. Like baking soda, coconut oil is an antifungal, so it pairs with olive oil especially well.

For this homemade hair mask, take some virgin olive oil (about a cup) and combine it with the coconut oil (half a cup), stirring the two together in a bowl. Then, dribble it into your hair, rubbing it in. Use a brush to ensure your entire head of hair gets the oil mixture. Next, put on a shower cap so you don’t make a mess.

After 45 minutes, clean your hair, condition it, and dry it. You can treat your hair this way every week.

Olive Oil + Mayonnaise Hair Mask

This one may be a little strange; who really wants to put mayo in their hair? Once you get past the weird factor though, you’ll realize how much your hair enjoys mayonnaise. It’s all about the ingredients in this condiment, such as the vitamins, fatty oils, and egg.

Grab a bowl and dump in your mayo, up to two tablespoons. Go sparingly on the olive oil this time, no more than a couple of drops. If your hair is especially dirty or you’re shedding a lot of dandruff flakes, putting some vinegar in the mix is a good idea.

Use this hair mask on dry, freshly cleaned hair, starting at the top and working your way down. You want to keep the mix concentrated on your roots most of all. After 30 minutes, rinse your hair and apply conditioner.

While this isn’t a great treatment for those with oily hair, for everyone else, you can whip up this mask twice per week.

Olive Oil + Egg Hair Mask

We’ve talked about how eggs and olive oil go together so well, so it’s no surprise to see the two ingredients mixed into one healthful hair mask.

Depending on your hair type, you might use only the egg whites, only the yolk, or even both. If your hair is oily, then stick to the whites, up to two. If your strands lack moisture, then you want just the yolks, again two. If your hair is in good enough shape, then the whole egg works.

Combine that with the olive oil, two tablespoons. You can take this DIY hair mask further by including lemon juice and/or Greek yogurt in the mix. These extra ingredients can control frizz, provide more moisture, and boost hair strength.

You want to go section by section on damp, clean hair, starting at the roots but paying more attention to the ends. If you have a wide-tooth comb, use it to brush the hair mask through. Then, wait 20 minutes.

After cleaning out your hair (you can condition if you want, but it’s not necessary), leave the blow dryer be. Your hair should be left to dry on its own for best results. This is another one of those treatments to limit to weekly use.

Olive Oil + Avocado Hair Mask

The high vitamin quantities (E, B, and A) as well as the antioxidants and fatty acids in avocados make them a superfood, and it’s just as super for your hair. You won’t struggle to brush anymore, and your tresses will look shinier to boot. From curly hair to dry, thick, and thin strands, everyone can get something out of this hair mask.

You want to start with a ripe avocado. To tell if yours is ripe, your avocado skin should have a darker hue. The avocado will also be somewhat soft but not mushy. Slice open your avocado, scooping out its innards. Then, mash until the avocado becomes the consistency of puree.

Pour in your olive oil, no more than two tablespoons, and some honey should you want to. Stir everything in a bowl until all the ingredients are well incorporated.

Then wash your hair like you usually would. When you’re done showering and your hair is damp (not soaking wet), rub the hair mask through. Wait 45 minutes, then clean the stuff out of your hair. Apply conditioner when you’re done.

Since this treatment targets hair damage and dryness, there’s no need to apply it more often than once monthly.

Olive Oil + Banana Hair Mask

Although they’re not quite a superfood, bananas are a treat for the hair. Their fatty oils can keep moisture in your hair longer, plus the potassium and antioxidants may play a role in avoiding hair loss.

You want a ripe banana that’s firm but again, not mushy. Take off the peel and cut the fruit up until it’s in manageable pieces. Then, using a blender, mix it into a creamy consistency. Leaving the mix in the blender, dump a tablespoon of your olive oil right in, running the blender again until the oil is incorporated.

After washing your hair, run this mask through your strands before they’re too dry. Coat more on the ends than any other part of the hair. Then, pull your hair up, put a shower cap on, and wait for a half an hour. Rinse the mix out and end with conditioner.

If your hair is very damaged and/or dry, this is a treatment you can rely on each week.

Olive Oil + Honey Hair Mask

We’ve snuck honey into some of the above hair masks, but now it’s time to use it outright. You want a tablespoon of the sweet stuff mixed with olive oil, up to three tablespoons. Honey is great for treating split ends as well as adding moisture to parched tresses.

This might be one of the stickier hair masks, but dumping in olive oil a tablespoon at a time should fix that. This time, make sure your hair is dry and freshly washed. You want to again section your hair off and go one segment at a time.

Put your shower cap on and then kick back for up to 90 minutes. When it’s time, use warm water to clean your hair. You can wash it with shampoo and conditioner or just conditioner if you prefer. For oily tresses, this treatment is recommended no more than once weekly. If your hair is drier, you can get away with doing it twice weekly.