Rice water benefits + HISTORY

Ancient china beauty secret

The use of rice water came from ancient china. Since ancient times Chinese women use unpolished rice water as a daily skin toner and a hair rinse. 

For your skin, rice water has many vitamin like B, C, E, and minerals, which helps in tightening your skin and shrinkage of open pores on your face. While for the hair the proteins in rice water strengthen damaged hair shafts and keep it healthy & locks your hair’s soft and shiny look.

The Yao women from Huangluo Village, in Guangxi Province, in southern China, have one striking feature in common—their extraordinarily long hair that stays black until they are around 80 years old.

The Yao women believe that having long hair is an auspicious sign of good health, good fortune, and longevity, and they cut their hair only once, when they are old enough to get married.

I mean LOOK HOW THICK AND HEALTHY that hair is!!!

With their average hair length of about 6 feet, the Yao ethnic women made it to the Guinness Book of World Records as the “world’s longest hair village.” Part of their secret to having such long hair lies in washing it with fermented rice water.

Hair is indeed sacred to these people. 

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Next time you boil rice, think twice before throwing the water.

If you want to see if using rice water as part of your own hair and skincare routine can be beneficial for you, here are a few quick and easy recipes for preparing a batch of rice water:

WHICH RICE DO I USE?

Brown, white, jasmine, or whatever you have.

METHOD 1:

boiled rice water. 

To make a concentrate of rice water to use all week long in its diluted form as a facial wash or hair rinse, prepare rice as you normally would, but use two to three times the amount of water you usually would.

After the rice has cooked, strain it out. The leftover water will be a vivid white color, and will contain a high concentration of nutrients. However, don’t use it at full strength. Instead, dilute a few tablespoons of this concentrated rice water into a cup of clean water, making a barely milky-looking mixture. 

METHOD 2:

Ferment the rice water over night.

To make rice water, first rinse the rice with about a cup of water to remove any dirt or impurities. Place the rice in a bowl and cover with water. Let the rice soak overnight. Now strain out the rice water into a clean bowl. Your rice water is ready to use and to pour over your hair.

HAPPY PAMPERING!