What is a Black Tea Rinse?
If you’ve heard about using tea for your hair, then I’m sure you’re wondering what a black tea rinse is, and if it will work in your hair. By the time you finish reading this article, you’ll know all about the method and whether it is right for you.
What Does a Black Tea Rinse Do for Hair?
Have you ever washed your hair and came up with an alarming amount of hair in your drain or sink afterward? Then wondered if you were using the wrong products or being too rough with your hair.
All you know is that your efforts to grow healthy hair has just been sabotaged by your hair wash routine.
Using a black tea rinse will help with:
- Shedding. If this is a problem for you, and especially on wash days, keep reading to learn how to reduce it. If you’re experiencing thinning or balding, using a tea rinse along with building a hair care regimen that promotes hair growth will be important.
- Softening and Adding Shine. This is a must if you want healthy-looking hair.
- Hair Growth. The caffeine within the tea will stimulate your scalp’s hair follicles and encourage growth.
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Black Tea Rinse for Natural Hair
All natural queens should get a hold of black tea to promote hair growth and to stop any breakage. Strong hair will break less so it will be easier to retain the length you’ve worked hard to grow.
Even if you’re not natural, doing a black tea rinse after a relaxer will help to strengthen the hair after it has been processed.
If you’re curious about how to do a black tea rinse on relaxed hair, follow the same instructions below. If you are considering the black tea rinse for transitioning hair, you’ve come to the right spot.
A black tea rinse will make sure your new growth comes in strong and might even speed up your transitioning phase, as you lengthen your hair and trim the chemically processed ends sooner.
Black Tea Rinse for Hair Shedding
One of the best things about the rinse is that it puts a hold on most shedding. The caffeine acts to block DHT, or Dihydrotestosterone, the hormone responsible for causing hair loss.
In addition to reducing shedding, the rinse stimulates the scalp and strengthens hair. This nourishment of the scalps leads to less hair loss and more hair gloss!
Black Tea Hair Rinse Recipe
When you want a do-it-yourself remedy for your hair, a black tea hair rinse for hair growth takes the cake. Try this easy-to-follow recipe and instructions to stimulate the follicles and get the hair you love.
You’ll need:
- 5-8 bags of plain, unsweetened black tea
- 1-3 cups of freshly boiled water (depending on hair length)
Instructions:
- Place the bag in a cup of freshly boiled water. A Pyrex glass measuring cup works great, or you can use a coffee mug.
- Let the tea steep and cool overnight.
- Pour the tea into either an applicator bottle or spray for an easy application.
- Thoroughly cleanse scalp and hair with your favorite sulfate free shampoo.
- Part small sections of hair and apply the black tea rinse onto the hair.
- Place a shower cap on head and leave on for 5-15 minutes. The rinse out with cool water.
- Deep condition your hair.
- Rinse with cool water and style as usual.
Side Effect of Black Tea on Hair
There aren’t any health issues with using this rinse that I’m currently aware of. However, one side effect of using black tea rinse on your hair is that it may be drying, especially if you have low porosity hair. As we know, drying can cause breakage—the exact opposite effect you were going for.
If you try the rinse and find your hair breaking, have no fear, there are ways to use it and still reap the benefits. Try these fixes instead:
- Go with Decaf. Decaffeinated tea still has a smidgen of caffeine, and it might be the perfect amount to stop breakage and hair shedding.
- Use Less. It’s easy. You can dilute the tea by adding more water to your mixture. Your tea will be half as strong as a regular cup.
- Use Green Tea Instead. Green tea has about half the caffeine as black and will be less drying too. Keep in mind that the tea leaf color is lighter so it won’t cover gray like black tea will
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Black Tea Rinse Benefits
The most popular benefits of the rinse is that it reduces shedding and stimulates hair growth. An overlooked advantage of the rinse is that it will tint your hair darker and cover graying areas.
You’ll love this method if you only have a few gray hairs and are looking for an easy, natural way to cover them without doing a full-fledged dye. Even if you don’t have natural hair, a black tea rinse for relaxed hair will work just as well.
Black Tea Rinse VS Apple Cider Vinegar Rinse
Having natural hair means you get to experiment between different hair rinses on your hair journey. You may have already tried apple cider vinegar as a rinse and are curious about the differences and similarities between the two treatments.
Both will make your hair softer, stronger, and add shine. They will both protect and nourish the scalp and hair.
But this is where the similarities end. A big difference between the two is that apple cider vinegar helps balance the hair by regulating the acidity.
This is known as helping with the pH balance of the hair. Apple cider vinegar is also known to help clarify the scalp and hair, by rinsing away residue from product buildup.
While black tea is not acidic, it does nothing to balance the pH, nor can it be used as a clarifying agent. The black tea rinse works to stimulate hair growth and stop shedding by using caffeine.
The caffeine blocks the DHT hormone from producing, and this fosters healthy hair growth and maintenance.
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Black Tea Rinse VS Green Tea Rinse
You may be wondering whether to use black tea or green tea as a rinse. Are you experiencing breakage with black tea?
If you are, you should try either diluting (see instructions above) or switching to green tea. Green tea has about half the caffeine as black tea so it might be just enough to give your hair the boost it needs.
Green tea can’t be used to darken hair so it may be a problem if that is one of your goals. On the other hand, if you are trying to maintain your lighter color, green tea may be just your thing.
How Often Should You Do a Black Tea Rinse
Nailing how often you should do a black tea rinse is tricky because it will depend on your hair and whether the rinse dries it. You want to do it as much as possible to add strength, shine, and growth, but you do not want breakage.
The best thing is to try the tea and measure the results. Try starting with doing the rinse every 1-1 ½ weeks for six to seven weeks.
Tea rinses are not meant to be a weekly ritual that you perform for the rest of your life. Rather, they’re a remedy that you can hold on to and take out when needed, like when you notice more shedding than usual.
Now that you’ve heard all the amazing benefits of this treatment, you may be asking, “Can I leave the rinse in my hair?” or “Can I do the black tea rinse overnight?”
While it’s an excellent treatment, it’s best to limit the usage to 30 minutes. Otherwise, you might have dryness and breakage.
It can be confusing whether to do a black tea rinse before or after shampoo. It’s best to use the rinse after shampooing and before the deep conditioner.
The best method is to shampoo your hair, then apply the black tea rinse, then layer on the deep conditioner. Leave it for 30 minutes, and then rinse with water.
Black Tea Rinse with Rosemary
Rosemary is a unique herb that natural queens swear by. You’ve probably heard of massaging rosemary oil into the scalp to grow hair, right?
It’s all due to rosemary’s power ingredient, ursolic acid, which aids in scalp circulation. Well, if you’re making a black tea rinse treatment, why not add some rosemary essential oil to stimulate hair growth even more?
Simply add 5-8 drops of rosemary essential oil to your cup and let it steep along with the black tea bags. A black tea rinse may become one of your favorites when it comes to root stimulation and thicker hair.
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Even if your concern is only to soften and strengthen, this quick remedy may be the answer you’re looking for. What do you think?
Will you be adding a black tea rinse to your natural hair care regimen?
Hey Curl Friend, I’m Patrina Haupt the creator and author of Natural Hair Queen. I hope you find my healthy hair care tips helpful in your hair journey. Healthy hair care practices are definitely, what helped me to achieve waist length hair.
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I have natural hair and on the crown of my head is thining to me it look like a not so much bald I can’t part my hair without it looking like a rhincatan behind I can wear it in a pony tail and a French roll could you recommend what I could use for that?
Have you tried Jamaican black castor oil for hair growth? I truly believe this oil works wonders. I’ve been using it for years and when my edges were thinning I would apply this oil every other day. Have you thought about wigs? This would give your hair a styling break every once in a while.
Sound very good to me. I am going to try it tomorrow
Awesome please report back how your responded. Make sure you follow up with a deep conditioner.
O am going to try black tea for shedding i am going back to Natural from a perm my hair is very thin
It really does help.
Thanks for the info! I had only heard about green tea rinses, which I have tried and had positive results with. Would you say that black tea rinses work better than using rice water? I use rice water as a spray for my edges, with some peppermint oil added. Any thoughts or advice?
Hello Anita, Tea rinses are different than rice water treatments. Tea is used for shedding and rice water is primarily used as a protein treatment. I have found that long term use of rice water treatment can have damaging effects on the hair especially if you are using other products that have protein within the ingredients. I have not found tea to have any long term effects as of yet.
Hello Patrina, I transitioned from perm to natural 2.5 years ago. It’s been a delightful, freeing and sometimes confusing journey(too many “natural” products) to trial~~ I only recently came across your site, not sure how, but I am extremely grateful for the no nonsense hair care rituals you provide. Please recommend a green/black tea for the rinse you speak of here. Thank you I’m also looking forward to trying your butta butta cream and am praying it will be the cream that softens and calms my naturally, not soft enough hair!! 🙂
Hello Kena, Any brand of organic black tea would work just fine. If you need more instruction please send me an e-mail.
Hi Patrina,
I am natural and transitioning into gray. My gray strands seems to break and the top middle is thinning. I have been using mayonnaise protein. Do you think the green tea will help?
Green tea could help too. It may take longer for the results so keep that in mind.
Hello. I am so happy to have found your website. Will a coffee rinse work to stop shedding and stimulate hair growth? My hair is primarily gray and thinning in the crown and edges due to heredity. Thank you.
Unfortunately, the black tea rinse won’t stop heredity shedding. It will slow it down only.
Any ideas on what to stop hereditary shedding?
Sadly, that is a tough one as we are talking about genetics. However, you can slow down the process by incorporating a hair care regimen. Along with black tea rinses and massaging the scalp with oil nightly.
hey my scalp are too oilly and greasy hairs what is the best treatment for me i am so worry
What is hair type do you have?