Ayurvedic hair care · Three herbs
Hair Treatment Powder
Amla, Reetha and Shikakai — blended
A wash and a mask, from the same pouch.
Three of our single herbs, blended: reetha and shikakai for the saponins that do the cleaning, and amla for the strand. Mixed thin it is a wash; mixed thick it is a treatment you can leave on. Nothing else is in the pouch — no fillers, no synthetic preservatives, no fragrance.
The reason it works both ways is a number. We measured this blend at pH 3.2 – 3.5 — between our two washing herbs, and inside the range cosmetic products designed to be left on the hair are usually formulated to. Shikakai on its own is far more acidic than that, and we do not recommend leaving it on at all.
Where it sits — our own readings
All four read on the same handheld meter, calibrated against pH 4.00 and 7.00 buffers, from mixes made at one part powder to three parts water by weight. Not laboratory certificates — numbers you can check yourself.
What is in it
Three of the eight care herbs Radico makes, each of which you can also buy on its own. Here is what each one brings to the pouch.
-
Reetha
Sapindus mukorossi
Saponins. The cleaning
-
Shikakai
Acacia concinna
Saponins, and the acidity
-
Amla
Phyllanthus emblica
The strand — and it touches colour
One thing to know about the amla. Of our eight care herbs, amla is the only one that shifts the tone of a plant colour through its own chemistry — its acidity shifts a henna result cooler and slightly deeper. That is why it is in 23 of our 24 shades. It also means this blend is not colour-neutral the way reetha or shikakai alone are. Washing with it will not strip a herbal colour, but if you are colouring, leave two to three days between the two.
- What it is
- Three organic herbs, milled and blended. Nothing else
- The herbs
- Amla (Phyllanthus emblica, syn. Emblica officinalis), reetha (Sapindus mukorossi), shikakai (Acacia concinna)
- Measured pH
- 3.2 – 3.5 at one part powder to three parts water, on a calibrated meter
- As a wash
- Mixed thin. Two to three minutes, then rinse
- As a mask
- Mixed thick. Fifteen to thirty minutes
- Lather
- More than reetha or shikakai alone, less than a shampoo. Foam is not what does the cleaning
- Effect on colour
- The amla will shift a henna result cooler. Leave two to three days after colouring
Foam, pH and the pouch
What we measured, and what we cannot hold constant
Most of what makes this blend behave the way it does comes down to two things: how much it foams, and how acidic it is. Neither is what people expect — and one of them is the reason the same powder works as a mask and as a wash.
Foam is not what does the cleaning
Reetha and shikakai clean through saponins — compounds the plant makes that lower the surface tension of water. They lift oil the way any surfactant does. What they do not do is produce the thick, persistent lather of a shampoo.
It is worth separating those two things, because they are not the same property. Lather is what happens when a surfactant traps air. Cleaning is what happens when it surrounds oil. A surfactant can do one well and the other barely at all — which is why industrial and dishwasher detergents are deliberately formulated to foam as little as possible. Foam gets in the way there, so it is engineered out, and the cleaning is unaffected.
If you have used our single herbs, you will notice this blend foams more readily than either reetha or shikakai does alone. We do not have a mechanism to offer for that — it is an observation from mixing all three, not something we have investigated.
Conventional shampoos foam heavily because people expect it. Foam is the part of a wash you can see, so it became the part that got engineered.
We measured the pH — and then diluted it
Plant washes are widely described as acidic. We have not found anyone publishing numbers, so we took our own, on a handheld meter calibrated against pH 4.00 and 7.00 buffers before the session.
The interesting result was not the figure itself. It was what happened when we changed how thick the mix was.
Three mixes, one pouch, one session. Between the thickest and the thinnest — a change that drops the powder concentration by a third — the reading moved by 0.03. A strong acid diluted that far would have risen by around 0.2, and even a simple weak acid by half of that. This one barely registered the change.
That is the signature of a buffer: a weak acid sitting alongside its own conjugate base, holding the pH steady no matter how much water you add. It has a practical consequence.
Mixing it thick for a mask does not make it more acidic than mixing it thin for a wash. The consistency changes how it behaves on the hair — whether it holds or pours — and nothing else. The fifteen to thirty minutes a mask sits on your scalp is spent at the same pH as the two minutes a wash does.
| pH | What follows from it | |
|---|---|---|
| Shikakai alone | 2.1 – 3.0 | A wash only. Rinse within two to three minutes |
| This blend | 3.2 – 3.5 | A wash, or a mask you can leave on |
| Amla alone | 3.46 | Not a wash. The acid in the blend, and why the blend sits where it does |
| Reetha alone | 4.54 – 4.90 | A wash. Nothing added |
| Hair’s own surface | 4.5 – 5.5 | For reference |
Cosmetic products designed to be left on the hair are usually formulated between pH 3.5 and 4.5. This blend sits at the bottom of that range, which is why we give a fifteen-to-thirty-minute window for the mask rather than an open one. Shikakai on its own sits well below it — and that is why blending it changes what the powder can be used for.
Why the number moves between batches
The three readings above came from one pouch. Across different batches, our readings for this blend have fallen between about 3.2 and 3.5. We would rather show you that spread than pick a single figure out of it.
The blend is three milled herbs and nothing else, in the same proportions every time. What we cannot hold constant is the herbs. Growing conditions vary from season to season and from one harvest to the next, and the acid content of a fruit or a pod varies with them. The pH of a pouch reflects the year it was grown in.
We could hold that figure still. It would take a pH adjuster, and there is nothing in this pouch but amla, reetha and shikakai. A number that never moved would be telling you something had been added to keep it there.
Your own reading will differ again, because water hardness moves it too. What does not move is the pH across dilutions within a single pouch — and that is the part that matters for how you use it.
The batch we measured OMP/26/E/001 · milled 05/2026
Why this one is not vacuum sealed
Our colour pouches are vacuum sealed at the point of milling, and it is worth being precise about why, because the reason does not apply here.
Henna's pigment oxidises in air. Sealed away from oxygen, the lawsone in a colour pouch holds its strength for close to five years. Left in air it loses potency — and as it degrades, the characteristic smell of henna, which is faint in a fresh pouch, builds. The vacuum is there to stop both. Indigo's precursor is oxygen-sensitive in the same way. Every one of our 24 shades contains one or the other, and most contain both.
This blend contains neither. There is no lawsone in it and no indican. Nothing in amla, reetha or shikakai is waiting to oxidise into something you would notice, so the main thing a vacuum seal protects against is not in the pouch. What the seal would cost, on the other hand, is real.
Vacuum sealing this powder compresses it into a solid block. Not a firm cake you can break with a spoon — a block you would need a hammer to get through. We tried it. What comes out is unusable.
Why this one blocks and a colour pouch does not. Our best explanation, which we have not tested herb by herb: the colours are mostly milled leaf — fibrous, low in sugar — and leaf powder packs down but stays loose enough to break. This blend is three fruits and pods, and fruit tissue is rich in sugars, pectin and mucilage that pull moisture from the air. Press the particles together under vacuum and the sugars at the contact points dissolve, bridge, and set — the same reason a tin of dried-fruit powder turns into a brick. Reetha's saponins are tacky in their own right, which would not help. Sealing each herb alone would tell us which is doing it; it is on the list.
So it is packed loose, and the pouch you receive carries a date and an expiry just under three years apart rather than the five a sealed colour pouch gets. That is a trade we made on purpose: a shorter window, in exchange for a powder you can actually get out of the bag — and nothing in it that the seal would have been protecting anyway.
What we do instead. We hold small quantities in the United States and air-freight from India frequently, rather than shipping a container and warehousing it. It costs more per pouch and it is more work. The point is that what reaches you is close to the milling date rather than close to the expiry.
Every pouch is printed with the batch number, the date it was milled and the date it expires. You can check where in that window yours sits before you open it. If it is closer to the far end than you would like, tell us.
What acidity does to hair
The outside of a hair is covered in overlapping scales, the cuticle, laid down like tiles on a roof. How flat those scales lie is most of what we perceive as smoothness. Flat scales let a strand slide past its neighbour; lifted scales catch on each other, and hair feels rough and tangles.
Alkaline conditions lift the scales. Acidic conditions let them lie down. That is the whole reason conditioners, acid rinses and every “pH-balanced” claim on a shelf exist — and it is why washing hair with true soap, alkaline at around pH 9, leaves it rough.
You will sometimes read that acidity opens the cuticle so nutrients can get in, and then closes it again. That is the wrong way round. Alkali opens; acid closes. A wash on the acid side is not letting anything in — it is leaving the surface flatter than an alkaline one would.
What we notice. Hair comes out of this wash easier to run fingers through than we expect it to, often without a conditioner afterwards. We are reporting that as an observation rather than a measurement — combing force can be measured properly and we have not done it. What we can say is that the pH gives a reason to expect it.
Keep it out of your eyes
Saponins are surfactants, and surfactants sting. Being a plant does not make a molecule gentle on the cornea, and the mechanism that lifts oil off hair does not distinguish between hair and eye.
There is a second problem a liquid shampoo does not have. This is milled plant material, so the wash carries fine particles that never dissolve. If some gets in your eye, those can lodge there and keep working after the water is gone, so the stinging continues rather than fading.
Tilt your head back while you rinse and keep your eyes closed while the wash is on. If any gets in, flush with plenty of cool running water well past the point it stops hurting — the aim is to carry the particles out, not just dilute the liquid. Do not rub; rubbing works a particle further in. If irritation persists after a thorough flush, see a doctor.
What we will and will not claim
That saponins are surfactants, and that acidity keeps the cuticle lying flat, are physical chemistry rather than health claims. The pH figures are our own, on a calibrated handheld meter, from mixes made the way we describe here. They are not laboratory certificates. We publish them because they are numbers you can check yourself with an inexpensive meter, and because we have not found anyone else publishing any.
What we have not measured is any outcome. We have not compared cleaning efficiency against a conventional shampoo, and we have not measured combing force. We are not claiming this cleans as well as, or better than, a synthetic formulation — we would need a controlled comparison to say that honestly. What we can give you is the mechanism, our own readings, and a clear note about which parts are observation.
We are not claiming this powder treats any scalp condition, and in the United States a cosmetic may not make that claim.
Radico Organic Hair Treatment Powder is a cosmetic product for external use on hair and scalp. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any condition. Patch test on the inner forearm 48 hours before first use, and stop use if irritation develops.
In practice
Two ways to use the same powder
How much water you add decides what this becomes. Thick, it is a treatment you leave on. Thin, it is a wash. The powder is the same either way; only the consistency and the time on the hair change.
| As a wash | As a treatment | |
|---|---|---|
| Powder to water | 1 : 4 | 1 : 2 |
| What it looks like | Pours. Runs through the hair | Thick yogurt. Stays where you put it |
| Where it goes | The scalp, in sections | The lengths first, then the scalp |
| How long | 2–3 minutes | 15–30 minutes, under a cap |
| What it is for | Cleaning — the saponins lift oil | Conditioning — the acid lays the cuticle flat |
| The pH | The same either way: 3.2–3.5. Water changes the consistency, not the chemistry | |
One part powder, two parts water
As a treatment
- Ratio
- 1 : 2 by weight
- Consistency
- Thick yogurt. It holds on the brush without dripping
- Time on hair
- 15–30 minutes
- Shoulder length
- About 30 g powder (1 oz) to 60 ml water (2 fl oz)
Long enough to condition, short enough that the acidity is not sitting on the scalp for an afternoon.
One part powder, four parts water
As a wash
- Ratio
- 1 : 4 by weight
- Consistency
- Pourable. Thin enough to run through and reach the scalp
- Time on hair
- 2–3 minutes
- Shoulder length
- 10–15 g powder (⅓–½ oz) to 40–60 ml water (1½–2 fl oz)
A paste would sit on the hair; a liquid runs through it and reaches the scalp, which is where the cleaning happens.
One powder, three consistencies. The pH reading we published was taken at 1:3, in the middle of the two. Going thicker or thinner changes how the mix behaves on the hair; it does not change what is in it.
Weigh the powder rather than spooning it — a spoonful of milled herb can vary by as much as a third depending on the spoon and how it is scooped. Add the water gradually, and let the mix stand five minutes before you judge it; the powder keeps absorbing water after the first stir.
As a treatment
- Mix at one part powder to two parts water — a thick yogurt consistency — and let it stand 5 minutes.
- Apply through the lengths, working from the mid-shaft down, then bring what is left up to the scalp.
- Leave on 15 to 30 minutes under a shower cap so the paste stays damp. A dried-out paste stops working — it is the water that keeps the plant compounds in contact with the hair.
- Rinse thoroughly with warm water, head tilted back. Rinse for longer than you think you need to; this is milled plant material, and fine particles settle at the nape and behind the ears.
As a wash
- Mix at one part powder to four parts water and let it stand 5 minutes. It should pour.
- Wet your hair first, then pour the liquid onto the scalp in sections. It will run, so work in parts and tilt your head back to control where it goes.
- Massage the scalp for two to three minutes. Expect a modest amount of foam — more than reetha or shikakai give alone, far less than a shampoo. It is not a measure of how well it is working.
- Rinse thoroughly, head still tilted back.
Keep it out of your eyes
Saponins sting, and because this is milled plant material rather than a dissolved detergent, fine particles can lodge in the eye and keep stinging after the water is gone. Keep your eyes closed while it is on, and if any gets in, flush with plenty of cool running water well past the point it stops hurting. Do not rub. If irritation persists after a thorough flush, see a doctor.
How often — what we found
You can use this daily. We do not think you need to, and we would rather say so. Using it every day gets through a pouch quickly, so we tested longer intervals to see what was actually necessary.
Washing with it every two to three days, and rinsing with warm water only in between, the slip held for the full two to three days. Hair still ran through the fingers easily on day three.
One condition is worth stating plainly. That was the whole routine — this powder, and warm water on the days in between. No conventional shampoo at any point during the test.
We have not tested what happens if you alternate this with a sulfate shampoo, and we would expect a different result: a strong detergent strips more than water does, and a scalp responds to that. What we can tell you is what a water-only routine looked like in our own hands — not what a mixed routine would look like in yours.
If you are coming from daily shampooing, expect a few weeks of adjustment. People switching to a plant wash commonly report an oilier period before things settle, and we hear it often enough to mention. Whether daily detergent washing actually changes how much oil a scalp produces is not something we can point you to good evidence for — but the adjustment period itself is real enough in what customers tell us.
This blend and colour
Reetha and shikakai carry no pigment, and neither affects a colour result. Amla is different, and it is in here.
Amla is naturally acidic, and acidity shifts a henna result cooler and slightly deeper. That is why it is one of the herbs in 23 of Radico’s 24 shades — the effect is measured into those recipes. It also means this blend is not colour-neutral the way our two washing herbs are on their own.
What follows from that. Washing with this will not strip a herbal colour you already have. But henna and indigo both keep developing for up to 72 hours after application, and a surfactant wash inside that window will take some of the result with it — more so here, because the amla is working on the tone at the same time. Leave two to three days between colouring and washing with this.
If you would rather not have the amla
All three herbs in this blend are also sold on their own, and the two cleansers are colour-neutral. If you colour your hair and want a wash that does nothing at all to the tone, reetha or shikakai alone will do that.
The trade is the pH. Reetha alone reads 4.54 to 4.90 and shikakai alone 2.1 to 3.0 — neither of which is where you want a treatment you leave on. This blend sits at 3.2 – 3.5, which is why it is the one of the three you can use as a mask.
The rest of the range
Three of Radico’s eight care herbs, blended — and all three are available on their own.
Organic Hair Treatment Powder See all Ayurvedic hair care
Three ingredients in the pouch. No fillers, no fragrance, no synthetic preservatives.
What this is, and what it is not
How It Compares to a Conditioner
If you have arrived here from a bottle of conditioner, the honest comparison is not the one you might expect. Neither product damages hair. A silicone conditioner is not harming you, and we are not going to pretend it is. The difference is somewhere else — and once you see where, it tells you which of the two you actually want.
A conditioner works by leaving something on the hair. This powder works by leaving nothing.
The slip you feel from a conventional conditioner comes from a film — silicone and a positively charged surfactant that bond to the surface of the strand, fill in the gaps between cuticle scales, and stay there. That film is the effect. It is real, it is immediate, and some of it survives the next wash.
This powder has nothing to deposit. What it does is change the pH of the water around the hair to 3.2–3.5, and at that acidity the cuticle scales lie flat. Rinse it out and the acid is gone. The hair is left as it was, with its scales down. One approach adds a layer; the other adjusts the surface and walks away.
| A silicone conditioner the usual bottle |
This powder amla, reetha, shikakai |
|
|---|---|---|
| How it works | Deposits a film of silicone and cationic surfactant on the strand | Lowers the pH so the cuticle lies flat. Deposits nothing |
| The slip, right away | Stronger. A film is a lubricant and it works the moment it lands. Their edge |
Modest. Hair comes out easier to run fingers through than we expect — an observation we have not measured. Honestly, weaker |
| What is left after rinsing | Some of the film. It builds with use, and it takes a sulfate shampoo to take it back off. | Nothing. There is no build-up because there is nothing to build. Our edge |
| With plant hair colour | The film gets in the way. Henna and indigo need to reach the cuticle, and a silicone coat is exactly what stops them. It is the most common reason a plant colour fails to take. | Nothing to block the pigment — and the amla is the same acid that helps henna release its colour. Our edge, if you colour |
| Time and effort | A minute. Squeeze, spread, rinse. Their edge |
Weigh, mix, wait five minutes, apply, wait fifteen to thirty. This is a treatment you set aside time for. |
| Sameness, pouch to pouch | Identical every time. It is a formula. | The pH moves between 3.2 and 3.5 with the harvest, because nothing is added to hold it still. A trade, not a flaw |
| Preservatives | Needed. It is mostly water, and water grows things. | None, because there is no water until you add it. |
| In the eyes | Formulated to sting as little as possible. | It stings, and the fine particles keep stinging after the water is gone. Keep your eyes closed. Their edge |
| Damage to the fibre | None. | None. Same |
So which one do you want?
It comes down to one question: do you colour your hair with plants?
If you don’t
- A silicone conditioner will give you more slip, faster, with less effort. We are not going to talk you out of it.
- Its film is not hurting your hair. The only cost is that it accumulates, and every so often a stronger shampoo has to clear it.
- This powder is still a perfectly good wash. It is just not the better conditioner.
If you do
- A silicone film between colourings is working against you. It is the single most common reason a plant colour lands patchy or does not take at all.
- This powder leaves the strand bare, which is what henna and indigo need to find.
- And its acidity is the same acidity we build into 23 of our 24 shades. It is on your side rather than in the way.
A word about “natural” and “synthetic”
You will see plant products sold on the claim that conventional conditioners are petroleum chemistry. Mostly they are not. Silicone is made from sand. The cationic surfactants and fatty alcohols in most conditioners are made from palm or coconut oil. A conditioner is a formulation, but its raw materials are often as plant-derived as ours.
The difference we are pointing at is not where the ingredients come from. It is what they leave on your hair. A formula is built to deposit a film, because that is what makes hair feel good in a minute. A whole-plant powder cannot do that, so it does something else instead. Both are legitimate. Only one of them is compatible with plant colour.
What we have not measured
The slip. Combing force can be measured, and we have not measured it — for this powder or against a conditioner. When we say a silicone conditioner gives more slip, that is what every hand tells us, not a number. When we say hair comes out of this wash easier than expected, same caveat.
The colour interference. That silicone build-up blocks plant colour is the consistent experience of everyone who works with henna, and it follows from how both work. We have not run the side-by-side on swatches. It is on the list.
Whether “no residue” means anything you would notice if you do not colour. It may not. A film that is not in the way of anything is not a problem.