Striving for “green” or eco-friendly beauty is like raising a garden. It requires constant tending, monitoring, and care, in the quest for a blossoming, sweet-smelling, beautiful end-result. With that analogy in mind, treating your hair like a personal garden plot is worth your while.

However, from first interest in more natural hair care, to the shining end result, being a conscious consumer is the necessary choice you’ll have to make. Julie Gabriel, author of The Green Beauty Guide: your essential resource to organic and natural skin care, hair care, makeup, and fragrances, writes: “We love the idea of herbs and botanical ingredients nurturing our hair back to health, but while many mainstream herbal shampoos brazenly claim to be natural and organic, most contain tiny amounts of beneficial botanical ingredients, with the bulk of the product consisting of harsh detergents, preservatives, and petroleum-derived silicones.”

Translation: You really have to educate yourself on how to read labels. It’s important to know the difference between “natural” and “organic,” and which ingredients you should avoid. For example, sodium laureth (or lauryl) sulfate is a foaming agent that is used to degrease (read: remove oil from) car engines. It can damage hair follicles, irritate skin, and negatively affect the body in other ways once absorbed through the skin. Yet, it’s still found in many shampoos, conditioners, and other hair products. This is just one example - we won’t get on a green soap box here. But for your own benefit, flip through books like The Green Beauty Guide, and other well-researched primers, to increase your knowledge.

Meanwhile, here are some natural tips and tricks you can use to increase the quality of your hair:

It has been reported that Angelina Jolie’s hair is often styled with baby powder. Wash the hair before hand, blow-dry, and either set with velcro rollers for fifteen minutes, or play Hollywood stylist and get a big curl by using a straightening iron. Then, flip your head towards the ground and sprinkle some powder into the roots. Work a small amount from scalp to ends for extra texture and volume. Blow-dry on cool for a minute or two, then give the head a supermodel-esque, big-and-flirtatious toss. Run your fingers through it, flip the head over and throw it back one more time, and admire your effortless body and volume.

Note: “I know this may sound harsh, but the truth about baby products is that they are often worse for human health than adult ones,” writes Gabriel. Most conventional baby powder is a combination of two ingredients: “talc,” a skin and lung irritant, and “fragrance,” a word that usually signifies a synthetic chemical called a phthalate, a known reproductive toxin that is also a hormone and endocrine disruptor. To keep this green tip green, seek more natural and organic baby powders.

Rice can also makes the hair expand and look fuller. Put 1 cup of rice in 2 cups of water, and leave it overnight. In the morning, put the resulting rice water in a spray bottle, and spray it throughout the hair. This little trick can revive a limp, flat mane.

For moisture:

Dry hair needs extra moisture, and according to the Little Black Book of Hollywood Beauty Secrets by Kym Douglas and Cindy Pearlman, Kristen Davis of Sex and the City – who has enviously moisturized, thick, brunette locks – knows how to do it. “I drink a lot of water, which helps keep your hair beautiful. That’s super important,” she says, before divulging this natural hair care secret: “I buy palm oil from South America [you can find it at health food stores]. It was actually discovered by the tribes in the Amazon and the oil helps these people sustain a good diet. What I’ve found is that it’s magical as even a daily hair conditioner. It doesn’t weigh your hair down and makes it super shiny. Any girl with long hair needs to try it.”

You can also use a thick, conditioning hair mask of avocado and mayonnaise, which is especially therapeutic for ethnic or very frizzy hair. Take a small jar, or one-quarter to one-half a cup of mayonnaise (not Miracle Whip, real mayonnaise). Peel and remove the pit of one avocado, and mash the mayonnaise with half of the avocado until the green color is consistent. Smooth the mixture onto the hair, all the way to the very ends. Cover the head with a shower cap or plastic wrap, to let body heat sink in (you can also give the hair some brief heat from your blow-dryer, to help seal heat into the cuticle). Leave this mask on the hair for 20 minutes, thoroughly rinse, and enjoy visibly well-moisturized hair. This can even be a weekly or bi-weekly treatment, depending on your hair needs.

If the mayonnaise doesn’t appeal to you, or if you’d like to try to improve the scent and strive for something more tropical, you can create a mask by mixing one peeled and pitted avocado with enough coconut milk to give it the right consistency. Either one will work wonders and leave a lasting impression on your strands.

Honey can also be used. This favorite of the bees is a natural humectant, which attracts and holds moisture. To combat dry hair and humidity-induced frizz, add 1 tablespoon to your shampoo, or work it through alone, in the shower, and rinse.

For shine and/or oily scalp:

One of the most fabulous tricks to balance oil production, hair pH, and increase shine is apple cider vinegar. Before stepping out of the shower, throw the head back into the shower head stream, and while avoiding the eyes, give the hair a rinse with this beauty wonder-product (which can also be diluted and used as a facial toner). It will remove product-buildup and excess oil, leaving your hair soft and shiny.

To remove even more oil, organic lemon-juice can act similarly. It is a bit more of a drying, oil-absorbing agent for those with very oily scalp. (However, note that if you regularly rinse with apple cider vinegar from time to time, you may find your scalp’s oil production slowing, and your moisture balance returning.)

For hold:

Dancers, celebs, and those getting ready for a big event need a gel that holds the hair firmly in place, but many gels leave behind flakes or accumulate residues of product build-up. Natural hair gel is very quick and easy to make, and doesn’t leave much behind.

To make your own, put one-half to 1 teaspoon of unflavored gelatin – which you can buy at the grocery store – in 1 cup of warm water, and let it dissolve. It will quickly take on the consistency of gel, and can be stored in the fridge in a sealed container. It will give natural, easy hold, but note that it conveniently dries quickly, so wait until your style is really ready to be held before you apply it to the hair. To remove it, you’ll have to soak the hair in warm water, and possibly work a conditioner through.

The ingredients you’ll use by going green and creating your own hair care recipes will fit easily into your budget, especially during these tough economic times. And buying organic or natural product brands doesn’t have to break the bank, either. Try eBay, stay on the lookout for deals, and know what want your products to accomplish. Striving for truly natural beauty takes some know-how, research, dedication, and a willingness to try new things. Put those together, and you can keep your bank account intact, have beautiful, healthy hair, and feel proud of what you are doing for yourself, and for the environment.