Beer is magic. Drink it and the people around you start looking more attractive; rub it into your hair or on your body and, abracadabra, you start looking better yourself. Not a joke. That’s because beer’s ingredients—barley, hops, yeast and water (yes, water) release a menagerie of vitamins and nutrients in the brewing process that, if you can resist imbibing, act like a power meal for your hair and skin.
For your hair, beer is one of the best substances on Earth to get some body and glowing shine (you know, like all those Mad Men//Great Gatsby looking guys popping out of the sidewalk). This is because it’s teaming with maltose and sucrose sugars that tighten the cuticles and it’s filled with an abundance of vitamin B and antioxidants that thicken strands and nourish chemical or sun damaged hair. Yes, it’s got a lot of essential oils from the hops but this is a dry oil, so beer shampoo is better for people with normal to oily hair, not dry hair.
For your skin, the same nutrients are naturals at soothing inflammations, moisturizing, alleviating splotchiness, toning, and clearing up acne. Now, you could take that skunked beer you forgot about and splash it over your head, but you did that last weekend and it didn’t smell too good.
Instead, we’ll point you in the direction of Bröö, a small indie company based in the beer mecca of Asheville, North Carolina who have done an excellent job at transforming beer from the local Highland Brewing company into handsomely scented body washes, shampoos and conditioners.
They’ve found that the hopped up, er, hopsiness of an IPA is really good at smoothing out rough hair, that porter brewed with oatmeal is excellent at hydrating and that a pale ale is perfect for emphasizing volume. Moving over to the body washes, you’ve got a choice between hydrating oatmeal (that smells so much like vanilla and brown sugar you may try to eat it) for problem skin and a citrus pale ale for regular skin.
Yup. Move over milk. Beer does a body good.
Bröö Beer Soap and Shampoo Bottles start at $9.99 at Broo.com