Shampoo Ginger

Zingiber zerumbet is a plant in the ginger family with leafy stems growing to about a metre tall. It originates from Asia and is found in many tropical countries. Its common names include awapuhi, bitter ginger, shampoo ginger, lempoyang and pinecone ginger. It is native to tropical Asia and Australasia, and the Austronesian peoples carried it as a canoe plant as far as Remote Oceania. The rhizomes are used as food flavouring and appetisers, and rhizome extracts have been used in herbal medicine. In Hawaii the fragrant leaves and leaf stalks were used in the underground oven, the imu, to flavour pork and fish, and the aromatic rhizomes were dried, pounded to a powder and added to the folds of stored kapa cloth. The most common use is as a shampoo and conditioner: the clear, fragrant juice in the mature red, pine-cone-like flower heads softens and shines the hair, and can be used as a massage lubricant.