- Fucci! In Spanish, fucci means stinky.
(funky upbeat music)
Hello everyone! My name is Maya Murillo.
- Hi, I'm Spencer.
- I'm Vivian, and for the next two weeks,
we're going to try and get really extreme hair growth
using fermented rice water.
- The method of using rice water
on your hair has gained a ton of popularity recently,
with people on YouTube claiming
that it really did make their hair grow extremely fast.
- My hair is natural, and I got some length,
but I would love some more hang time.
This is cute, but this would be phenomenal.
- It stems from a cultural remedy,
and I'm all about those,
because in my own culture
we have a lot of remedies that I live by
because the ancestors know what they were doing.
In the village of Huangluo Yao in China,
the Yao women are famous
for their insanely long, thick, strong, and silky hair.
- [Shannon] An old tale describes a Yao woman
being able to quite literally use her hair
as a weapon to get rid of an unpleasant suitor.
- That's super badass, I love that.
- [Maya] They owe their long, thick, shiny hair
to the rice water mixture
that they use several times a week.
- Their fermented mixture generally consists
of white rice, water, pomelo peels, tea bran
fleeceflower root, and ginger.
- This mixture has several amino acids,
vitamin B, vitamin C, and E.
- And it's meant to strengthen your hair,
moisturize, and promote growth.
- Our game plan is to combine the methods
from the Yao women, and also what we see Youtubers
who swear by rice water do.
- I have fine hair,
but I have a lot of it.
I did use to bleach my hair a lot.
- My hair texture is very curly, coarse.
It is definitely damaged because I tend to
straighten it a lot, just to change up my look.
- I recently had some heat damage
that made me have to cut off four inches of my hair,
and it's been almost a year,
and it hasn't grown all the way back yet.
So I'm hoping this rice water can be a way
for me to grow my hair stronger and longer,
and get some of my length back because I miss her.
- I'm very hopeful that this will work.
- Now, it's time to make the fermented rice water.
(calm soothing music)
- [Spencer] My hand looks like a pterodactyl.
(orange falls)
(beep)
- [Maya] I have my clean, one cup of rice.
- I think when it comes
to washing rice, you just kind of knead it,
Like you're kneading dough.
- [Maya] We're going to fill up this mason jar
with filtered water.
(rice pouring)
(water running)
(laughs)
(bottle tapping)
- It won't come out.
Oh, I definitely put too much of that in there.
- Here it is, my rice water.
I'm going to make three of these.
I'm going to wait 24 hours for these to do its thing.
And then we will try it.
(lid twisting)
- It's day one,
and it's time to measure this hair.
My hair loves to shrink.
So when I wash it, and then it starts to dry,
the curls get really, really coiled up.
And I look like I have a little coily fro,
so I stretch it with these bands
so that I can get the full weight to actually
know how long it is.
- So, here's what my hair looks like.
I've done nothing to it.
The longest point goes to about here.
- Let's see how long my hair is.
I feel like that's a pretty good measurement.
If I keep measuring it, we'll still know how much,
if at all, my hair has grown.
Let's do 14 and three-fourths.
- I guess I'll measure it
from my scalp to wherever.
I'm hoping it lands here.
Wouldn't that be fantastic?
It hits the nine.
So at nine inches from my scalp.
- We'll see if this strengthens, lengthens.
A girl can only hope.
- I'm gonna spray the scalp.
I'm gonna massage this in.
This is a really good sprayer.
And there we go.
- I think I'm going to leave it in all night.
I'm not sure what's gonna work best because of my hair type,
but I really want this to get a deep treatment,
because I want my hair to grow.
- What I've heard is that this stinks,
or it can stink.
Smells fine to me.
I'm going to pour the rest over the rest of my hair.
I've had it on my hair for 30 minutes.
And so now I'm going to rinse it out.
- I'm going to just kind of tie it up.
I want the rice water to really seep in.
I will take it out and rinse it in the morning
and we'll see how that looks.
- So, I let my hair dry.
And this is what we're working with.
I mean, it's clean, it's very soft.
It feels very healthy.
- It's wash number two.
And I just got my bottle of the rice water, and it stinks.
(laughs)
- Good morning.
This is what my hair looks like.
I look like a little baby.
Isn't that wild?
The difference between how it looks right now,
and once I pull a random strand.
The shrinkage is real.
- Putting the rice water on my hair.
What I noticed is that my hair is getting a little greasy.
I don't know if that was just from the first time.
We'll see if it keeps happening,
but my hair was a little greasy.
- I don't think I'll do the leave-in method overnight again
just because I feel like it's a little dry.
If I do it like this again, I'll probably just leave it
in for a couple of hours, or an hour,
and then rinse it out
- I learned that I'm going to do this
where it's not in the rest of my apartment.
It's, again, very stinky.
This time, I'm probably gonna do a hair mask,
and put it in braids, and leave it for a day,
and then rinse it out.
It's a very pungent smell, as I've said before.
- This whole process for using the rice water,
between the co-wash and the conditioner, that's way
more conditioning than I put on my hair usually,
because my hair can get so oily so quickly.
So I'm wondering if from now on, I'll be just
washing my hair with shampoo and conditioner
as I normally would, and then putting the rice water on,
because I'm almost over-conditioning my hair.
It's just feeling a tinge grease-ball.
- For the most part, it's dry and it looks so good.
Yeah!
Hair!
I don't know if I felt a difference
because of the rice water just yet,
because this is only day three.
But I do like how my hair looks,
so if the rice water contributed to that,
it's going good.
- The rice water treatment definitely dried
out my hair and messed up my curls a little bit.
I think my hair's just not used to the frequent washes
that this requires.
It's been a mess, when your hair is a mess, you are a mess.
So it's been a mess, but I know this treatment works.
So I'm gonna try it again, I'm gonna try again.
- My hair's kind of already in stretching mode.
So I'm going to do this a little bit differently today.
I have this texture ID, intense moisturizer,
leave-in conditioner.
I'm going to spray it after.
Yeah. I'm going to do the rice water first.
I feel like it does better
when the rice water sits in my hair longer.
The last time I did this, I let the rice water sit
for 15 minutes.
And I don't think that was enough.
And I'm curious to see if it makes a difference,
since this is already kind of in stretching mode.
And then I'm applying this.
- Same place, same shower, same bathing suit.
Different day.
Yeah, the longer it ferments,
the worse it smells.
- I do love how good it looks,
as far as length.
I was kind of disappointed
that my curls weren't really popping today.
It's just kind of frizzy.
I guess the whole method
that I was going for didn't work.
So, back to my normal routine and spraying
with my hair soaked.
I think my hair is getting stronger,
because I'm noticing that when I detangle
I have a lot less shedding, and that's a good sign.
Because normally I have a lot of shedding.
- I wash my hair probably once a week
because that's what it needs.
So it's kind of hard to wash it multiple times.
So, I don't know if this is right for me.
- Reality time with Spencer.
I haven't been feeling too hot lately,
so I've been sleeping a lot.
I'm gonna shower today.
I'm a few days off.
I don't know if I'm convincing myself
that my hair is longer, but my buns are more feasible.
I don't know.
Anyway, I'm going to go shower now. (giggles)
- I rinsed out the conditioner.
I'm just gonna spray this
into my hair.
I keep testing, you know,
because you never know what's going to work.
And now we're trying for 30 minutes.
My mom has provided me
with an adequate shower cap,
and I'll see y'all in a half hour.
(soft upbeat music)
Okay, so it's actually been the whole day.
You know, you get caught up with life
and then you forget you're shooting a video.
So this is what my hair looks like.
The rice water has my curls super, super curly.
I hope it's gone longer.
I can't wait until the final day
when I can do the measurements,
because right now I'm not sure.
- So listen, I didn't do the challenge fully
because I love my hair too much to dry it out.
We had to do this for two weeks.
If I were to do this for a month and do it at my pace
I feel like we would get a result,
but everybody's hair process is different.
So I just wanted to give that disclaimer
- It's officially week two, and I look a hot mess.
I have just a little bit of the rice water left in here.
So I am moving on to the second mason jar.
So this has been fermenting for a week,
so hopefully it's extra potent.
(record scratch)
I forgot I'm going to the store with my mom.
I'm really hoping this doesn't smell,
because now I'm about to go out in public.
(soft upbeat music)
So I have my layers, it's a vibe.
It's a protective way to have my hair ferment.
I look cute!
- [Vivian's mom] Yeah, you look cute.
- [Vivian] Thanks, mom.
- I've been getting myself real hyped up,
being like, "Oh, it's definitely making my hair grow."
I don't know if anything's happening.
I'm trying to be positive.
Something's happening, right?
Something has to be happening.
(upbeat music)
- My hair is washed.
It is clean.
So now to spray the rice water.
I totally forgot I have a meeting in 10 minutes.
I already have all the rice water in my hair.
So I'm going to wrap this around,
and try to look presentable for the Zoom meeting.
I need to tweak this a little bit,
but I think this will be presentable for the meeting.
- It is the last day of the two weeks
that I'm going to be washing my hair like this.
And it's been a journey.
I need to train it again to not get as oily so fast
but you know, whatever, it's fine.
Totally fine.
It has made my hair more soft, which is interesting.
I did have some damage at the ends.
I think the damage is still there.
I don't think it's going to magically fix my damage,
but yeah, I don't know,
we'll see if it's grown at all.
- I really feel like it's getting longer.
So I think what I'm going to do is rinse it out,
and put some moisturizer, and go.
- I'm going to pour all of this over my head.
Because it's the last day.
And this is the last of this bottle.
Oh, oh, just wasted a lot of it, that's good.
- Okay, everyone, here is the result.
I feel like it didn't grow.
I don't know, it's hard to tell, honestly.
- Let's see if she's grown at all.
Okay. So that's 15 and three-eighths.
There's no way! It grew.
And I thought it wasn't growing at all.
- Okay. Now it's time to do the measurements.
(drum rolling)
So it is at nine.
I don't think my hair really grew.
- According to my Google search, hair grows
about half an inch, a month.
Right? Okay.
My hair grew a half an inch, plus one eighth in two weeks.
If that's the case, and it really did work,
I might use this every once in a while.
I'm not using it every other day.
- My hair didn't grow super long.
And I'm not gonna say
that I thought it would,
because everybody's hair type is different.
But I do think it made my hair stronger.
- Well, that's the end of the challenge.
I didn't really get to see a difference.
If I incorporate this treatment
into just my regular routine that I do,
I think I will see a result,
but I think I was more focused on the dryness of my hair,
and it freaked me out a little bit.
- I was a little nervous
that it was going to dry my hair out.
It didn't.
I was a little concerned about that.
My hair actually feels very soft, and it's awfully shiny.
- I do feel like it's really cool to experiment
with things that work for other people,
especially things that come from a historical background.
This didn't work for my hair type
but who knows, it might work for yours.
(funky upbeat music)