When the hair loses its shine
Finer, duller hair, hair that loses volume over the years, a pale complexion, tiredness at the end of the day… In TCM, these signs may be associated with Blood and Essence deficiency, rooted in the Liver and Kidney. Tradition puts it in two sayings: the hair is the surplus of the Blood (发为血之余), and the Kidney manifests in the hair (肾其华在发). When the Liver, which stores the Blood, and the Kidney, which stores the Essence, run short of resources, the hair is often the first to show it.
Wu Hei Tang is a formula from the Chinese pharmacopoeia. Its name evokes black, the colour that the five-phase tradition associates with the Kidney. The Ben Cao Xin Bian (《本草新编》) says so about sesame: its juice is black, and black “enters the Kidney of its own accord”. It includes two ingredients that Chinese tradition has long linked to the hair: black sesame and fleeceflower root (He Shou Wu), whose name refers to a man whose hair remained black.
Nourishing the root so the hair follows
The formula is not aimed at the hair itself: it nourishes what the hair depends on according to tradition. Four sweet ingredients, in equal parts, replenish the Blood and Essence; ginger, in a smaller amount, warms the centre so that this richness is well assimilated.
Nourishes the Blood and Essence: Fleeceflower root and black sesame together nourish the Essence and the Blood; mulberries, sweet and cool, nourish the Yin and complement the Blood.
Supports the Liver and Kidney: Goji berries, sweet and neutral, nourish the Liver and Kidney; with fleeceflower root and sesame, they target the same root.
Deeply nourishes the hair: By nourishing the Blood, of which the hair is the surplus, and the Kidney Essence, which manifests in the hair, the formula works, according to tradition, at the very source of its shine.
