Do viral beauty hacks really work?

TikTok… the internet Wild West favoured by Generation Z. There, nothing is off limits. With advice on everything from make-up to shopping on a budget, TikTok knows all.

And just recently, I was scrolling on my phone when I saw a selection of ‘beauty hacks’ – some of which were old wives’ tales I’d heard of before, but others were brand new and, quite frankly, baffling.

My daughter is obsessed with these beauty hacks though, and is forever raiding the fridge for ‘an egg for glossy hair’ or ‘flour to add to a face mask’. It got me thinking about whether any of these TikTok tips actually work, so I set myself a challenge to try as many as I could and see what difference they made to my late-40s skin and my long-suffering dyed hair. Here’s how I got on…

GARLIC TO MAKE HAIR GROW

The glam set on TikTok say garlic can aid hair growth. There are even videos with advice from trichologists (hair experts) confirming that this is true.

I love garlic in pasta, but on my hair?

The advice on the videos is to combine two teaspoons of fresh chopped garlic with one teaspoon of olive oil and massage into the scalp. I use my garlic crusher to ensure the pieces are small and mix with olive oil. It doesn’t seem enough to cover my scalp, so I add a bit more oil.

It stinks. Some videos say to sleep in it – my husband Cornel says this would be grounds for divorce, so I follow the advice that says ‘leave it on for 10 minutes’. Afterwards, I take great pleasure in washing it off, relieved that there’s no lingering smell (at least nobody tells me there is). The advice is to do this every few days so I try again, concentrating on the ‘baby fluff’ around my forehead (hair loss due to having two kids!). It’s too early to tell if it is helping it to grow but it’s certainly put me off adding garlic to my food.

EGGS AS A CONDITIONER

Here’s one I’ve heard before – my grandmother told me about eggs as a conditioner. Long lauded as a softener for brittle hair, eggs apparently smooth the hair follicles, leaving hair soft and silky.

I crack two into a dish and wipe them all over my head, then wrap my head in an old towel. The advice is to sit with this for 20 minutes. I must admit it does start to smell a bit eggy after a while and I’m convinced a bi