100 things to try with your hair before you die

(A lot of these have a certain “rite of passage” status among longhairs!)
Edit: Added Rita’s, Teufelchen's and Mandy's awesome entries to the list!   

1. Accidentally whacking someone in the face with your braid
2. Accidentally whacking yourself in the face with your braid
3. Arguing that you’re definitely not a product junkie. No, you’re not!
4. Avoiding severe sunburn on your scalp by wearing a scarf (And then feeling smugness the next day than no one else was as clever as you)
5. Being asked how much money you spend on shampoo (With the pre-set assumption that it is a lot)
6. Being asked how much time your spend on your hair (With the pre-set assumption that it is a lot)
7. Being called selfish, because you don't show the beauty of your hair and "hiding" it in a bun instead
8. Being really, really tempted by a crazy colour or cut, but deciding against it because you like your hair just the way it is
9. Being told that cutting your hair makes it grow faster
10. Being told that you are too fat/tall/short/skinny/pale/tan or in general have the wrong shape or face for the length of hair you have
11. Being told that you are too old for the length of hair you have
12. Biting back a snarky reply to “How do you wash it?” or something similar
13. Biting your lip not to laugh at how long other people take to do their hair in the morning
14. Building a failsafe routine that you can always return to if things go wrong
15. Checking out at the supermarket with more hair products than actual food in your cart
16. Discovering the wonder of S&D
17. Doing something completely weird to promote hair growth or health. Then later think back to it and wonder what the hell you were thinking?
18. Enable someone with a great product
19. Experience an amusing hair-mishap and sharing it on your favourite forum
20. Experiencing someone making a mean comment about you being selfish and not “thinking about the poor children with cancer who needs a LoL wig made from your hair” and not losing your cool or sinking to their level
21. Experiencing someone making a mean comment about your long hair and not losing your cool or sinking to their level
22. Feeling a deep satisfaction that you made the most you could out of your hair!
23. Feeling trendy because the IT-thing in hair at the time is whatever messy thing you happen to have whipped your hair up in that day
24. Finding an oil your hair really loves
25. Finding hair in the weirdest, most inappropriate body parts and thinking "How the hell did it get there?"
26. Finding someone who will cut your hair exactly the way you want and nothing more
27. Getting your hair caught under your significant other
28. Growing your hair longer than you actually like and then decide “Nah, I like it better when it’s just a bit shorter”
29. Hair-typing people around you in a bored moment
30. Having been too eager with an awesome new treatment and pissing your hair off
31. Having the ends of your hair tickle a certain body part and think [insert name of that bug you hate here]!
32. Having your hair pulled by your armpit
33. Having your hair pulled by your elbow
34. Having your hair pulled by your knee
35. Having your love-making interrupted by “Ow! My hair!”
36. Having your pet play with your hair
37. Holding something completely non hair-related in your hands and thinking “Hm, maybe I could use this in my hair somehow?”
38. Impressing someone by whipping your hair up in a bun in 37 seconds flat
39. Inspiring someone else to buy the exact same hair tool as you
40. Inspiring someone else to grow their hair
41. Letting your hair go completely and entirely greasy from its natural sebum
42. Looking back at old hairstyles and laugh
43. Making someone actually want to eat your hair because of the delicious-smelling treatment you made
44. Making someone think you cut your hair while it’s in reality hidden safely under a wig or updo
45. Making someone think you made some sort of delicious food when you cook up a new hair treatment in the kitchen
46. Matching your entire outfit to whatever tool you’re wearing in your hair that day
47. Overhearing a sweet and spontaneous comment about your hair from a child
48. Owning a cute scarf or tichel that you can hide even the messiest hair-day under
49. Owning a piece of hair jewellery that costs more than your entire outfit
50. Owning a wig, a wig piece or a funky-coloured clip in
51. Perfecting a single up do that you can always do no matter what
52. Picking the meatiest meal on the menu and then arguing “My hair needs protein!”
53. Picking up a food item from the kitchen and taking it into the bathroom to spoil your hair with
54. Reaching your length goal and going “Hm, maybe just a little longer…?”
55. Realising that sometimes, mean comments really do come from jealousy
56. Realizing that your bun makes for a good shock absorber
57. Realising you outgrew someone you considered a hair idol
58. Receiving a mean comment for your hair and giving a snappy comeback
59. Regretting a cut
60. Rinsing your hair with diluted ACV
61. Rinsing your hair with some strange brew with fruit juice or tea or the like
62. Rolling your eyes at an advertisement when you know hair doesn’t actually work that way
63. Rolling your eyes at hair advice when you know hair doesn’t actually work that way
64. Rolling your eyes at someone using the term “dead ends”
65. Rolling your eyes at someone who just doesn’t understand that having short hair is just not the same as having long hair you can put up
66. Seeing the cashier/customer service at the store give you funny looks when they see you with several bottles of conditioner but no shampoo to match
67. Seen flat-ironed and hair sprayed hair up close and knowing it’s really not pretty or healthy at all
68. Sharing a sweet comment someone made about your hair with the people on your favourite forum
69. Squealing in delight over a brand new hair toy
70. Tickling your significant other with your hair
71. Trying CO
72. Trying WO
73. Using the argument “It’s for my hair!” and getting it your way!
74. Using the argument “It’s for my hair!” in any way
75. Waking up in the middle of the night and realizing that your hair is caught under something. You then tell your SO to get off your hair and then you realize it's actually caught under your back instead
76. Waking up in the middle of the night and thinking that the soft, furry thing caught between the mattress and the headboard is a dead rodent when it is actually your hair
77. Washing with an herb
78. Wearing braided pigtails just because you can. And no, you’re not too old!      

Hmm, I’m quite a few short here. Any help, guys?

Cut my hair!

Behind the irritating and attention seeking title is that fact that today I trimmed the little patch in the back of my neck. My hairline is pretty asymmetrical and my hair grows a lot further down the neck in the left than the right side. That silly little patch is even much curlier than the rest of my near-straight hair and always forms this little squiggly curl. It grows a lot slower than the rest of my hair too!   
   

It was super irritating because it means the little bit of hair would always end up either sagging or pulling. I started cutting it many years ago and was really worried I would regret it, but I never have. Since it grows so slow, I only have to take the scissors to it a couple of times a year too.

    

I always end up cutting it when I have that “Argh, I have a bug crawling on my neck!!1!11!!” freak-out. It’s always followed by the “People around you staring at you like you’re an idiot and wondering why you were hysterically swatting at your own neck”-experience.
Urgh.

   

There really aren’t a lot of hairs in that little patch

  

  

Not even enough to do a decent silent movie-villain beard
 

  

Would it have worked if I had used my scissor as a monocle? Mmm, quite!

Beanie idea

I brought my laptop down today while waiting for the laundry. Although you don’t have to watch it constantly, the machines never seem to be able to keep the times they show. So today as usual, my machine #2 was showing “1 minute left” for 11 minutes straight. Good thing I bought my laptop!

I took the chance to sort some pictures in my hair folders.

     

I have been following this thread on UTT about hair friendly winter hats and been super envious of all the awesome hats and knitting skills. I have never found a hat that will cover my bun and head without sliding backwards at the forehead and bunching up at the neck. Some longhairs seem to be happy with a caliometry which is a beanie without the back, so a bun pokes out. Me, I definitely want to cover all my hair to protect it from wind and cold!

    

As I wrote before in my blog I want to learn to knit, but knitting alone wouldn’t be enough to create the hair hat I want. I would want silken lining on the inside as well. 

    

Anyways, when I was down at the laundry room I got an idea for the “ultimate” bun covering beanie. 

I used a picture of me taken from the side as reference. And suddenly understood why my beanies always slide back! Look how huge my bun is compared to my head?! No wonder I will have to learn to knit to get a hat that fits… 

    

Pardon the drawing quality, but I used what I had at hand which was a big marker, probably left over by a child. (Our laundry room is a study in weirdness BTW! I always look forward to see what bizarre things are left there. This week it was a mix of gardening and car magazines. Last week there were lots of children’s toys and of course there was the month where the laundry room had been transformed into a fundamentalist Christian library. Weird.) Oh and pardon the rather embarrassing spelling error! 

     

Anyways. My idea was this:

• An inner layer of cotton with silk around the bun and at the fragile hairs at the temples. My experience with silk tells me that a full layer of silk will only result in irritating slipping, so I would want to reduce it to the more fragile/old parts. 
• A roll of stuffing between the bun and head to disguise the bun-bump and offer extra insulation.
• Two elastics stitched around the insulation-roll to stabilise the entire hat and keep it from sliding. Around the forehead for stability, either a wide elastic for distributing the tension or simply a regular headband. Some people experience headaches from the pressure of headbands, so maybe a drawstring would be a good idea. Would probably be a good idea anyways so the hat could be fitted for any head size. 
• A knitted surface.

         

       

Now that I see my drawings and design based on my head and bun shape, I really understand why my regular U shaped beanies always slip and irritate me. A specialised hair beanie really needs a distinct asymmetric shape!

Annoyed over something stupid

I received a link from a friend today that I had been recently quoted on LHC for having taught a member something. So what is the problem? 
    

That said member makes it sound like it was something I believe in, when I really don’t. I might have explained the reasoning why some people do this, but I have also posted several times how I don’t believe in the effect.
     
So yea, I believe the reason behind some people swearing by the final cold rinse is to “close the hairs’ cuticles that have been opened by the warm water” but I don’t believe it has any real effect since following that logic, it would mean the cuticles would re-open again as soon as the hair heats up to room temperature again, right?
    
Save yourself the cold water torture and go for an ACV rinse instead.
    
Oh and just to be completely clear, this Igor is a former member of LHC. She was kicked out for being horribly evil and “spreading misery”. Thankyouverymuch.

A question about shedding

I would really like to read about if you have had any major shedding and what you did to make it stop. 
  
Yes, I have experienced shedding. I actually lost 1-2 cm circumference of my hair after a very sneaky shed. Without going into details, I had one of those periods in my life where it felt like “Oh great, what else can go wrong?!” was seen as a challenge to see how much it really took to break me. I was incredibly stressed and it was followed with a long period of deep depression that has taken me years to get out of.

I didn’t notice it until way later, but I must have shedded a little extra each day. You wouldn’t notice 5-10 extra hairs under normal circumstances and especially not when you’re so stressed out you can’t even sleep without taking pills or so depressed that taking a shower seems like too much work because it requires having the energy to dry yourself off and braid your hair afterwards. 

It wasn’t until 1-2 years after when I was plagued by the regrowth that was long enough to get in my face but too short to go safely up in a bun or braid that I realised I had gone through a shed. It didn’t take much thought to add two and two to why that happened.

 So, yes I experienced a bad shed, but I didn’t realise it until after it had stopped on its own again. I can’t really tell what to do to make it stop since it stopped on its own. The fact is though, that I’m in a completely different place in my life than I was then. 

  
But I have two thoughts on unwanted shedding:

• Get a blood test.
• Look into stress-coping.

  
Getting a blood test is the best place to start. If not for anything else, at least to give yourself the peace of mind to know it isn’t a sudden illness or deficiency you’re experiencing. Of course some doctors can be unwilling to take a blood test on a “healthy” individual and they can be quite condescending when it comes to “silly” things like hair loss. I have experienced enough doctors in my life to know the threads on doctors brushing off concerns about hair loss with a condescending “That’s normal” are completely true and frequent. After all, with “normal” shedding being between 50-200 hairs a day, how can you even tell someone you don’t know at all that their shedding is normal, even when the owner of the scalp swear they’re experiencing a drastic increase?

So what should you do? Lie. It’s that simple. Tell your doctor that a relative have been diagnosed with a deficiency and it makes you worried you might have it too because you feel you have experienced some of the same “symptoms”, could he/she draw a routine blood test to give you peace of mind? It will require a bit of research, but only a truly arrogant ass of a doctor would be able to brush off a “real” concern that can be put to rest with such a simple step.

  

Even if your increased shedding isn’t caused by stress, it is a highly stressful experience. You may even start to feel stressed over the shedding itself. And no, it doesn’t make you a horribly vain person to worry about that. Anyone who dares to judge you over your very real, physical concern isn’t worth your time.

As for handling stress, there are many good sources for information from people who are trained in dealing with this and have degrees that are relevant.

  

I can share what I found have helped me though…

Make a minimum list of things you need to do for the day. Be realistic! Cross out things as you have finished them and start with the easiest one to encourage yourself. Life can seem a lot easier when you have your to-do’s on a list instead of rummaging around in your skull.

Make your sleep a priority. During sleep is the time where your brain restarts, your body repairs itself and it will give you the mental and physical means to deal with a stressful day. Air out your bedroom before sleep; change your bed sheets frequently and to something a little more luxurious. Make sure to set enough time in your schedule to get the 8 or so hours you need. If you have trouble dosing off, don’t be afraid to look for aid in herbal supplements or prescription pills. We have all experienced how a full, satisfying night of sleep can make the entire world a different place.

Make food and nutrition a priority too. No living off fast food and sugary snacks no matter how much easier it is! You need real solid and healthy food without sugar crashes to give your body and mind the energy they need.

Take at least 15 minutes each day to put your feet up, relax and not worry about anything. Set an alarm if you need to help you focus on relaxing! Put on a facemask or paint your toenails, drink half a glass of wine and read a Cosmo. Take it as a mental break and don’t feel guilty for it. Take it as a priority to make yourself relax and spend some time to make yourself look good in the process too; it will make you feel better and more confident. Under eye bags and dull skin never helped anything and if taking care of this will help you relax and unwind in the process, it’s just an extra plus. I think the one thing that really broke me down in the stressful period was that I didn’t have a place where I could just put my feet up, relax and prioritise myself. You need to create a space for yourself for that.

  

Those reading this will have noticed that I haven’t actually mentioned any “hair solutions”. Well, there is a reason for that. I truly believe that if you’re experiencing a bad shed, you need to look for a mental or physical reason. As it has been said many times, hair is actually very far down the body’s pecking order and your hair will suffer when something else is wrong. Bad sheds aren’t something that will be fixed with massage, pomegranate juice, kelp diets or what have you. They might mask the symptoms and reduce the shedding for a while, but they will not cure what is really wrong and what is really causing the shed. You need to address that and either fix it or learn to deal with it in some way. The shedding will eventually be reduced or go back to normal when you do.

 

But never forget you can always find people who will listen and truly care on hair forums.  

A brief history of the fact that Igor is a nutcase

I have a few things in my life I’m a complete control freak about. My calendar is one of those. I’m a chronic list maker and this one basically runs my life.

I have everything in it including my suggested hair and skincare schedule. It’s always stuffed full of little souvenirs from my life. Some people keep pictures, receipt and little memory things in their valet, for me it’s in my calendar.

I’m extremely picky about the calendar I pick out and even buy new pens every year to fill in my schedules and information.

• It can’t have a spiral back because my keys always get stuck in those.
• It has to be one page per day, although one for both Saturday and Sunday is okay too.
• It has to be the right size, A6-A5.
• It needs to have a notes-section.
• It needs to have enough room for stuffing in extra pages, pictures and receipts.

Funnily enough it turned out that Chemist friend is just as weird as me when it comes to calendar so we went shopping together! I have never met anyone who is as weird when it comes to calendars as me.

I found one I had never thought of before, a Filofax that could be completely closed like a big clutch. It was instant love, I had to have it!

 

Here it is next to the calendar I got for hubby. That one is more like the kinds I have usually gone for. I would have picked that one if I hadn’t fallen for the Filofax. Then of course I needed to replace a whole lot of the papers inside it. Why do the Filofaxes always come with one page per week as standard? I don’t know anyone who likes that!

 

Look how brilliant it is on the inside with plenty of room for cards and papers.

But... Big fail: It turned out it was too small to even contain the one day per page calendar. No!! The rings inside were simply too small in circumference!

One heartbroken Igor had to return to the store to see if it came in a bigger size. It did, but then I had to jump to an A4 size and that would take up most of my bag. Fail!

But then I spotted a calendar that were like a combination of the rejected one and a regular calendar. It had the calendar part and a zipped off “clutch” part. The rings were plenty big for the one page per day calendar too.

 

Not as much in love with this one as with the completely zipped off one, but it is still pretty sweet!

 

Now it’s time to start filling it up with information. That always takes some time! Then stuff it full of my “little” collection of souvenirs from my life and people I love.

I really think I have a good plan outlined for healthy hair 2012 and will enjoy filling that in…

Will post pictures of the finished calendar if I haven't bored everyone to death :)

Heh…

And I thought my shedding on the floor was bad?
  

Today’s hair

I wanted to demonstrate the braided crown braid-fake infinity combination for the knee length updo ideas-thread on UTT

So here is today’s hair

 

From the front

 

Side…

You can see the wrapping/braiding pattern from the back

Other side

I have no great secrets to this one. I like Dutch braids because the pattern is prettier, you put one braid around the head in front of the start of the braids and put the hair stick through the end of the first braid, then wrap the second one around the stick in an infinity pattern

Colouring eyelashes

I got a few questions about this, including from real life friends so I thought I would put a post up on it.

This is one of the things I really swear by. It’s quick, efficient and will keep you naturally looking great for over a month with just 5 minutes spent!

Have the following items ready:

• Cotton pads
• Mascara brushes. Old and cleaned ones
• The box with the dye solution
• Toner. Just the kind you usually use

Before you start:

Put your hair up and keep it back with a bandanna. You don’t want any stray hairs getting in the way, in your eyes or accidentally ending up black.

Be aware that once the two liquids are mixed, the result is instantly permanent! I’m demonstrating this over our coffee table, but you should always do this in a place where spills won’t destroy your tables. It doesn’t come off anything, including nails. They have to grow out if you spill or get a smear on them.

I use a brand called Depend, but back in Denmark I used Swiss O Par. It’s exactly the same thing though: Same contents, same method and same colour choices: Black, brown and dark brown. I use black. There are other options out there with a longer dye release, but it sucks sitting blind for up to 30 minutes when you can get it done in less than 5!

 

  
The pack comes with these little “protection pads” to put under your eyes. I don’t use them at all though. I’ve been wearing contact lenses for some 15 years of my life and dying my eyelashes for 10, and my near-eye motor skills are so fine-tuned I think I could do this in a moving car.
 

 

Maybe my lack of spills is also to do with that I don’t use the stupid Q-tips that come with the pack. You’re supposed to use them for applying the liquid on your eyelashes, but to me, that is just ridiculous: You come dangerously close to actually dripping the liquid in your eyes.

  

 
Use them to mop up spills or clean your ears instead.
 

 
Instead, I use an old mascara brush. Dip it into the little bottle with the first solution.
 

 

Then brush the liquid on my lashes. Start on the inner corner of your eyes, it’s easier that way.
 

 

When the lashes are nice and wet, I get the cotton pads ready. Pour a bit of toner on so you’re ready to remove spills if necessary, and you don’t have to fumble around with this after the dye. This will also give the solution a bit of extra time to soak in for better dye.
 

 

Now I brush the liquid on again to make sure I have a good coverage.
 

 

Next, take the tiny comb and the gel solution. Spread a thin strip of the gel on the very outer edge of the little comb.

  

 

Comb your lashes through, starting at the inner edges of your eyes. The gel seems to “plump up” when it comes in contact with the liquid. The mix of gel and liquid turns black and your dye is done!

 

 

Just to make sure I have enough coverage, I take a second old mascara brush and brush through my lashes to make sure I have covered and mixed everything.
  

  
Now it’s time to clean up. This is where you will be happy you have made the cotton pads ready and you just have to reach out and grab them. 
  

  
And voila, done! The dye lasts until your eyelashes shed, so 4-6 weeks depending on their growth.
  

Cassia result

I really worried I had overdone the cassia yesterday, but my hair obviously agreed with it!
  
Soft, smooth, shiny and very, very red!
   
I’m definitely going to skip the tea from now on if it will save me from the dripping issues.
 

Cassia

I’ve been way overdue for a good deep treatment for a while, but I just haven’t bothered.

Whenever my hair begins to need conditioning, it starts retaining water and stays moist and dripping for hours. When it’s freshly conditioned, the water “slides” off and it dries top down.

Since my scalp is still irritating, I decided on the cassia treatment I have considered for scalp exfoliating. My hair was still annoyingly moist from my post gym shower, so I mixed up the cassia and applied it directly without pre-wetting it.

My mix today consisted of more cassia than usual, a pack of henna and placenta, a tablespoon cholesterol treatment, a tablespoon of the Respons treatment that turned out to be too heavy for me in itself (Hubby hated the smell too, but it’s more important that I didn’t like the product. Hah!) leftovers from the Schwarzkopf ultimate repair and I filled up with the blue VO5. I skipped the tea altogether.

I smothered it on trying not to manipulate it too much. I never trusted the grainy cassia structure versus my hair! Then left it under cling wrap with the two heat pack hearts and warm hats for 1½ hour.

Skipping the tea completely solved the dripping-issue I normally have with cassia treatments! Hmm. Worth considering skipping the tea in the future??

Rinsed. Hair felt dry and cranky as usual after cassia. Smothered it in VO5 and put it up with cling wrap, warm hats and heat packs for another 30 minutes. Rinsed again.

My hair now feels fantastic. Smooth, strong and shiny! It’s already almost dry from the shoulders and up, even in the braid. I wonder though: Did the stronger cassia mix mess with the colour? It’s impossible to see while it’s still damp. I will report back tomorrow.

Now, Igor needs her sleep.

Goodnight and sweet dreams everyone!
    

I’ve got mail!

I ordered a replacement for my old TI 92 calculator that got stolen and since amazon doesn’t ship electronics like that to Europe, I had to get a middle woman to ship it to me. Luckily the sweet Triumphator from UTT offered to help me and my calculator arrived yesterday long with some cool and crazy hair colours she couldn’t use anymore. I’m going to have some fun with these!

 

Look how big this thing is compared to my little 10” laptop!

I really love getting mail. Feels like Christmas to unwrap a new package!

Stupid scalp…

Well, the flakes aren’t getting better and I feel pretty confused about it. My scalp is really itchy and flakes keeps coming off when I scratch it. I was talking to hubby about it and we both assume it’s the dry air inside. Hubby has always been prone to nosebleeds and he has been getting them a lot more often the last few weeks.
We’re discussing getting a humidifier, see if that helps and I’m going to do a cassia scrub tonight. Anyone else have any suggestions to flaky scalp?

In the meantime, here is a very charming picture of the snow landscape that has become my head…

Tempting

I stumbled over this:



Tangle Teezer for sale on a Swedish cosmetics site for 169 kronor. Shipping is 30 kronor or free for purchases over 500. Link.
(For the “comb” that is 138 Danish kroner or 18,5 Euro or 25,2 USD)

I’m tempted. The tangle Teezer is one of those very, very hyped products you always hear about in the longhair circuit. But on the other hand, as I have experienced multiple times before, hype =/= good product. At least not for my thick hair.

I checked around and found other Swedish sites selling it too, some cheaper, some more expensive.

But I find myself returning to the conclusion that A) It’s too fine-toothed for me and B) I don’t think I can make friends with the weird shape.

Kind reader Julya pointed me to a place that sells combs I will probably be better off with. Link.

I keep eyeing this one:



The hard rubber combs with handles should be perfect. Water safe and a good size. I think 2-3 of these will be my Christmas gift to myself? And maybe an argan oil too…? Hm.

Urgent wash day

I have been beating myself up for not doing something cool and fun with my hair for a while. Keeping a blog really shatters your illusions about how often you do things with your hair!

So I had planned to do double Dutch braids, wrapping one around my head like a headband and then seeing if I could secure it with the second braid in the form of a Nautilus at the neck. I thought maybe my large Flexi 8s would be the right size for holding a braided Nautilus done on only half my hair.

Well, I still plan on trying that…

But I woke up to a spontaneously itchy and flaky scalp. What the heck? Where did that come from? I’m mystified. There have been no signs of my hair greasing up or getting irritated at all, it was like an unprovoked night-time attack of the flakeys!

Is it the winter cold kicking in messing with my sebum? Too much time spent in hats maybe? Something I ate??

So instead of doing something fun with my hair, I had to go for an emergency wash. Eh, yeah, that’s just as fun. Not.

Towel drying a bit after having scrubbed the scalp with three handfuls of the blue VO5

Sexy Smurf!
Note the sexy hint of cling wrap at the neck and the oh-so-seductive extra big hump from the heat pack and three old hats, yummy!
Testing out the new smaller self-warming hearts and the Schwarzkopf ultimate repair conditioner for deep conditioning. A little creativity with a bandage and you can be surprisingly mobile while doing the SexySmurf: I gave the kitchen a much needed cleaning. Then rinsed and did a quick ACV dip.

Doing something “fancy” on freshly washed hair always spells disaster for me, so it went in a simple English braid.

The Ultimate Repair conditioner seemed pretty nice. My hair is left shiny and easy to manage. Feels thicker too. It felt a bit “slick” or something that made it hard for me to judge when it was rinsed clean. I can’t say I care much for the scent though. Hubby likes it but I’m a bit… Meh. About it.

Slightly scary…?

I got both Biologist and Chemist friends hooked on the Flexi 8s. Especially Chemist friend who ended up ordering from them three times and has a collection with 4 different sizes and 10 different designs. (Hm, that’s more than me!)

Seeing her collection made me itch to buy some XLs to see if they fit better for a figure 8 bun since the megaflexi doesn’t hold as tight as I wish. But then again, I do still think the completely rude reply I got to my suggestion makes them owe me a big fat apology before I spend more money there…

When I took my megaflexi out and down to take a picture, it just looked a bit odd…

An extra small Flexi 8 fits inside my Megaflexi

And a mini is completely dwarfed by it

Monday the 8th of November

I went shopping with chemist friend and had a blast. She is really awesome to shop with: Just girly enough but not so much she would spend hours fussing over which plum shoes are plum enough for the winter trend. Hah. Just like me.

I wasn’t going to get any new conditioners since I still consider the bathroom to be stocked after we went to Öob some weeks ago. Yet I slipped when I spotted this Schwarzkopf Gliss conditioner. Usually when they add ingredients to hair products they boast of something like “Wild bamboo seed extract” or “Moisture tech repair enzyme” or “Rose petal extract” or something else equally impressive sounding but nonsensical. This one boasted of keratin. Lots of it too. Interesting!

Now that I think about it, I also spotted some Tresseme at an Ica (Supermarket) that was being unusually specific about being cone-free. Are we finally moving away from the hair product ingredients that sound “pretty” and impressive, but are still nonsensical and un-scientific? Of course I’m not making the best case writing this when I’m dealing with a conditioner named “Ultimate repair conditioner”, hah.

I’m not entirely sure if hair is actually able to bind keratin into its structure, but it seems more promising than yet another product with Cute and Exotic Extract #294.

It doesn’t happen a lot that I’m genuinely interested and excited about trying a new product so I have moved the conditioner in question way up on my to try-list.

My little re-usable heating heart leaked a bit a few days ago so I tossed it out. I’m really glad the liquid inside isn’t poisonous, but it still felt a bit weird. I have never had one that actually leaked before, but it is after all only fused plastics so…

Turns out I was a bit of a moron though. I found a pack and bought it without thinking twice about the front displaying two hearts. Yep, there were two smaller ones inside instead of the large one I thought it would contain. Oh well, it might even work better this way.

I needed to replace two of my foundation products, but it turned out that they don’t have the Maquicomplet anymore. Oh the horror! When I started asking the salesgirl about other products that would be really good at covering redness, she started giving me a speech about some product that was good at covering all ”…Also under eye circles”. Argh! I got out of there quickly.

Since I’m feeling chatty, allow me to explain…

Under eye circles runs in the violet-ish colour, so to cover them, concealers will have yellow pigments to cancel out the violet tones. Anti-redness products will contain green pigments to cancel out the red. Throw some green pigments on your violet-toned under eye circles and what do you end up with? Yea, not pretty. Same reason why concealers shouldn’t be used on redness.

A makeup sales girl making such a statement simple doesn’t know what she is taking about, which is a bit scary since its hardly rocket science. Maybe this is why women like Chemist friend don’t wear foundation or anything since “I can never get it to look natural”. Yea, I wonder why with crappy advice from “trained” sales people like that?

I’m going to fill the old foundation leftovers in the little black container so I can keep it in my bag. And then keep my eyes open for a replacement of some sort but not bother to ask the staff again.

Meh. I swear, just like with stylists, it’s never a good experience when you ask a salesgirl. Actually that’s a little harsh. I’ve had one good experience with someone who actually genuinely knew her makeup and respected what I was interested in without pushing products I didn’t want (Which is why 90% of my stuff is Lancôme) where as I’ve had zero good experiences with stylists.

Pouf!

What happens when you comb two day old double Dutch braids out? 
    

Graphics and general weirdness

It was a surprise that I had so much fun with the simple little pictures I did in paint some time ago: The leave in conditioner-murderers, the conditioners purchase and the time line over my length. Maybe I should find some sort of photo editing program so I can do more fun and silly things with my pictures?

Any suggestions?

For a very long time I’ve also had the idea of getting some business cards printed for the blog. Then whenever I encounter curiosity about my hair in real life, I could hand over a card with the address and go “Start with the Beginners guide to healthier hair”.

Heh.
It actually happens more often than you would think!
    

      
Usually I’ve been telling people search for “long hair care” which of course works better if your native language isn’t English. It’s funny though; even with all the information you can find, a lot of people haven’t even thought of that you can find a whole lot of knowledge about growing healthy hair online. I swear, 99% of the time people respond with “Oh, I didn’t know I could find that…” Maybe it’s a sign that there is so much junk out there online that people have stopped using the internet for real information?

Of course now that I have my blog and have collected a lot of information in it that I think could be useful to people no matter how well they take care of their hair already, I have a specific place to point them to.

But now it seems that my internet has started reading my mind, because everywhere I go online I swear I see ads for Vistaprint that makes business cards at a very nice price! Huh.

Should I be very, very scared? Are the terminators taking over the internet? Is my little HP laptop equipped with a brain scan chip?

Of course if I were to get some business cards printed there, I’m back at an old issue I have here on the blog: I really need a nice icon or logo!

I have been playing around with putting some of my pictures up as logo but never felt happy with them. Then I drew the girl with the laptop and even though it was a quick 10 minute thing and I took the picture of it with my phone, I still feel it’s the best logo/header yet. Of course it would be better if I somehow could incorporate a bell or a tower in it, but how?

    

   
If I order business cards, what information should be printed on them? Naturally the address, but what else? My email? Some sort of slogan? A description?

So, maybe I should spend a little more time on that tonight. Create a different and better version of the girl with the laptop and get the business cards ordered?

Wednesday the 2nd of October

I’ve been feeling pretty crappy since before the Halloween party and going out when I wasn’t feeling 100% definitely didn’t help. So I’ve been staying in and feeling sorry for myself a lot. The double Dutch braids stayed looking surprisingly good for days.

This is what they looked like yesterday before I washed:

Classic length double Dutch braids! 

Note the VO5 bottles in the tub, heh.

Braids with this level of messiness are really good for quick and efficient S&Ds