A tip for my USA-based readers

Has everyone heard of the Walmart beauty box?
It's been making rounds in the beauty-bloggosphere and everyone seems to love it. Sure, there are some who dislike some products, but the overall verdict is that for the price, it can't be beat.
Just 5$ for each box which covers shipping and handling. It ships four times a year.
But here's the bad news: It only ships to USA.
Igor says: Booh.

Link

I did something creepy

I saw this woman on the bus the other day. And I snapped a picture of her hair.

Bad. I know.

She was obviously a longhair like me, but I couldn't decipher for sure how she had put her hair up.

Also, what is that hair stick? It honestly looks like some sort of skewer stick more than a real hair stick.

I'm super impressed she could hold her but up with such a wimpy stick!

So, here's what I think she did.

From how thick the lower roll is, I'd say this was the beginning of the tail.
So I'm guessing she first put her hair in a ponytail, then inserted the stick through it horizontally.
Then, I guess she rolled it  up around the stick.
But it looks like the lower part goes the entire width of her bun? So where does the ponytail start?
Did she start coiling left first, then pulled it right?

The next part I'm more sure about: It looks like the tail has continued above the hair stick, but has been pressed downwards by the last bit...

...Where I guess she used the ends to loop around the bun between the bun and the back of her head?

It was a really nice style and I would like to copy it.
But I cant figure out the beginning of the structure.

Any inputs from my readers?

Weight of hair toys

My new Elk&Iron sticks made me curious.
How heavy are my hair toys?

Not all hair toys in picture!
I have a bunch of sticks I never use and I didn't bother to weigh those.
Hm. I should throw those out. All they do is take up space and help unbalance the stick-jar.

Clips

Ficcare set: 60 g for both

Large soaring butterflies Flexi 8 set: 55 g for both

XL dream catchers Flexi 8 set: 85 g for both

XL night owls Flexi 8 set: 90 g for both

XXL Flexies: 50 g each except for:

XXL Greenish Flexi 8 (Forgot the name and they don’t make them anymore): 45 g

XXL Tree of life Flexi 8 (White pearls) 35 g

The XL Flexies surprised me. Despite being a lot smaller than the XXL ones, yet they weigh so much in comparison.

The XXL greenish one I forgot name of weighs the same as one XL night owl. The XXL tree of life weighs less than one XL dream catcher.

I guess the weight really isn’t in the mass of the 8 or the stick, but in the decoration.

Forks

4 Amish pins: 10 g in total

Ron Quattro starlites combo set, small fork: 5 g

Ron Quattro starlites combo set, large fork: 5 g

Ron Quattro copper fork: 25 g

Ron Quattro wavy fork: 5 g

The Ron Quattro forks are so light! No wonder the single Starlites are my go-to!

Sticks

Set of blue corian Ketylos: 25 g

Set of grey corian Ketylos: 20 g

Set of J-list lightsaber hairsticks: 15 g

Set of J-list pencil hairsticks: 10 g

Set of J-list samurai sword hairsticks: 15 g

Set of one kind of wood Ric the combmaker sticks: 30 g

Set of another kind of wood Ric the combmaker sticks: 20 g

Set of smooth Ron Quattro flexstix: 10 g

Set of spiral Ron Quattro flexstix: 10 g

Set of wood Ketylos: 15 gfor all colours

Set of wooden hair sticks: 15 g

Single bone WoodArtJewelry stick: 20 g

Single brown Elk&Iron stick: 15 g

Single hair sword: 20 g

Single loop hairsticks I got in a trade, big: 15 g

Single loop hairsticks I got in a trade, small: 10 g

Single TimberstoneTurnings stick: 25 g

Single white Elk&Iron stick: 10 g

It’s funny how the single sticks mess with your head.

I would swear up and down the single TimberstoneTurnings stick is the heaviest single stick by far, but it’s only 5 gram heavier than the bone WoodArtJewelry stick and the hair sword.

But it’s no surprise that the large, massive wood Ric the combmaker sticks are the heaviest set. Or that the simple Ron Quattros are among the lightest. 

Hairtypes and what it means for care and upkeep

"Hair typing" is made up of numbers and letters. The most common system is Fia's hair typing system, which was made up back when the internet was young.

Of course that's all weird and funny, but the information is actually quite useful. If you know the system, you can tell a lot of the beneficial hair care for the owner.

It looks something like this: 1BCiii

(My type)

Straightness/curliness

The first part of the typing, is a number and a letter.

The number goes 1-4 and describes how overall straight or curly your natural hair is.

1: Straight

2: Wavy

3: Curly

4: Coiled/kinky

The number that follows: A,B and C (Except for type 4) narrows the straightness or wave down a bit more. 

But that one is less important.

What gives hair its wave or lack thereof, is literally its shape in cross section.

Straight hair is perfectly round and the higher you go up in the curly spectrum, the more oval/flatter the cross section will be.

What can you do with this information?

It tells us that straight hair has less surface to the volume, which if we go for basic math and physics, tells us that this is the strongest shape.

But it also tells us that it will be easier to introduce beneficial treatments into the curlier types, where the is shorter to the inner cortex.

This also means that moisture will evaporate easier from curly types, because it has more surface to the volume.

In short:

Straighter types are stronger, but more difficult to deep condition.

Curlier types are easier to deep condition, but needs more moisture.

Structure

The second letter in the type, is either F, M or C.

F: Fine hair

M: Medium hair

C: Coarse hair

This is a simplified cross-section of a hair:

Coarse hair type has an extra layer in its structure.

This gives coarse hair a very distinct feature:
It makes noise when you roll it between your fingers. A sort of "crunchy" noise.
Do no mistake this for damage!
Those with coarse hair might also have coarse eyebrows and body hair.
The extra layer makes it difficult for treatments to penetrate deeper into the hair. Those with coarse hair can be very sensitive to build up because the ingredients just attaches to the cuticles instead of penetrating.
Especially oil and proteins can be troublesome for those with coarse hair.

There is no structural difference between fine and medium hair, but fine hair can be extremely fine. There are those who say they can barely see their individual hairs due to how fine they are. Of course this tells us that such fine hair can't take a lot of abuse.
Those with fine hair often dislike cones because it weighs their hair down.

In short:
Fine hair often dislikes cones.
Coarse hair often dislikes proteins and oil, deep treatments are often pointless.

The volume
This doesn't mean volume as in the total volume of your hairs, but rather how many much volume you have with the individual hairs on your head. Those with fine hair doesn't necessarily have little volume and those with coarse hair doesn't necessarily have a lot of volume.

The overall volume of hair is measured like this:
i: Less than 2 inches/5 centimeters circumference
ii: Between 2-4 inches or 5-10 centimeters circumference
iii: More than 4 inches/10 centimeters circumference
When the hair is compressed as tightly as possible.

Usually this only gives a hint of when you can do certain updos:
For instance with the classic cinnamon bun, those with i-type can do it around BSL length where those with iii-type have to wait until around hip length.
Because the hair has to go around itself, having thick hair means you have to grow thick hair longer than thin to get a updo to work.

The thickness or volume also have an ability to amplify the effects of the straightness and structure. For instance, having very curly and thin hair will make your hair even more sensitive to damage because you have less hairs that can take the damage. But if you have thin hairs and a lot of them, you probably wont be as concerned with damage because you have lots of hairs anyways.

In short:
Hair with less volume can amplify hair that requires more care
Hair with more volume can make your hair less sensitive to damage
But in the end, the only real difference is how much length you need to make a certain updo

Longhair meeting

I had a couple of meetings in the same city where Frigga of the longhair circuit lives, so we met up again.
Frigga doesn't want to put her face out on the internet, so you will have to settle for some non-hair pictures from the meeting.

I took a picture of a room I had a meeting in. It was the weirdest thing ever with upcycled stuff, weird design pieces, plants and general tackiness.
You could have called it modern art and I would have nodded and believed it, lol.

Frigga and I went shopping first and she showed me where I could get some leave in conditioners. Awesome!

The city has a Glitter, so we had to go there too. They have the best little elastics ever!
All other ones I've ever bought have seemed to break once they get in contact with oil, but these can take it. They keep their shape better than other kinds too.

Glitter also produces some really nice style guides for things to do with your hair.
Where most other hair tutorials go "Blow dry, flat iron, hair spray, backcomb for volume, then put hair up in a bun and hair spray some more", these go "Use this simple bun tool to make a bun!"

I approve!

Then we went to Joci sushi like last time. Running sushi, yum!

I really enjoy hearing about how people with different hair types than mine treat their hair.
It's quite fascinating to hear how they think and act to get the best out of their hairtypes.
However I think I must be pretty boring in that manner: "Oh, care? Uh. Benign neglect? CO washes and putting it up? I use a lot of leave in conditioner though."

Frigga had also knitted me a beanie!
So cool!

She really weren't kidding when she said there would be room for my hair sticks in this one, hehe.
I will be appreciating this one like crazy when the winter comes.
Pretty colour too!

I already tried the Pantene "BB cream for hair" I bought and it's nice: A little runny and has a strong Pantene smell, but it disappears as soon as it gets in contact with my hair.

The "BB cream for hair" thing amuses me so much!
It is not a BB cream, it's a freaking leave in-conditioner! 
Why do people feel the need to "fancy" something up?
Ugh.

On the other hand, I understand why it makes sense to latch on to a real phenomenon like BB creams. BB creams have been outselling foundations for years and they have become a real beauty staple for most women. They offer correction instead of cover and who doesn't like that?

I can appreciate the silliness though: Anything that makes people buy more leave in-conditioners so more are produced and the prices go down and the supply go up, is a good thing!
If calling it "BB cream for hair" is what it takes, sure, go for it.

The "11 in 1" effects as listed (In Swedish and Finnish):

1. Soft hair
2. Shine
3. "Protection against ends". No, really, that's what it says! So it turns your hair into a moebius strip or something? Fancy stuff!
4. Anti-breakage
5. Suppleness
6. Frizz control
7. Resistant strength
8. Shiny shine. No, really, that's what it says! Same as #2 essentially...
9. Natural volume
10. Immediately easy to comb. As opposed to how other stuff takes a while to kick in?
11. Deep nutrition

I laughed and showed it to hubby who said they probably ran it through Google translate. Heh.

The Elkandiron's are here!

First of all: Points for packaging!
A sturdy and nice, but not unnecessarily "cute" box.

Contents.
The sticks rests on a layer of cotton-like material.
I also removed a layer of bubble wrap for the picture.

Points for a personal touch!

But I have to be petty here... I am not *eye twitch* Swedish.
Yea I know, impossible to know when you ship to Sweden, right?
Petty. Told you.

I seriously need a better camera to catch the details!
The wood is very, very pretty with lots of changes in the colour.
The teal stone has a lot of little veins that I just cant get a good picture of.
These two sticks will definitely be the crowning glory of my hair stick collection!

The good
Very, very smooth and hair friendly
Seriously pretty
Love the little details and attention to protecting the sticks from the sellers side

The bad
They're seriously sharp
A bit top heavy, but it doesn't matter so much for me. I think someone with less hair could find the topper overpowering though, especially if you have the short ones

Would I buy from this seller again?
Yes!

The K-obsession continues

The loves

Korean skincare routine

I've been going on way too much about this on my hair(!)blog already, but yeah, I'm still absolutely in love with the Korean skincare routine. I'll try to keep my excitement about it to a minimum.

Aegyo sal

I haven't yet taken a picture of how this looks with one eye done and one not done to show the difference, but here is a good one by another blogger:

Source

The idea behind this makeup is to mimic the cute baby fat under the eyes that children have. It makes your eyes look brighter and more smiling.

The method is ridiculously simple:

1. Add a white or pinkish product (Liner or powder) under your lash line. How thick the line should be, depends on how much effect you want.
2. Add a product a tone darker than your own skin underneath the first line.

Done!

Younger looking, smiling eyes.

So far I've used my regular eyemakeup for this effect, but I will probably get one of the specific products for this at some point.

K-style eyebrows

Korean eyebrows are styled a lot straighter, some times even completely straight with no curve at all. The brow is also very full and should look as natural and unaltered as possible. The purpose is to make your face look young and innocent. 

I have super full and dense eyebrows, so I enjoy not having to remove a lot of hairs. Since my hairline starts too far down for my liking, I prefer to try to make my forehead appear larger and a straight brow plays up the distance between the brow and hairline. 

The dislikes

Kimchi
Korean: 김치
Kimchi, gimchi, kimchee, or kim chee is a traditional fermented Korean side dish made of vegetables with a variety of seasonings. It is often described as spicy and sour and has seasonal differences.

When I found out that our favorite local sushi place had kimchi, I had to try it.

I really disliked it.

With kimchi described as a side dish you eat with pretty much everything, I figured it wasn't spicy-spicy. In my mind, it was something like spicy coleslaw.

In Danish, you differentiate between something that is spicy with a flavor, like a bowl of spicy chili ("Krydret") and something that is spicy just to be spicy, like eating plain habanero ("Stærkt"). This was "stærkt". Spicy and sour. Yuck.

To be fair, it might be that this was made in the Japanese way and wasn't actually fermented, but just had some added acidity. But no, this Kimchi was not for me.

K-pop
Welcome to the ridiculously bright and sugary world of K-pop!
K-pop seems to be such a "must" among the K-beauty bloggers. But no, it just doesn't do it for me. Although I can listen to it for short amounts of time, I'm just a metal-head at heart. It's good to try something new once in a while though.

Have fun with some examples!

Rainbow: Gossip girl

Secret: Madonna

Girls' Generation (SNSD) - Oh! & Run Devil Run!!! 

Big bang: Sober

Jewelry: Super star

2NE1: She's so (outta control)

F. Cuz: No one

After school: Eyeline

The moonshiners: So cruel

(No M/V but I really like this one)

Hyuna: Bubble pop

f(x): Nu Abo

Kara: Step

Have a laugh :)

500 k and thoughts on blogging

Look what I found this morning!

Amazing!
I cant believe I've had half a million hits on my blog now.
It really amazes me how so many people can find my hair and writing interesting!

My unusual growing out-story aside, what is the appeal to you all?

My guess is it's the honesty.
My blog is the (mostly) hair related things that actually happen in my life. The updos I take pictures of are the updos I would have done anyways, the treatments I write about are treatments I would have done anyways and the knowledge I write about is knowledge I would have looked up anyways.
I don't do anything "for" my blog I wouldn't have done anyways. I don't spend time on making a fancy updo just to take pictures of it for my blog.

Maybe that's it? My methods are simple and easy, and I have my own brand of laziness when it comes to care and updos. What I do can be copied by most other people.

One way or another, it's the honesty that keeps me personally checking in on a blog.
This is why I find the western oriented beauty bloggers to be such a total reading turn off. They really go with the lie of "Oh, I just rolled out of bed this way. Te-hee." The J and K-oriented beauty bloggers openly admit how much time and effort they spend on their looks and that honesty appeals to me. It's a kind of honesty I can appreciate: I see how many hours and how much effort it takes them to look like they do and I can go "Meh, not for me". Not like the western oriented beauty bloggers that makes me think I must be doing something fundamentally wrong.

In other news, my Hubby has been talking about starting a blog too! He would like to write about free training opportunities in the Lund-Malmö area, like the outdoors gyms and good running trails. I'm pretty excited about his idea and I hope it means we can combine photo opportunities.

Hair food: Soy bean pasta

I think the nutrition facts speak for themselves!

These started popping up in my little corner of the world the last year or so. 2-3 different brands are carrying these and they have lots of interesting colours and shapes.

Pros

• Good source of protein
• Good source of fiber
• Not too high on calories either
• Super quick to boil (Most of the packs instructs you to boil it for longer than it actually needs) but doesn't fall apart if you cook it for too long

Cons

• Kind of pricey still, but the price seems to be dropping by the month
• Weird texture that reminds me more of noodles than actual pasta
• Weird (Although subtle) flavor that reminds me of seaweed
• Kind of weird to match to a meal I think. The strange texture also makes it kind of fragile, so it doesn't tolerate being tossed around too much in sauce and stuff.

So far I think the best match for it is with some fried broccoli and onion, and some tomatoes. The good thing is that it tolerates being microwaved pretty well, even with the weird, fragile texture.

Weird things done for hair

Aka “Igor’s amusing hair failures from the past”

I revisited this thread and had some good laughs. Then I thought I should write down all the weirdness I’ve done for my own blog. In no particular order, all the stuff I could think of:

Deep oiling + shampooing it out

This seemed like teh bestest idea evar! for me some 11-12 years ago when I first encountered the longhair circuit. Of course now I know that my coarse hair and oils aren’t the best mix, so the oil probably did absolutely nothing.

No wash for 9 days

Well, I suppose for some people, just going shampoo free is disgusting, vile and evil in itself. But back ages ago when I first tried to go conditioner only, I seemed to hit a plateau where I shampooed once a week and CO’ed twice. No matter what I did, I couldn’t seem to break it.

Someone advised me to “Find a time where you don’t have to be social and just let it grease up”. So I did. I had some project work for two weeks and just stopped shampooing to see how long I could stand it. Nine days, this was an eternity for me back then. When I finally caved in and shampooed, my hair felt like I could just chop it off and use it as candles! Gross.

Well, my disgustingness aside, this actually worked. It broke the plateau and I could transition to almost exclusively-CO.

Feet elevated when sleeping

I blame this one on my nooby-ness as well. One of those facepalm-worthy advice out there is that you should elevate your feet when you sleep, to force more nutrition to your scalp. Of course forcing blood to a certain bodypart doesn’t mean you actually force it to absorb nutrition. One of those “advice” that got me into actually research the things I do.

Tapping nails, and driving my friends crazy in the process

Okay, this was one of those “Can’t hurt, but I don’t really believe in it”-things. Your fingernails are supposed to be acupressure points for your scalp, so massaging or tapping your nails should therefore increase growth.

Ironically, it pissed my friends off so much they might as well have started pulling their own hair out. Also my hair didn’t seem to care, I still got my usual 1,5 cm for each month I did it.

Palmer’s coconut oil

I received this one in a trade (I think) and applied way too much of it. I seriously couldn’t shampoo that s*** out! I shampooed, dried my hair and found it still greasy, then repeated the process until I was out of shampoo. The greasiness spread all over my scalp, down my neck and my forehead, ick! I had to wait until the next day, then go out to hunt for a clarifying shampoo. I still had to shampoo a handful of times with the clarifying shampoo before the last greasiness disappeared. My scalp hurt and itched for days after!

Aloe vera-based hair growth gel

For some reason I decided to buy an expensive hair-growth boosting gel with a bunch of herbal stuff in it. It seemed to “activate” my scalp all nicely, but after a while I noticed I was losing hairs at my temples! I even developed a  seriously sparsely-haired spot at my left temple (I almost called it a "bald" spot, but I think that would be an exaggeration) 

Of course now I know I’m actually allergic to aloe vera, or more specifically, something in the plants skin:

• Aloe vera pressed with the skin = Red, swollen, itchy nightmare
• Aloe vera pressed without the skin = No problems

Of course, this is the kind of information they leave out on the packaging.

Nuruk powder on my scalp

Nuruk is a type of kneaded flour that releases konjic acid which is one of the new wonders of skincare. I got a bag of it in a Memebox ages ago and tried it in some conditioner for my scalp. I thought it would have a nice “scrub” effect like cassia-grains do, but no.

But I suppose it’s weird enough to use fermented flour in any part of your beauty routine?

Removing the tags in shirts and sweaters

Well, I kind of think this one is logical, but some people would disagree: I remove the neck-tags from all my shirts and sweaters. Since I pull some sort of clothing over my head at least twice in a day, and a lot of those tags are kind of sharp, it should add up to some damage over the years. So I remove them.

Hair inspiration: Bun + ponytail, take II

So the first shot at the Bun + ponytail wasn't so awesome. Hubby liked it, but I didn't.

The tail was too long for me and the bun did that "cannonball" thing where it turned into an annoying unbalanced ball. I was thinking that maybe the problem was in how flat/wide the braid was: It made it difficult to get a good knot going.

So I tried with the roundest "braid" I know: The ropebraid.

And instead of making a real knot, I would pull the ponytail out between the inner and outer coils of a Nautilus.

Much better!

But like all asymmetrical styles, it was a lot cuter from one side.

Also, the tail formed a very cute little wave!
I think mostly it was from the way it "hits" my shoulders? But maybe I have more more curl than I thought?

Would I do this style again?

Yes.

I thought the bun-part was cute and the tail-length was manageable. It was a whole lot more stable than the last attempt (Nautilus bun to the rescue!)

My only complaint is that the cute little wave seemed to provoke some sort of annoying cat-behavior in Hubby. He spent most of the day "attacking" my little tail and playing with it. Batting it around like a cat with yarn, stroking it and twirling his fingers in it. My weirdo :)

Throwback Thursday

Okay, this is technically not a "Throwback" but I wasn't sure what else to classify it as.

The lady below is my mother. If I'm seeing correctly, the picture is from 1972, which makes her *Counts on fingers and mutters to self* 19 years old.

It's funny, I really cant make up my mind if I don't look like her at all or if I look like her a lot.
What do you all think?

I have the same heavy upper eyelids as her and a good head of hair, but those two things are super dominant family traits that everyone in my family has.

Hot spot heating pads

I’ve had this little self heating heart for a while now. I think everyone knows them: You boil them, let them cool down and then re-activate them by “breaking” this little thingie inside.

I’ve been using it quite a bit, but it does annoy me that I can’t keep it ready to go in my storage. It seems to activate on its own, so I have to boil it, wait for it to get cool enough to activate and then use it. Meh.

I found these little one time use-ones. At first glance they seemed better: Lighter, bigger, flatter.

But I think they have a few problems: First of all, they took a while to activate. You just peel them out of the protective plastic cover and use the little fabric-like inner pad. Good in theory, but I’d say it took like an hour to properly heat up. That’s about when I’m done with my deep conditioning.

Second, they seemed to cool down at random intervals too! I did a really thorough deep conditioning and when I re-adjusted the cling wrap and warm hats, there were a couple of times when they were almost cold.

Huh.

Do these depend on oxygen for the reaction maybe?

If that’s the case, they’re fairly useless to me. I would want to have them inside my mess of cling wrap and warm hats when I deep condition.

Surprisingly, they seemed to stay warm a whole lot longer than they advertised. The pack said they would stay warm for 6 hours, but once I was done conditioning, I just left them in the bathroom and they were still warm the next morning.

Meh. Not really sure what to make of these.

Hair inspiration

I have done something similar before, but it didn't look so nice because I made 3 dutch braids into one. It looked nice in the front, but asymmetrical in the back.
Link

Yea, I like it. I don't think it's super amazing, but I like it.
Would wear it again.

My only complaint is that it made my hair too short to properly whack Hubby with when he annoys me.