Soft city

I’ve been slightly unhappy with my ends for a while. Even though I haven’t been able to spot any actual damage, they have kept feeling a bit Velcro-ish no matter how much I S&D. I’ve been looking forward to a real actual trim!
  

But now that my hair is almost dry in a braid, my ends feels awesome, great, and fantastically soft!

   

I have never been a fan of Respons because of the distinct and lingering scent of honey, but the mix of the regular conditioner and a bit of the deep treatment with avocado oil sure worked wonders on my ends! Wow. I need to remember this!

SexySmurf II

I find myself a bit pressed for time tonight. I want to do a deep conditioning but I have to run a test creation of a traditional Danish desert. Hubby and I are meeting with some of my friends on Saturday for a Christmas dinner-thing and I want to bring a Danish Christmas desert called Risalamande. It’s a very tricky thing to make; If done right it’s a deliciously smooth and creamy “fluffy” mousse kind of desert, if done wrong it turns into a lumpy, heavy and much too sweet porridge. A lot of Danes will say they don’t like the desert at all because they have only experienced the lumpy, sweet and heavy kind.   

My mother is really good at making it right, but her recipe is of the “A bit of this, a dash of that, a splash of this” kind and that makes it completely useless to me. Some research into more modern variations and methods to create this desert and now I just need to test make it to see how it works.

 
But all this kitchen work is too much to do a deep conditioning during. Although my SexySmurf is good at keeping me comfortable while I do something else during a deep conditioning, it’s not completely tension headache-proof. After all, like I proved before, it’s a lot of weight piled up on your skull!
  

I had the idea some time ago to use an elastic bandage to keep it all under control and it works quite well. Wrap the bandage around the head and up over the “bun” to keep it squished down. I need a bit of work on the “pattern” though

    

     

No matter how practical this one is, I always think that that SexySmurf is the very definition of “totally unsexy"!

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!