The Liebster Award

The rules don’t seem to be set in stone, but the basic through all the variations is:

1. Thank the person who nominated you, and post a link to their blog on your blog.
2. Display the award on your blog — by including it in your post and/or displaying it using a “widget” or a “gadget”.
3. Answer [Numbers vary] questions about yourself, which will be provided to you by the person who nominated you.
4. Provide [Numbers vary] random facts about yourself.
5. Nominate some blogs that you feel deserve the award, who have a less than [Numbers vary] followers.
6. Create a new list of questions for the blogger to answer.
7. List these rules in your post.
8. Inform the people/blogs that you nominated that they have been nominated for the Liebster award and provide a link for them to your post so that they can learn about it.

1. Thank the person who nominated you, and post a link to their blog on your blog.

Gossamer whom I know from the longhair circuit nominated me. She is really awesome, fun and smart. She has awesome hair too! Her blog for crocheting is here: Gossycrafts.

Thank you, Gossamer!

2. Display the award on your blog — by including it in your post and/or displaying it using a “widget” or a “gadget”.

Done!

3. Answer [Numbers vary] questions about yourself, which will be provided to you by the person who nominated you.

Gossamer didn’t ask me any questions, so I have decided to answer the longhair survey instead. It’s been floating around the longhair circuit for a while, so it should be fitting.

Starting hair length:

Bald. Completely shaved head, including shaving cuts in the back of my head (lol)

Current hair length:

Around calf-ish. Not entirely sure actually, it’s kind of hard to tell when it’s so long.

Goal hair length:

I honestly don’t have one. I don’t think I want it (much) longer than it is though, I don’t like how thin my ends are any more.

My favourite hair length was mid thigh though (Fingertip length), it was long enough to feel really long, I could do all my favourite styles and my ends still felt nice and thick. It was a lot easier to deal with too because I could reach my ends a lot easier.

How long have you been growing your hair?

What is your average monthly growth rate?

A non-impressive 1,5 cm (0,6 inches) with a few months each summer of 2 cm (0,8 inches).

Trims? If so, how often?

It depends a lot. I had one year where I didn’t trim at all and a few years where I trimmed very little. Some years I trimmed a lot to get rid of my layers. But otherwise I trim around every 3 months.

What supplements do you take?
A multivitamin, fish oil and fibre are my stabile supplement routine.

I’ve been experimenting with other supplements on an off, but always return to that.

At the moment I’m trying a collagen supplement for my skin.

Do you eat special foods for hair growth?

No.

What is your wash method?
Classic CO wash.

What products do you use to wash? (shampoos, conditioners, etc)

Conditioners. I have to use shampoo maybe once a year.

How often do you wash your hair?

0-2 times a week with CO, but I usually rinse my hair (Light WO) every morning before doing an updo.

How long does it take to dry?
If I braid it or put it up, at least half a day. Loose a couple of hours.

Favourite leave-in?
Sunsilk advanced damage reconstruction leave in. Love that thing!

Favourite deep conditioner/treatment?
Hmm.

Esthetic House CP-1 Ceramide Treatment Protein Repair System  was amazing.

Otherwise everything Nexxus have always been awesome for my hair.

What are your favourite carrier oils?

Argan, coconut and macademia. Hemp for my skin.

What are your favourite essential oils?

…Uhm. I like the smell of lavender?

What is your Holy Grail product?
Sunsilk advanced damage reconstruction leave in.

Is there anything you would never put on your hair? (protein, cones, panthenol, etc)
Anything that doesn’t dissolve properly in water!

I’ve read way too many horror stories about people picking stuff like avocado bits out of their hair for days while the smell lingers. Ew!

Do you use a brush or a comb? If so, what kind?

I’m pretty much exclusive for combs and I do love my Hercules combs!

Some times if I have scalp flakes I use a brush to loosen them up before washing.

Do you use hot styling aids on your hair? (flat irons, curling irons, blowdryer, etc)

No. In fact, I’ve never owned any. Even before actively growing my hair, I never even used a hair dryer because they make my hair fluff up like crazy. Like, bad 80s perm-volume.

What is your favourite thing about your hair?
The thickness, the texture and the resilient strength.

What is your least favourite thing about your hair?
I’d have to say the colour: I really wish it was a little more… Anything, really. Either more blonde, more brown or more red. I’m not a big fan of the “in between” kind of colour it has.

What is your natural hair colour?

Titian: Dark blonde/light brown with some red tones.

Do you colour your hair? If so, what colour?

No, but I plan on a super light henna gloss and light indigo for the faded ends.

Do you prefer you hair up or down?

Up.

What is your favourite hairstyle?

Braided Nautilus bun.

Bangs or no bangs?

No bangs. In my opinion, my forehead is too small for bangs. I do want a pair of well-matching fake bangs though. It’s more difficult than you’d think to find that though.

What is your sleep hairstyle?

Single or double braids.

Do you use a silk/satin pillowcase or bonnet?

Some times. Real silk pillowcases don’t seem to survive too many washes though, so I stopped using them a bit. I should try with satin… 
I can't get used to sleeping with a bonnet though.

If you could have anyone's hair at uTT, who would it be?

Uhm. Seriously, I don’t know.

How many hairtoys do you own?

Ron Quattro’s: 7 forks/sets.

Flexi 8’s: 12, but half of them are meant to hold double buns.

Ketylo’s: 6 pairs.

Then there’s all the other stuff I have. Ficcares, sticks and a drawer full of elastics.

What is your favourite hairtoy?

The small part of the Ron Quattro StarLites' Combo Fork Set. At just 5 grams it still holds up my hair perfectly. It has the right amount of flexibility and sturdiness to work for me.

Do you make/sell any hair care products?
No. I don’t have the skills.

Share a story about your hair (funny, inspiring, horrifying):

How about one of each?

Funny

Before I shaved my head, I had pretty long hair all my life. My grandmother always used to give me crap for it: “When will you cut that long [Danish sound for something sloppy or wet]?” she said, every single time she saw me.

When she saw me again after I had shaved my head, my hair was about flip length.

The first thing out of her mouth? “Why did you cut your hair? It was so pretty!”

Inspiring

Once I was at a BBQ with a then boyfriend and as it often happens, the girls started talking about hair. People tend to find the fact that I grew my hair out from bald to be intensely fascinating. I don’t know why. It seems if I have had a buzzcut or pixie or something, it wouldn’t have been so fascinating. I find it mildly embarrassing. But I digress.

Later in the evening, one of the girls there suddenly had short hair; like 3-4 cm long. My then boyfriend leaned over and said “Huh, that’s the first time I’ve seen her without her wig.”

He then explained to me, she had just recently finished her chemo cycle after breast cancer.

I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe hearing how I had been bald, even though it was for completely different reasons, had given her the push to take off the wig. Unfortunately I didn’t get the chance to ask her.

Sadly, I’ve seen it too many times that it is the relatives and “friends” that finds the post-chemo baldness to be shameful and something that needs to be hidden, where the cancer fighters have so much else on their minds that it barely registers.

Horrifying

Back when I had just discovered LHC I was in the “Try all the things!”-mode. I was trying to convert to full CO at the same time as I wanted to try all the deep treatments, oils and DIY recipes in existence.

I bought a jar of Palmers coconut oil formula of a member in the US and used it in generous amounts on my hair (Stupid): Way more than I would have used of clean coconut oil even today when my hair is a good three times longer!

Well, come evening and I tried to CO it out (Stupid) with a Fructis conditioner. As it started drying, I noticed that the greasiness hadn’t come out at all. In fact it seemed to have gotten worse and was now spreading on the skin of my neck and shoulders, ew! So I tried with another CO (Stupid) and once again, it didn’t seem to work.

I then reached for the only shampoo I had available which was a Pantene (A brand I know today is a no-go for my hair). Even after shampoo, it was still disgustingly greasy and I had to shampoo again and again and again until the bottle was empty and I had to give up. I guess the cones in the conditioner and shampoo somehow fused with the oil and cones in the Palmers coconut oil formula into one giant disgusting blob?

I had to sleep with the disgusting, nasty grease ball of hair and ended up having a bunch of breakouts along my neck, shoulders and face from the nastiness.

The next day I ran out for a clarifying shampoo and had to shampoo like 4 times to get the cone-fused grease out. In a span of 12 hours I had to shampoo more and with harsher methods than I did in the span of a month even back then.

Moral of the story? It’s not for fun when the experienced longhairs preach benign neglect!

4. Provide [Numbers vary] random facts about yourself.

• Fictional character crush: Sam Winchester. Hnnngh.(Well except the beginning of season 8 where his hair became so damn stupid, at least)
• Hubby is the first non-IT engineer I’ve been seeing since I was 19. Why yes, I do have a type.
• I had super weak and peeling nails until I started taking vitamins as an adult. (I figured it was a good idea to help my beer-and-ramen student diet a bit) Recently I learned that my grandfather had the same kind of crappy nails until he started taking vitamins too, so I guess I got it from him.
• We feed the wild birds year round. It’s amazing how much entertainment you get for a few handful’s of bird seeds. Especially the blue tits are amazingly entertaining. All fluff and attitude.
• I got my first wisdom tooth at 14. Since I had split a molar and had to have it removed, I guess the wisdom tooth had room enough to pop up. My second wisdom tooth got removed when I was 22 because it couldn’t get out and became infected. Nasty.
• When I go to sleep, I have to pull my covers all the way up over my ears. Dunno why. Even when it’s super hot, my ears have to be covered.
• I really don’t consider myself to be a spoiled-luxury-queen-diva kind of person, but still: I straight our refuse to go campaign ever again in my life. Moist sleeping quarters, uncomfortable sleep, bugs and craptastic bathing facilities? Bugger that. You could force me to do that when I was a child, but not as an adult.
• Between us, Hubby and I own this stack of board games. Not in the photo: Pandemic.

• Languages I (used to) speak sorted after when I learned them in school:

English: Year 5-13

German: Year 7-13

French: Year 8-10

Of course there’s my native Danish too and I’ve been learning Swedish since I met Hubby in 2010.

I honestly think Swedish is super difficult. It has some really bizarre French-like pronunciations and the way you work your entire face to speak it is the poplar opposite of Danish. 

5. Nominate some blogs that you feel deserve the award, who have a less than [Numbers vary] followers.

The internet seems to have a sore lack of quality hair blogs. And with that, I guess I mean any hair blog with genuinely long hair and where people don’t backcomb, hairspray and flatiron their poor hair death for a hairstyle you could recreate just using a palm full of leave in conditioner.

I have a bunch of good hair blogs in my list of blogs I follow, right here on my blog.

Otherwise my hair-folder contains just three blogs:

Hair romance

Princess hair styles

Wrapunzel

6. Create a new list of questions for the blogger to answer.

How about the longhair survey that I already answered?

7. List these rules in your post.

Done.

8. Inform the people/blogs that you nominated that they have been nominated for the Liebster award and provide a link for them to your post so that they can learn about it.

Alright!