Phew. Again!

That was the blogging from A to Z challenge, and now I deserve a badge!

This really demanded way more time out of me than I'm used to when it comes to blogging.

I could even feel how it hurt my energy to reply to comments, so I'd like to apologize for that. I read all of your comments and really appreciate your smart, funny and awesome thoughts! 

You guys are the best <3

But overall... I liked it. It was a good challenge. Challenging for sure, but nice.

I think I want to do this again next year.

Joining the Blogging from A to Z challenge

Last year I did The 29 hairstyles in February challenge which was was hard, but also a lot of fun! It was a good method to make myself check on what variation I still have with my updos at my current length.

So why not try a new challenge?
I'm joining the Blogging from A to Z challenge to work through some of my hair knowledge and maybe inspire someone else too.

My chosen theme will be "Covering the basics". 

Blog aniversary

On January 26th 2011 I put the first blog post up on this blog space. Wow.
10 years!

Time flies!
I blogged pretty much since I first found LHC back in... 2001? 

But this blog is on an independent platform, so it feels more like my own.

Phew

That challenge was pretty annoying.
On one hand, I liked having to go through what updos I can do and making sure I can do as much with my hair as I want to.
On the other hand... That was a lot more effort put into my hair than I would like to. The planning, the "schedule" and the fact that I couldn't just be lazy because I felt like it. Especially having to make the non-braid-base updos on the weekends was annoying when I really just wanted to be lazy.

I'm honestly tired of having to deal with my hair. How sad is that?
I guess this challenge was supposed to celebrate all the cool and creative things you can do with long hair, but instead it just made me annoyed with having to do something with my hair every day.
The most positive I can say is, that it made me apprentice how "far" I can go with a good braid base for creating different updos while still being lazy.

But now it's over. Done. Did it. Go me.

I think I will live in a basic English braid wrapped up in a cinnamon bun for a few days now.

This resulting gif is pretty cool though!

29 different updos in February challenge

Last year I saw a challenge for 28 hairstyles for the 28 days of February on a blog, and I thought that was awesome!
I never saw the point in having long hair that you can't do anything with, so this is just the perfect  challenge for me. But February this year is a leap year, so... 29 updos!

So I sat down to do some thinking and planning.
Of course I could include braids, but... Nah. Braids are the go to bases for my updos, since they can be prepared the day before and simply twisted/wrapped/coiled up into a real updo in the morning. And then reverted back into a comfortable sleep style by taking the hair tool out again.
It would be more interesting to do 29 structurally different updos.

Some updos are of course not braid-based, but I usually reserve them for weekends where I can be bothered to do them in the morning and braid my hair for sleeping in the evening.

Of course updos and braids can be changed a lot with different strand bases and accents, which doesn't really count. But in a few cases I wasn't entirely sure where the line between two separate updos and just a variation was.

But here are 29 different updos I plan to do:

1. Braided Chinese bun
2. Braided Chinese bun/infinity variation
3. Braided cinnamon bun
4. Braided headband and Chinese bun combo
5. Braided Nautilus bun
6. Chinese bun
7. Cinnaknot bun
8. Crown wrap
9. Double braided buns
10. Double braided Chinese buns
11. Double braided Nautilus buns
12. Double figure 8 buns
13. Double Nautilus bun
14. Ellingwoman/Nautilus hybrid
15. Figure 8 bun
16. Four small braided cinnamon buns
17. Igor's mess
18. Infinity bun
19. Mega royal bun
20. Mickey mouse ears
21. Nautilus bun
22. Overhand knot bun
23. Rope bun
24. Royal bun
25. Sock bun
26. Simplified Elling woman bun
27. Triple braided buns
28. Triple braided buns, stacked
29. Wrapunder bun

I would need some planning for this though. Some buns are based on single braids, some on double etc. Some double braids are split vertically and some horizontally etc. It would save me some effort tog group those together and do some on the same base-braids. And the non-braided updos would be better for the weekends since I prefer the braid bases on workdays for a quick updo that saves me time in the morning.

Hmm, this would also be a good opportunity to work through a lot of my different updo tools. I tend to cycle the same ones over and over...

Comments

Same here. My hair flakes like crazy and hates washes in winter. I could go 2 weeks without washing my hair. I have 1c/f/m/ii though

Luisa H

Hi Luisa!
I decided to grab the comments to the flaky scalp post and haul them up here because they're important and useful. There were some very good suggestions, so the following could hopefully be interesting for us!

We want to see your length in a photo! Would you upload this soon?

Anonymous

A good length shot takes a long time for me: I would have to wash my hair and let it air dry lose and unrestrained for hours. At the moment, I simply don't have the option of spending that much time for the process.
Also, this is not the focus of my blog. So if you are looking for pretty pictures of long lose hair or whatever your kink is (If this is the purpose of your comment and not an innocent curiosity), I suggest you look up one of the many fetish blogs instead. There are plenty of women out there who actually like this kind of attention. I don't.

Welcome to my hell. This is a mild form of dandruff---dandruff has various stages, and varying types. This is dry dandruff from an irritation to the skin due to the lack of moisture. I can get the really horrific stuff that leaves a disgusting plaque like substance that is very painful, the scalp is inflammed, and when you peel off the flakes, the scalp bleeds. That is the worst I've had.
There are many options, but given your skin sensitivity, I would do tests on the back of your neck with any product before trying them.
First off, the dandruff/flakes cling to the hair because, in essence, it's flaking off skin cells. They are murder to get off, and it takes a bit of time for them to disappear.
Head and Shoulders would work for your level of flakes----but again, test it. It shouldn't have an issue for your skin because it contains zinc oxide--which heals skin. The key for ANY shampoo (or conditioner) to work, is you MUST leave it on the scalp to work---and I think only the shampoo is medicated, not the conditioner.
If you want to steer away from shampoos, find some asprin---salacylic acid is known to combat flakes on the scalp. It's recommend to crush up an asprin and then add to your shampoo (in your case, conditioner). given how thick your hair is, I'd use a few or more. The fact your scalp is greasy is the key here---your scalp is dry, it produces grease to lubricate, and not washing it away, then its a perfect breeding ground for the fungus that causes dandruff---which actually lies just UNDER the scalp--hence the need to let any type of medicated shampoo to sit on the scalp for a few minutes.
Nizoral works for medium flares, but a) it smells NASTY, b) your hair will hate it and c) you can't use on color treated hair (for those who have treated hair like I do now). I did find a way to use this and not dry my ends out---I shampooed with this product and slathered my length prior to it with conditioner. It worked! :D Leaving it on the scalp to let the medication work was so bad because the smell is terrible. I highly recommend Head and Shoulders as the scent is at least bearable, and apparently safe on color treated hair, but I found it too drying.
This is why I wash daily with a mild clarifying shampoo---H&S allowed me to go 2-3 days without a wash, but it came at a price---dry ends and I found it didn't leave my scalp as happy as I'd like. I went back to using neutrogena daily clarifying shampoo and what a difference. Not 1 flake and this winter has been BRUTAL!
Can you use tea tree oil??? That is a natural antifungal---that may be a good try as well!
Good luck---I've been dealing with this for years, and it will settle down.

Darkhorse

Hi Darkhorse!
Wow, long and useful reply! I'm impressed :)
You obviously put a lot of thought into this, so I'm sure it will be useful to everyone reading this!
As for me... I have decided to try Head & shoulders since you describe it as the most gentle method. Dun dun dunnn! A CWC (Maybe skip the last C?) method should work for this too, right?
Can you "get addicted" to H&S? I should be able to phase it out in the spring, right?
(I just put it on our grocery list and I had the thought that I honestly can't remember the last time I put "shampoo" on my grocery list!)

Hi there!
I don't know if you've ever heard of or tried it, but I thought it wouldn't hurt to suggest: when I have allergic reactions (be it allergic rhinitis or some kind of dermatitis/rash) and my scalp is affected too, what did work for me was gently massaging a mix of jojoba oil and aloe vera gel on my scalp the day before my wash day. It's basically 1 tablespoon of jojoba oil, 60 ml aloe vera gel + 15 drops of rosemary essential oil and 10 drops of atlas cedar essential oil - if your skin can't handle the essential oils or you're not sure they would work for you, I'd recommend skipping them and simply using the mix of jojoba oil and aloe vera gel. After my skin was not so sensitive I would also do an apple cider vinegar rinse after washing my hair - a very diluted one, like 1-2 tablespoons of vinegar to 500ml of water in room temperature.
These two home treatments worked very well for me, but I do understand it's not everyone's cup of tea. Anyways, I do hope your scalp will get better!

Mauni

Hi Mauni!
I'll leave your scalp treatment up for all to see :)
Unfortunately I can't use it myself because I'm allergic to aloe vera (And just to make it more complicated, I seem to be allergic to aloe pressed with skin and not without, so some times I can tolerate it, but since it's never described in the ingredient list how the aloe is pressed, it's a gamble...) but I know it's a tried-and-true ingredient for sensitive skin and scalp.
Apple cider vinegar is really nice too. I used to do it, but sort of got away from it again, so maybe it's time to reintroduce it in my routine!

1000th post!

Wow. How cool is this?
This is my official 1000th post on my independent blog.

I've been blogging since I first found LHC back in... Summer of 2002 I think? (Before that I was on some Yahoo-groups. Wow. This is a million years ago in internet terms!) So this has been a really long-running habit.
I started blogging here on Blogger back in January 2011, so it has pretty accurately been 7½ years for this blog!

Blogging is perhaps my best tip for those growing or maintaining their hair. It helps you keep track of what products work or doesn't work for you, what updos you can do (Surprising how often an updo just "falls" out of rotation!) and what you would like to try in the future.
It's such a helpful tool. And sometime it can be really funny to look back on your own story.

I think the only reason I managed to keep blogging for so long, is that my blog was always mostly for me. I never blogged to impress or convince anyone, I just blog to keep up with the reasons I mentioned above.
I rarely did anything for or with my hair that I wouldn't have done without the blog, so my blog is a pretty good representative of what it really is to live with long hair: Some times you have time and energy to experiment, and other times you just settle into your usual grove and go through the work-free time-sleep-routine.
(And I never got the points of setting up artsy pictures with freshly cut flowers, philosophy books and pearls lying around in the background. Is that just me?)

So... To another 1000 posts!

Answers :)

Which University did you attend and which degrees did you get? Are there many ladies in the tech side in Europe? Here in the US probably less than 20% of the work force but growing over the years.
indi500fan

I've been to three different universities in Denmark by now to get my degrees.

I have a bachelors in a traditional STEM-field (Engineering), with an added masters on top of it and a bachelors in the health science field. I will probably add a candidate degree on top of it in the health science field if I enjoy and stay at the new job I start in September.

Plus, I have a small pile of little extra "degrees" and diplomas, where especially one of them has been proving very, very good for my career. Which amuses me a lot because I originally picked it just for a fun extra curricular activity! But it turned out to be super high in demand, especially if you can combine it with a general interest in that specific function.

As you can read, it's an unusual combination and it allows me to work very specific and specialized jobs, so I really don't want to get in too many details about it.

The universities here have had more female than male students for some years by now and the tendency doesn't seem to stop. Of course there are a few few fields like electrical engineering, general physics, IT engineering, IT for the health science field etc. there are more women in the tech fields than men. In the softer sciences, the tendency for less men is really strong and there have been lots of programs to get more men to go to university.

Hubby says that in his technical physics field, there are only about 15% women, so it's strange there is such a difference from Sweden to Denmark. (Especially when Sweden is completely hysterical about things like that!)

Very curious to know what you do for a living (ie what you are trained in, not necessarily where you work).
DarkhorseT

Yes, you have asked me about this before, both on my blog, my facebook and on UnTamed Tresses.
The thing is, when the internet was new, people would say you shouldn't give away your real name, real address, where you work or show your face. Since I was active in the longhair circuit, blurring my face in all pictures turned out to be too much work and I'm too lazy for that. Then I started being part of meetings and of course than, people will know where you live. At least the general area, especially if it was a local meeting. Then came facebook and everyone has their name out there. So if you can add two and two, you can find people. The only thing I could actually protect, was my studies and work. (At least without putting a lot of work into it)

Of course now, ironically I actually work a high security job where it's strongly discouraged to talk about work outside work. There are too many safety risks, protection of your coworkers, anonymity of tasks and clients, people generally being able to add two and two, etc at work, so the general attitude is "Don't."

Ask me anything

A while back someone was very eager to know how old I am, so... Anyone have any questions for me?

I will post answers in two days.

And to answer the question: I am 35 years... And 3 months.

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.

Q&A

Maybe to help you get into the swing of blogging, you can tell us what you've been doing--just basic stuff? What your life was like away from home/what your job entailed (be as vague as you want), and how your hair was treated (or not ;) ).
Darkhorse

That’s a good idea, thanks Darkhorse!

I can go in detail with the hair stuff, not that it’s been very interesting! 

Work was a mostly-office job with a lot of hours. So my day was pretty much to get up early, whip my sleep braid up in a Nautilus bun and then sit in front of a computer until late in the afternoon. Then I would go train (Still managed to gain some weight since mostly-boring office environments seems to make people bring in lots of sugary snacks!) WO-rinse my hair and braid it, do a Korean skincare routine and go to bed early.

Exciting stuff!

I did CO washes and my Ankylosaurus in the weekends, where I still had to go to the office, but with fewer hours.

Pretty much an awesome benign neglect routine for my hair and a high maintenance routine for my skin.

That's absolutely gorgeous! I wonder if you could post a video showing how to do this bun, please as I find the diagrams confusing...??? Thanks :)AnonymousOn the Suebian knot

Hi Anon.

I actually promised myself never to make videos ever again. Too many “How the hell did you even manage to survive until you were old enough to operate a computer, if you’re really, truly that stupid??”-type people and too many pathetic losers with nothing better to do with their life than to look up stuff they know would offend their claustrophobic world view, just so they can bitch and whine about it on Youtube.

Bu-ut I’ve also been thinking of giving it one last shot where I upload as a private link (Or whatever it’s called: That thing where you can only find and see the video if you have the link already)

So, I’ll think about it.

So now what?

The trouble with not blogging for so long is that I have way too much stuff on my mental “Want to do”-list.

• I need to get Hubby to help me with some length shots this weekend. Seems like the summer weather is finally coming, so good timing for that!
• I had an idea of running through all the styles I can do for a “style library” kind of thing. Minus the ridiculous amount of variations possible of course. That would take forever.
• I have a folder with 39 (!) pictures of styles and variations I want to try at some point. Hmm. Start from one and start working??
• I want to write more about the Korean skincare routine. I seriously love it. And I find it seriously amusing that what works the best for my skin is the high maintenance, time consuming Korean skincare routine, which is the exact opposite of the benign neglect that works the best for my hair. 

I’m probably forgetting something.

Hmm.

It’s probably going to take a while to get used to blogging again. Just yesterday I felt all lost and confused looking for a specific picture in my upload. Hah. 

Back.

And damn, am I feeling disorientated.

It must be one of those “getting older” things: Ten years ago there was nothing a single, good night of sleep couldn’t fix. Wild party the night before? Just flew from halfway around the world? Finals? Everything could be fixed with sleep. Now I just feel slightly confused and disorientated.

Going from a super structured schedule to having a whole month off really messes with my head.

Doesn’t really help that Hubby has signed up for work this summer and is working nights, so I have to turn my day around too. Meh.

I guess I have to make a list of the things I want to fix and try to maintain some discipline about that, or the next month will end up with me on the couch or playing games.

Since my contract for work #2 ends in January, I have a lot of things I want to finish up and write down so my replacement can take over exactly where I left. I also have quite a few ideas for stuff I want to do for my blog.

My 13½ years hair anniversary was a week ago, so I need to take some progress pictures too. I’m quite curious to see if 6 months of total benign neglect has done something good for my hair too…

Radio silence

Yea, it's pretty much all there in the title.

Seems I underestimated how busy I will be until I leave early February. I have a lot of stuff to take care of before that and it's quite a bother.

I absolutely blog for fun, because I  like it and use it as my own tool to not fall into a rut with my hair. That other people find it inspiring too is just a bonus. A very nice one that I appreciate the hell out of, but still a bonus.

But as things are right now, it just makes me stressed to try to keep up with my blog as well.
And come early February, my opportunities to blog will be very different.

So, I think I will have to put my blog on temporary hold for my own sanity's sake.

The Jolly Blogger Award!

I was nominated for the Jolly Blogger Award, so here goes:

1. Do you open your gifts on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day?

Christmas Eve like most Danes.

2. Favourite Christmas song?

Shu-bi-dua: Den himmelblå

Or maybe

Mariah Carey: All I want for Christmas is you

Or 

Drengene fra Angora - Jul i Angora

(Feel free to be confused)

3. Favourite Christmas/holiday movie?

I’m going to have to go with ELF.

But if I can pick TV Christmas calendars too, I still love The Julekalender. It’s one of those bizarre Danish things that won’t make any sense to the rest of the world, but damn. Still cracks me up 23 years after it showed on TV for the first time (Holy crap I’m old!)

Here, have a full episode:

(And feel free to be thoroughly confused again)

4. Favourite Christmas decoration?

Nisser everywhere!

Any kind is good.

5. Favourite Christmas food?

Risalamande

Or

Traditional Danish Christmas duck

Or 

Æbleskiver

All things I miss quite a lot since Sweden has different Christmas traditions when it comes to food.

6. Favourite holiday/winter drink?

Christmas beers!

As much as I want to, I cannot stomach gløgg. It looks so cozy and nice, but bleargh.

7. Snow or no snow?

Hmm. Tricky question. Snow looks so awesome and feels so right for Christmas. But it also comes with nasty wet puddles everywhere, frozen sidewalks to slip on and generally messes up your home with all the mud and water you end up dragging in.

So… I don’t know.

8. Do you send out cards or no cards?

I do send cards, but I’m not very thorough with them. It feels a little silly. Like, once a year you “have to” send cards out to people for no other reason than that you should.

9. Do you still secretly believe in Santa Claus?

No.Does anyone?

10. Your favourite winter clothing item?

Big warm, heavy snowboots.

11. One beauty product you cannot be without this winter?

Lip balm. So much lip balm.

12. Best Christmas memory?

Hmmm. I don’t think I have any that sticks out as the best Christmas memory ever, but every year when we play Pakkespil, it seems to be the best moment ever!

It’s absolutely hilarious when people get all worked up about it. 

Q&A answers

For some reason Blogger decided to eat up my answers. Huh. How odd.

So, here goes… Again.

What made you want to grow your hair? 

Helene Sørensen

Short answer: Because I like it.

Long answer: It just sort of happened.

After I shaved my head, I found short hair got boring really, really fast. So originally I just wanted to regrow it long enough to whip it up in an emergency ponytail (Like, a bit past shoulder length/flip length).

When it was finally long enough to do that, I wanted it long enough to properly braid (Like, BSL ish).

When it was finally long enough to do that, I wanted it long enough to bun (Like, waist ish).

When it was finally long enough to do that, I wanted it long enough to do a figure 8 bun (Like, classic ish).

When it was finally long enough to do that, I wanted it long enough to make a cool crown braid (Like, mid thigh ish)

So it sort of became a “More wants more” kind of thing…

If you would encounter a wizard, who could magically transform your hair to any length, what would that length be? 

indi500fan

Hah. Could be fun to have below floor length or something really long. But only if I could get the damn taper down. No fun having only 14 hairs reaching floor length.

What would you change about the following: 1. your hair 2. body (height/figure, ect) 

Buchfreundin

1: I’d like my hair to be a natural copper blonde/ strawberry blond.

Thicker and less taper. Yea, more wants more.

Also, some sort of natural parting/cowlick, thank you very much. My hair falls flat down in front of my face, so I always need to restrain it in some way or another if I want to see.

2: Ooooh boy… This will be a long list and probably makes me seem really insecure.

• Better skin. I have super sensitive skin and it seems it’s always mad at me no matter what I do.
• I have hooded eyelids and I’d like them not to be. It runs in my family and yes, I considered surgery.
• Larger eyes.
• Better eyesight. Minus 4,25 and minus 5. It’s a lot.
• Straighter nose. Broke it twice, so now it has a slight bump. Yes, I considered corrective surgery.
• My jawline is slightly asymmetrical. Yes, I considered the Korean jaw shaving surgery.
• Smaller boobies.
• I could stand to lose a few kgs.
• Change where my fat deposits go to: It pretty much only goes between my navel and top thighs. A little more distribution would be nice!

If you could live anywhere, where would you pick? 

Buchfreundin

Hmmmm. How about Réunion?

If you could become you favourite character from a book, whom would you be? 

Buchfreundin

Okay, this is a difficult question. I mean, favourite books and favourite characters and all don’t equal a universe I would want to live in, you know?

If we took some of my recent favourites like the Game of Thrones series, the Metro 2033 series and the World War Z book… Yea, I would not want to live in those universes. I don’t have a death wish.

But to pick a character I both like and would want to be: Asimov’s Dr. Susan Calvin.

Have you ever considered going from being a serious amateur hair and beauty blogger to being a professional one? What would influence your decison one way or another? 

Andi

No, never. I like blogging as a hobby, but I simply have no interest in going pro even if I could.

Do you like turtles? or any other animals for that matter? I'm a big fan of friendly affectionate ones. Best pets I ever had were Rats. Any pets? 

Nightgerbil

I haven’t had pets since I moved out of my parent’s house, but when I lived at home, I always had animals around me. We will get animals again once we move to a larger place.
Never thought of getting a turtle as a pet though!

My best pet was my peach faced lovebird Bølle. The most affectionate, intelligent and cranky little old fluffball in the world. He’s been dead for 14 years now, but I still miss him every day.

I would have had a pet mallard too that we found motherless where my parents have their boat, but Bølle refused to accept him in my room, so he had to be more of an outdoors-duck than a pet. Bølle flew into a screaming fit and would probably have murdered the little babyduck, so…

We had a budgie before I got Bølle and my parents have a dog.

I had a bunch of animals, not pets:

Chickens

Horses

Pigeons

And oh, so many injured rescues of tits, sparrows, pigeons and swallows though the years.

And since the duck had to be an outdoors duck, we got him a lady friend and they had a bunch of duckbabies themselves.  

Q&A answer session

Q&A

Anyone up for a Q&A session?

I'll post the answers in two days.

Just remember this: 

About henna

Buchfreundin (love that username btw) commented:

Just to add: Your haircolor is so beautiful and very even! I really hope you write a bit more about it, like, does it fade, would you do it again, etc.

And sure, I’d love to!

For me, henna was something I had rattling around in my head for some years.

It would “fix” two of my hair-annoyances for me:

• I know it’s silly, but I have a real hate/love relationship with my natural hair colour. It’s not really blonde, not really brunette and not really red. Ideally I would love it to be both lighter (blonder) and redder, but that would require some bleach. That’s absolutely out of the question. So, I could get the “more red”.
• I’m closing up on 13 years since I shaved my head, so naturally I have some fade going on at the ends. Unless you dye the fade away, you will have fade. Again, completely natural, everyone has it, etc, but I still get annoyed by it. Some indigo would fix it damage free, but indigo needs henna (first) to be able to bond with hair.

But I had two things that kept me from it:

• That henna is permanent. Once you start henna, it requires upkeep. Getting out of a “normal” henna dose is painful and requires a ton of work.
• That is seems henna is such a “thing” for the super-longhairs. Call me weird, but it really rubbed me the wrong way that it seems everyone with super long hair eventually turns to henna.

Of course then I realised I could get out of most of the issues by using a super low henna dose (Including the high risk of staining).

The procedure itself turned out to be extremely annoying though: I thought I was good with the super long deep conditionings, but henna is a whole other game. I guess it’s both heavier than normal deep conditioners, and when it dries (The dripping. The horrible, horrible dripping!) I guess it will pull on the hairs and the “updo” under the cling wrap and warm hats.

But the dripping… Argh. I really need to figure something out with that one.

It has a noticeable red tint for the first 48 hours, then it fades into a tone that I can’t really tell apart from my natural tone. My hair has a tendency to fluctuate in colour depending on light, products used and how freshly washed it is, so it already shifts a lot in colour. I’ve been asking Hubby since he sees my hair in all conditions, but he can’t tell the difference either.

I hope with my low, low henna dose I won’t be so stuck with upkeep. As far as I can tell, I don’t have any roots showing in a different colour. That’s a very good thing!

So I’m thinking I will do my super low henna dose for the full length and then the indigo for some length of ends maybe every two months? Of course I might be eager to try it again soon… With such a low dose and no roots showing, I guess I can more or less do it whenever I feel like it.

I guess that’s another thing I have learned from having such long hair: You get a special kind of patience.

So I can’t tell any remarkable difference right away, but my hair seems to be pretty neutral. No sudden splits, no sudden tangles, no loss of glossiness.

Some times that’s the only response you get from your hair, and you should take that as a thumbs up.

My red didn’t go much redder, my fade didn’t get remarkable unfaded.

But a year and 6-12 treatments down the road and I probably will notice a difference from when I started.

Some times “Do No Harm” is a perfectly fine strategy instead of chasing an imaginary (Produced in a photo studio with a bunch of stylists and photo shopped!) kind of magic.

I like the non-commitment aspect of doing henna and indigo like this.

I get what I want with no commitment, and I get all the good stuff and none of the bad.

They say you can’t date henna, you have to marry it.

Well. I guess I just made henna my friend with benefits.

Sell/trade

I have put some skincare stuff I will never get any use out of up for sale/trade on UTT if anyone should be interested.
Link here