About two weeks ago I tried to write something about the perfect hair diet. It was really difficult!
Human nutrition in itself is really complicated, and I have never really studied it.
I had the required level of chemistry and high level biology in Gymnasiet but there were little focus on this. So I really feel like I lack some background knowledge on this. And now when I try to read up on it, I just feel confused at how complicated it all is.
Anyways. As I tried to compile a list of food sources for the amino acids, I was struck by how many times egg whites were mentioned. And sea weed. And cheese (Maybe that's why cheese is such a running joke in the longhair circuit?)
I then remembered that I had a bag of seaweed I bought ages ago because it claimed to taste like bacon. So I thought "Hey, why not try to put some perfect hair food together?"
I decided to try to make egg white muffins with sea weed, bacon, spinach and parmesan. That should almost cover all the amino acids from the attempted list I made. Which is pretty cool!
I knew sea weed was a "super food" that should be especially good for minerals, so it was as surprise for me that it would be good for amino acids too. I mean, it's not that high on protein content, but if all the protein it has is from essential amino acids, that's good!
This kind of seaweed was supposed to taste like bacon, which is why I bought it.
It didn't look too appetizing though!
And it just smelled really old and dusty. Like, not unpleasant, just really dusty.
It didn't get any better once I chopped it up and mixed it with defrosted spinach, parmesan and a little bit of leftover shredded cheese.
Mixing in egg whites and fried bacon only made the whole thing look comically disgusting!
I used 250 grams of bacon, 85 grams of parmesan, 40 grams of the leftover shredded cheese, 200 grams of spinach, 25 grams of the bacon seaweed and 500 grams of egg white.
Mr Igor took one look at this and went "Yea, you're on your own". He usually loves my cooking so I felt a little insulted. Only a little though, since it does looks like chunky toxic sludge.
Once cooked, it was pretty good though!
The bacon taste was really, really strong from regular bacon and the bacon sea weed. Next time, I would make it with less of the strange seaweed, or maybe less regular bacon.
I had lots of sauces ready in case I needed to dampen some weird taste, but it was good enough that I will try to make it again.
If we calculate that half the fat content of the bacon is melted off and drained (I think it was more, but let's keep it simple) each of the "muffins" lands at 155 calories and 16 grams of protein.
That's really good! When I try to cook high protein, low calorie foods, a 1:10 ratio of protein to calories is considered good.
This was tasty, easy and probably covers most of the amino acids I need. I could see myself make this again! It still looks nasty though.
I thought it might be interesting to talk a little bit about keto. Both me and mr Igor had some success with it.
I didn't have any desire to try keto to begin with, but ended up backing mr Igor up because he wanted to try it. Mr Igor wanted to try keto for weight loss purposes, and I was shocked because he really loves bread. I followed because it was too much trouble to cook and eat separately, and I wanted to support him. It turned out I really liked it!
I'm currently back on keto again, but mr Igor had too much of a struggle without bread, rice and pasta, so he is just going for a general "low carb but not keto" diet.
I even think this is pretty hair related, since keto must be a pretty good diet for growing your hair!
Well, obviously you absolutely need to take a vitamin with it, but still... The amount of protein I've eaten on this diet is amazing. My hair doesn't fluctuate in growth rate unfortunately (Only for 2-3 months during summers) which is too bad, because it would have been fun to see if the keto diet could speed up hair growth. It would have been interesting to see if someone whose hair is sensitive to such things could actually gain more length during diet changes.
What we liked I loved how easy this was! The keto diet in a nutshell is basically this:
1) Memorize these approximately 50 foods/food groups
(I have made a list in the bottom of this post for those curious)
2) Get creative
3) Eat!
It was honestly pretty easy. No calorie counting, no macro counting, as long as you stick to the allowed ingredient list or the rule of maximum 5% carbohydrates in any and all ingredients.
Obviously you have the option of making things more difficult (And accurate) for yourself if you want to, by using a macro calculator. I used this one. But I found that just sticking to the allowed food list and keeping under 5% carbohydrates worked just fine. Besides, we both really struggled with the fat intake, but I'll get into that in about 20 sentences.
The restrictions also made it pretty fun to cook, because it requires you to be more creative if you want to eat something more interesting than just eggs, meat and avocado at every meal. And on days where you don't have the energy to be creative... Well, that's pretty easy to know what you can eat.
I personally really enjoy cooking and wish I had more time for it, so I had a lot of fun playing around with recipes. The rather strict list of ingredients you can use somehow made it more fun.
I had expected it to be a problem when eating out, but it turned out it was pretty manageable. There were keto options to be found, but then again we didn't eat out a lot because 2020.
I lost 4 kg in 6 weeks without even trying. I went in just wanting to keep mr Igor company, and had lots of fun with cooking, and yet the weight just fell off. Granted, I gained 2 kg back in water weight from day to day after we broke the keto right before Christmas, but still. Maybe if I had gone into the keto diet with the intention of losing weight, I would have felt different about it.
We also loved how full this kept us. Several times, we asked ourselves "Wait, when did we last eat?" some time in the evening, just to find we hadn't eaten since breakfast. The high protein content really, really keeps you full. I liked freeing my mind from thinking about food.
So I'm obviously not a nutritionist, but I think the keto diet might be good for healthy hair, skin and nails. Hair, skin and nails seems to like both protein and oils. You get a whole lot of that, and from so many sources. But I think you should definitely add a multivitamin to make up for how few vegetables you can eat.
What we disliked We both really struggled with the fat intake. The vast majority of your calories are supposed to come from fat (Like 75%), and neither of us could do it. Neither of us particularly like the taste of fat, or the feeling in your mouth. Yuck.
You're actually supposed to pick the fattier meats when you can. But I have a really strong aversion to lumps in food (And strangely my older brother has identical triggers to me, so we suspect our parents have traumatized us with something we can't remember any more) It's a little hard to explain, but I guess more like... Unexpected texture changes? I can't eat yoghurt or marmalade with fruit lumps of a certain size in it. It needs to be smooth or have lumps of a specific, small size. For instance, blueberries in blueberry yoghurt is fine, but whole strawberries in strawberry yoghurt makes my stomach flip. The same goes for fatty parts in meat. Like fat in salami and other meat products like that. The fat parts need to be a certain size for me to tolerate them. For instance, fat in bacon I can usually accept, but fat in the thicker cuts of pork belly triggers me. It's weird. I know.
Mr Igor missed bread so much. And pasta. And rice. And potatoes. Like, so, so much.
For me, the hardest part was at a certain time of the month, when there were just no sugary treats available for me. I set out to try making keto cookies and cakes, but kept running into problems with the fat content. So many keto treats are basically coconut oil and something nutty, rolled up into the appetizingly named (Not) fat bombs. Hell no. I just can't eat it. Nuts, oils and peanut butter can only get you so far on desserts...
My search for a keto friendly treat got me into another problem: The weird Frankenfood ingredients. I draw the line at artificial sweetener. Everything else just won't be let into my kitchen. All those weird, meatfree "sausages" and carb free "chocolate" and artificial flavorings and what have you are simply banned from my kitchen.
I only found one single recipe for cakes/treats/cookies that I honestly thought was good:
However, I use a liquid sweetener and half protein powder with vanilla flavour and half almond flour instead of all almond flour for mine. Still a good cake. You can also add some nuts to it.
Igor's attempted list of keto approved foods
As a general rule: Under 5% carbohydrates is good. You can of course always do the math, but I found that I generally couldn't be bothered. A single exception is protein powder, which I learned to cook with and appreciate, but often needs to be mixed with another "flour" to keep the carbohydrates down.
Meat and seafood Beef, chicken, duck, pork, wild boar, turkey, shellfish, salmon, pollock, shrimp, tuna... So far I haven't found a non keto meat.
"Flours" I found a few protein powders that are keto approved. But even if they aren't, mixing it with another "flour" 50/50 or so bumps the carbs down enough to work, and it's really good for using as flour substitute. We bought unflavoured, with vanilla flavour and with chocolate flavour and have used all three.
Almond flour Coconut flour Peanut flour Psyllium husk (My undisputed favourite. The fiber content is awesome and it has no taste)
Canned and pickles goods etc Please check the nutrition labels, but here are some I have found: Guacamole
Hot sauce of various kinds
Kimchi (Check label) Mayonnaise Peanut butter Peppadews stuffed with cream cheese Pickled artichokes Pickled cucumbers (Check label! There is a shocking difference here) Tzatziki
Nightblooming have put my pictures up and it made me feel inspired to do a herbal hair treatment day. Link here
I used an Eilistraee colourless conditioner and some leftovers in the form of a Mane n' Tail conditioner sample I got back in an advent calendar, a Philip Kingsley sample I got with a skincare order, and an almost-empty Matrix Biolage conditioner.
Seriously, the funniest part of doing herbal haircare is looking at the crazy greenish mud on your head!
Some time and heat for the mud to work
As usual, my hair felt miserable after the herbal treatment, so I followed with a quick regular conditioner. I actually reviewed this Cien product a while back.
And just because I felt up for it, I finished it with a herbal rinse as well.
Mr Igor got me started on chia seed puddings and honestly, it's pretty good. Especially for how little effort it is! He is more into the nutritional side of foods than I am, so we learn from each other. He has actually been doing chia seed puddings for some years now, but I always thought it looked pretty sad and unappealing until I tried it.
Mr Igor likes to add lots of fruit to his, but I really enjoy the clean and simple flavour of this almond version.
Three-ingredient chia seed pudding
400 ml coconut milk (One can)
70 gram chia seeds
100 gram almonds
Nutritional value
There are huge differences from coconut milk to coconut milk, also based on the season! The light versions are perfectly tasty and less than half the calories.
One can of coconut milk is 280 calories and a sad 2 gram of protein, but is full of vitamins and minerals. Coconut oil is perhaps the best oil for hair externally and internally.
70 gram of chia seed is 115 calories and a sad 7 gram protein, but it's one of those "superfoods" that is praised so much.
100 gram of almonds is 600 calories and 20 gram of protein. Almonds is one of those foods that are commended for hair, skin and nails a lot. It's even said to prevent grey hair.
So if you make four portions like I did, it is less than 250 calories and 7 gram of protein each portion. But lots of fiber, vitamins, minerals and some very, very good fatty acids.
Basically you just
Mix up the chia seeds and the coconut milk and
Add the chopped, blanched almonds on top of it
Done!
Easy and tasty breakfast for four days made ready in just ten minutes or so. Good for hair, skin and nails too.
My hair is still not entirely happy after the Fuerteventura vacation. The sun, chlorine, saltwater and strange tapwater was pretty weird on it. Or maybe it's just me being overly suspicious... My hair has proven to be really resilient, so maybe I'm just paranoid.
At any rate, I did a herbal hair treatment with a pack of Eilistraee and a few conditioner samples and some leftovers. The Eilistraee mud had a funny texture: Both soft and grainy, strangely elastic and still falling apart.
And as always, I'm amused by bow it looks with the green mud on my head!
According to Nightblooming, the aloe vera is pressed without skin so I felt confident putting it on my hair (I'm massively allergic to aloe vera skin). The mud had a funny tingling, cooling feel even though I put it under a heat cap, but maybe that's from the stinging nettle?
As always after a herbal hair treatment, my hair felt strangely dry, so I did a quick, regular conditioning afterwards. That also helps getting the little leftover herbal grains completely out of my hair. There is always a bit hiding here and there no matter how long or how I rinse.
My hair felt amazing afterwards: Strong, shiny and soft.
The moisture just slid out of it and it dried too quick for my comfort. So I put it up in a bun to slow down the moisture loss a little.
My hair felt really, really soft this morning!
Otherwise... Hmm, not anything to see?
It doesn't look any shinier than usual. Maybe a little more red, but that might be because I know and expect that result?
I could really use a nice and sunny day with some natural sunlight, maybe that would show the difference. (Also I'm tired of the damn "dark and cloudy" weather!)
I'm mildly unhappy with my toenails: In the bottle, the polish looked black with little flecks of sparkle, but on my nails, it's just a dense, mildly matte black. Booh.
Actually I do like the smell of cassia. It's like... dusty and eathy or something.
The mix turned out to be a little drier than expected. But that's what you get when you work with a natural product like cassia. Luckily I had some extra conditioner I could add.
Attempted before-shot of the colour. The light in the bathroom wasn't on my side though.
I don't expect the colour to change much, not with this low dose of henna.
And the dripping immediately went nuts!
That is so damn annoying.
The dripping is such a pain in the ass! Even though I was mentally prepared, it still surprised me. It does every single time.
So far, the only thing that has ever "helped" is to spend extra time in the bathtub where the dripping is less irritating.
To spend extra time in the bathtub, I went for the longest documentary or movie I have on my youtubes "Watch later"-list: The Korean movie "200 pounds beauty".
I actually quite enjoyed it!
I see why so many people feel offended by how direct it is about bodies, plastic surgery and diets, but it's coming from a different culture. Not like here in the west, where the only bodies you're allowed to criticize are those that are thin and/or fit. I'll never understand that weird double standard...
Anyways, I really liked how direct it was about that plastic surgery didn't fix all Han-na's problems. I especially liked that it doesn't sugarcoat the consequences for her, like when [Spoiler alert] she finally kisses Sang-jun and instead of being happy, Han-na worry about how her implant-filled breasts feel, is scared that he will squeeze the silicone in her ass out of alignment and push her nose asymmetrical.
I definitely recommend watching it.
The fluffy cloud-facial mask was also really entertaining!
Luckily I had done some good work preparing: My little henna nest was set up and ready to go, food was ready to grab quickly and I had entertainment ready. The heating blanket was actually a nice touch and I will definitely do that again next time.
The first book series failed to entertain me though. Sometimes the things you loved as a child just aren't so awesome to revisit. Good thing I had more books standing by.
I managed to keep the henna mud on for 9 hours!
Then rinsed it off. Added lots of conditioner to soak up any leftovers, left it on for about 10 minutes before rinsing again. It's always surprising how much of that green mud comes out with the second rinse!
The mane is now resting in a simple, single braid. It feels mildly upset and needs a little time to settle down.
Looking forward to see the colour and shine tomorrow when it has dried and settled.
Danish language lesson: There is this delightful danish term called tøsefornærmet.
Loosely translated, I guess butthurt would be the closest single word.
The meaning is a little different though: It means that overly dramatic, disproportionately offended reaction that a teenage girl can display. The kind of overreaction that is as ridiculous as it is funny. Think "Hmpf!" and the nose firmly in the air. There you go, that's what it means.
Tøsefornærmet is exactly how I feel about 23andme not finding any pheomelanin in my DNA test.
It's illogical, I know.
But I guess that's how feelings work. They're not always rational.
Anyways.
Ever since, I have wanted to enhance the red tones that I apparently don't have.
(Hubby insists that I do and I have always described my hair colour as "Not really blonde, not really brown, but with some red tones", so... Meh, what can you do?)
I have done (light) henna on and off since 2014. I have a recipe for a very light henna gloss that I have been using with a few tweaks ever since.
So... Henna-time!
It's been quite a while, so I'm just going to grab my old notes...
First step is to have the supplies ready and clear the schedule.
There are three main parts to the supplies I need:
The actual treatment supplies. Both for the henna gloss and the conditioner afterwards.
The supplies for entertaining myself while I wait out the worst of the dripping in the bathtub (It's actually surprisingly hard to kill that much time in a bathtub)
The supplies for entertaining myself while I wait out the out-of-bathtub part of the treatment.
Day one (Planned for tomorrow)
Henna gloss supplies (The recipe itself)
Cassia
Conditioner(s)
Henna
Why is my frozen henna marked with "Not eatable!"? This is why.
Other supplies for the henna gloss
Bandages, several
Cling wrap
Heating pads
Heating cap
Warm hats
Other supplies
Time! Clear your whole day for day 1.
Prepare a comfortable "henna nest" set up: Blankets, pillows and towels on top of it to protect it. Make sure to have good support of your back and head.
Entertainment in general! This is the biggest challenge: To be able to entertain yourself while you wait out the time while being unable to move around very well. It's just generally mildly uncomfortable to have all this stuff piled up on your head. Think books, laptop, tablet, phone, DVDs, TV etc. I strongly suggest watching something with subtitles as the cling wrap and warm hats seriously mess with your hearing!
Wear some dark and old clothes you don't care about.
Facial masks and pedicure/manicure supplies or something else to pass time with
Snacks, food and drinks
Scented candles or something else that is nice and relaxing
Something nice for the bath, like bath salt or fizzers
Day 0: Preparations
Clean your hair of product and go to bed with "naked", product-free hair.
Make sure you have no appointments for the next day.
Prepare the "henna nest" if you can.
Get some snacks and entertainment ready if you can.
Day 1: Henna
Mix your henna mud.
Igors recipe henna gloss for calf length, iii hair
100 g cassia
5 g henna (From freezer, unless Mr. Igor has eaten it!)
Approximately 700 ml cone-free conditioner
2 ampoules Lador perfect hair filler
Prepare a "nest" in your couch or bed: Pillows, towels, entertainment and snacks within reach.
Prop pillows up so you are comfortable half-sitting up. You need to be comfortable as long as you can. Have pillows under your knees. Have music or scented candles or something else relaxing ready.
I have a stack of books ready: A childhood favorite that I recently bought and made me feel extremely nostalgic.
Bring cling wrap, heat pads, bandages and warm hats into the bathroom.
I suggest bringing your laptop into the bathroom for entertainment here. Have a series queued up so you have something to kill the time with in the bathtub.
Take your henna-mix and apply it to your hair. Section off hair so you can get all the way to the roots.
The mud is rather thick and can be difficult to distribute, so patch it on in sections.
You want to avoid too much messing around with it, since it is so grainy and rough on your hair and scalp.
Because the henna-mix is so light, you don't have to worry about stains everywhere.
Once you have your hair covered in the henna-mud, wrap cling wrap around it.
Use the ends of the cling wrap to cover the hairs at your neck.
Cover everything with warm hats and a heating pad.
Don't wrap the around bandages when you get in the tub.
Just wrap the cling wrap and put warm hats over.
You want the worst of the dripping to be over with before you get out of the tub.
You only get that by actually allowing it to drip out.
Draw yourself a nice bath and angle the laptop so you can see it from the tub.
Henna and cassia are actually very good for your skin, so see this as a treat for your skin as well as hair.
Add bubbles or fizzers or something else to the bath to make it more fun.
I have bath fizzers and a bubbly facial mask ready to go!
The bath is the only way I have found the dripping to be tolerable: No matter what I do, it will drip. I have seen other people experiment with packaging tape to keep the moisture up under the cling wrap, but... brr. Seems very uncomfortable to me!
But allowing it to drip down while I'm warm and wet in the bath anyways, severely limits how freakishly annoying it is.
Dripping henna mud while you're out of the bath is seriously like a kind of Chinese water torture.
I like to stay in the bathtub for about an hour. It cuts about 80% of the dripping and makes the whole process a lot more tolerable.
Wrap the bandages around your hair to keep the rest of the dripping down. Don't wrap too tightly as it will cause headaches and discomfort.
Rinse yourself off, dry yourself off and get in some old clothes.
Then get in your prepared "nest".
I have set up a nest already, with lots of towels and even a heating blanket for extra comfort!
Put on your heating cap to keep your hair and mud nice and warm.
Even if you have a desired time-frame to keep your treatment on, it will never harm your hair to keep the mud on for as long as you can stand it!
The key is to limit irritations like dripping, keep yourself comfortable with a nice "nest" and have some entertainment ready.
Not sure if it's possible, but I have picked up some pedicure-supplies. Maybe I can kill some time with that tomorrow. Maybe I can't, I can easily imagine it would be too uncomfortable to bend over to focus on my feet with so much (dripping) weight on my head?
You may want to limit fluids as going to the bathroom with henna mud on your head is mildly irritating.
I have picked out a plate of sushi from today, for being easily accessible food for tomorrow.
I even made blueberry muffins for snacks!
Once you are done with your henna-treatment, wash it out gently by soaking your hair in the tub and slathering conditioner on.
Using conditioner will also help you get the last leftovers of mud out.
Even after rinsing with water alone looks clear, your conditioner may turn green when you apply it!
Your hair might feel cranky and dry as you rinse it clean. That is normal.
It will feel awesome and strong once you add some regular conditioner or leave in-conditioner.
I've been really busy lately, so it's been a while since last I did a good deep conditioning. I decided to do a cassia treatment with one of the nice Korean conditioners from my latest haul.
Mr. Igor of course decided it was the perfect time to sneak up on me and annoy me since I was pretty defenseless (Unless I wanted the entire bathroom to be smeared in cassia mud!)
Mr. Igor is a moron, but I love him.
I did get him to take a picture of the structure of my enormous, muddy mess of a bun though...
