Suddenly grew a tail…?

I found myself running around confused before going to the gym. I had packed my bag and mixed my sports drink and had thrown a fleece jacket from last year on before I realised my ipod had vanished.
Just as I made yet another round past hubby, he started laughing.

Does it count as a milestone that my hair in a braid has outgrown an old jacket?

Supplies for a good girly spoling…

Why yes, that is a nice copper hair colour! Heh.
Since my UTT blog is more private than this, details will go there. But people who have read my late LHC blog and current UTT one, will know what I did XD

Tuesday the 11th of October

Our router died last week. At first I thought it wasn’t such a bad thing since having only one computer online would help my back-at-uni-hubby to not be distracted by the internet and games so much. It didn’t work though. It really gets in the way for my own internet time and ruins my urge to write and blog. I find myself to be strangely “territorial” about the computer as soon as I sit myself in front of it too. Weird.

The cut in the back of my head from the broken Ketylo seems to be almost healed. I just need to keep my fingers away from it and stop picking!

I have added a few (new) pages…
The biotin rant, A collection of my hair-related links and the project knee length post.

I feel the idea of scheduled hair care is pretty good, even though I find myself rebelling against the idea from time to time. It does go against my conviction of long hair being easy, but since my ends are coming up on being 10 years old, it’s a good reminder for myself to spoil them once in a while. I have the daily handling and putting worked out, but some times it’s a good thing to not practise the benign neglect.
I will probably have to re-write it sooner or later.

Especially to add a trimming-schedule. Even though I’ve hit a clear and obvious knee length months ago, I have stuck to no trimming like I decided on in the original project.
I have really been itching to get rid of my thin ends but still managed to stay clear of the stylists, so yay for me!
Now the question for 2012 is: How much should I trim? Should I take a bit off every 3 months but keep growing longer? Trim to status quo and only thicken up? Or trim it back and really thicken the hemline up?

Time to learn a new skill?

I tried one of my new beanies and even though I liked it from the front, I disliked how it looked from the side.
The underside of the hat bulks up and the end of it pokes out even further than my bun.
Damn.
I really thought that these beanies would fit me and I would like them.

I guess what I’m really looking for is to hide the “camel hump” of my bun and disguise the massive bulk of it to create the illusion that I’m just wearing a large, slouchy beanie.

Even though I love my hair, some times I really want to conceal it. And when wearing a hat, I want to avoid the look of having a giant tumour growing in the back of my head.

So, how can I avoid that look?

• I think lifting the bun slightly higher than I normally wear them will allow the beanie to fall in a more “normal” way.
• I also came up with the idea of wearing a larger version of the “donut” socks used in sock buns. One so large I can wear it over the bun to conceal the difference between my head and the bun. Although this might make my head look abnormally long. And it would probably work better if it was thicker on the “up” side and thinner underneath the bun. (Question: What are those things called? I saw them sold in a horse-sport equipment store once sold as a “valk”. Is that the accepted and recognised term?)
• The last option is that I should learn to knit. That way I can experiment with the pattern, yarn thickness and fit myself and find something that makes me pleased. I have an idea that a more “seashell” kind of shape would fit over a bun and my head better than the U shape that this beanie has.

Of course I have absolutely no experience with that kind of handiwork myself, ever. Hm?

How hard would it be to learn to knit? Are there instructions for this type of shape out there?

Wednesday the 5th of October

This little Igor is not a happy camper!

Yesterday when I followed hubby to his palaeontology lecture I noticed that my neck felt very tired and sore and I just couldn’t get comfortable sitting staring ahead. I wrote it off as me having overworked my shoulders/neck at the weight training at the gym some hours earlier.

Well, today I woke up to my right side shoulder and neck being so stiff and sore I can hardly look to the right side. Leaning my head forwards or backwards hurts too and the only way I can look without wincing is to the left. Great.

I considered wearing a braid since an updo might not be helping my sore neck, but I went with a Chinese bun. The picture doesn’t do the stick any justice! They’re awesomely cool multi striped sticks I got from Fatamorgana at UTT. Since they are pointy in both ends, they can be classified as double-edged hubby-repellers. Silly hubby has the memory of a moth when it comes to remembering I have sharp object in my hair!

I had a semi-serious meeting with Teacher-friend about starting a blog project together. Afterwards we went shopping. She lives near Nova Lund so I needed to stop by the H&M there. For some reason the H&M in the city centre stopped carrying my usual Sunsilk leave in conditioner much to my disapproval. Anyways, now I’m stocked up on leave in-conditioner for about two months.

It’s really annoying to live in a country where 95% of the hair product seems to be for the thin, fine, volume-challenged Scandinavian hair.

You would think with the high percentage of immigrants in Sweden there would be a market for more “ethnic” hair products, but no.

But then again, you would also think that being almost purebred Danish would give you the same hairtype, but no.

I wanted a good, warm hat to cover my head and bun this winter. Of course being a longhaired weirdo makes it a little more complicated than just “What do I like?”

First of all, it needs to be roomy enough to fit a (big) bun underneath.

Second, it needs to be soft and hair friendly inside.

I found few good candidates in black but according to Teacher-friend, they were the wrong black for me. Who knew that black could be the wrong black? Eh. I didn’t.

So we picked out one in the right black and one that I felt was too brightly turquoise, but she sounded like she knew what she was talking about when she went on about seasons and undertones, so hey, why not? I might get a more interesting wardrobe from shopping with her instead of just my usual “Black comes in more than one tone?”-black and “Blue is blue, right?”

Spammers gonna spam

Another little look behind the scenes...

From my spam-folder:

On the L-cystine and L-tyrosine post:

“I like exploring the experience and knowledge of your exact contemporary. Thanks for sharing information.”

“Great Information and post! It is very informative and suggestible for the user of solar energy, May I think it can be beneficial in coming days...”

“Nice blog, its great article informative post, thanks for sharing it. Thanks for the information!”

 On The (in)famous biotin rant:

“Nice post, great detail. I would have liked to see the costs that are associated to it so I could add to my business case justifi cations to use the technology. Keep up the good work! Great Job!!! Informative and attention keeping!”

“Great Information and post! It is very informative and suggestible for the user of solar energy, May I think it can be beneficial in coming days...”

“Biotin is a water-soluble Vitamin B. Biotin support hair growth naturally. Herbs-Wholesale carries wide range of Biotin Products Like Biotin Conditioner, Biotin Shampoo and Biotin Supplements on Bulk Discount Offer.”

All these posts are from the same (seriously stupid) wholesale herb place. Even with the irony of them spamming their biotin-products on the biotin-post, I have a hard time not focussing on the extremely broken English that sounds like it has been run through some crappy translator. Some of the comments don’t even make any sense!
     

Following up on the Ketylo-disaster

I’m not entirely sure how I’m supposed to treat my injured scalp. Should I put some sort of cream on it? Shampoo it? Let it do its natural thing?

So far I’ve been doing a lot of WO to let it do its own thing. The wash yesterday with Hask and Schwarzkopf was the first “real” wash I’ve done since the cut. I really needed it! My scalp was getting quite greasy and irritated so even if the conditioner wasn’t good for the wound, I still really wanted it.

A lot of people have contacted me about the Ketylo disaster and told me it made them consider if they ever wanted to buy Ketylos (again) after reading about it. Although I have to admit I’m not feeling too interested in spending money on them ever again, it wasn’t meant to scare other people from buying them.

Honestly, if people should “boycott” a hair toy maker, I am more pissed off at Flexi 8. I have bought quite a few of those and I once sent them an email to share an observation and suggestion on the largest Flexies.

Since the stick-part curves away from the skull, a large flexi which could easily hold four times as much hair as a smaller one plus its own, increased weight is still only “anchored” to the scalp hair with a relatively small contact-surface. I suggested them that to increase the stability of an updo (Which is the absolute basis for a comfortable updo and absolutely necessary for the costumer wanting to keep wearing the hair-toy!) that they changed the stick-design or at least offer the option of another stick design. I experimented with it myself and found that reversing the stick made a superbly strong and stable up do! Just imagine how stabile a Flexi would be if it curved with the shape of your skull and your bun is anchored to a wider strip of scalp hairs?

I shared my observation and suggestion with them and got an absurdly rude answer back that clearly showed that Flexi-8s customer service representatives assume that their customers are completely retarded and it’s okay to talk to them like they’re small children.

The answer to my observations on how to make a better clip for the extra-longhaired?

“You’re supposed to put the stick through the hair before closing the clip over it.”

Yes, that’s right. It’s not that my clip holds many times more hair than smaller clips and is still attached to the same small amount of hair that is the problem. The problem is that I’m so absolutely retarded that I put my Flexi 8 in my hair in some sort of bizarre, useless way and I need to be told the complete basics on how to work a simple clip!

Unfortunately I was too stunned by the sheer rudeness and how she could so completely miss my point that I didn’t get around to send a complaint back over her attitude. But to this date, over a year later, it still blows my mind. Bitch.
     

Hask Henna ’n’ placenta

By request by Elena, my thoughts about this product.

The smell is a bit odd. Sort of “wooden” and a bit sweet.

One thing that that weirded me out a bit was that the foam is slightly brown and not the white that you’re used to see in the drain. It doesn’t colour the hair though and the brown disappeared quickly. The other thing that weirded me out was that is has a “texture”. It’s hard to describe. Somehow it just felt different than other conditioners. I guess it’s like trying to describe how cotton feels different than wool.

Of course the pack was too small to sufficiently cover my knee length hair, but I concentrated it on the ends and supplemented with some Schwarzkopf leftovers for the top. I wrapped it up in the Sexysmurf and gave it about an hour of heat.

It was nice and easy to rinse out.

I was a bit worried about the protein content since I have coarse hair and need to be a bit careful with my protein. It didn’t turn out to be a problem. It didn’t seem that my hair reacted to the protein in any negative way. My hair feels strong and moisturised at the same time. It has that “feel” like after a cassia treatment where it just feels stronger.

In fact, after I had towel dried and braided it, it did that “sliding” thing where water just slides down the length and the tassel ended up dripping wet and it was practically completely dry from the shoulders and up. That seems to be the sign of a thorough conditioning, so I’m very pleased.
When my hair needs a conditioning, it “holds” the moisture for longer and doesn’t dry as quickly on the top.

All in all, I think it’s a great product with a very nice effect. However, I would be a bit cautious and not use it too often because of the protein content.

More about the nail wraps

Well, the pink nail wraps failed!

Just the evening after, the middle nails started peeling at the edges. It was pretty weird actually, since the leopard ones lasted so perfectly for so long. But then again, the leopard ones felt completely different from the pink ones when I put them on. It was very strange when they came from the same brand and same line!

Maybe it has to do with that I used hubby’s hair dryer to heat them. When I used the hot towels from the oven, I think they got more heat than with the hair dryer. Maybe it was also because I “tucked” the hot towels around my toes so they got both more heat and pressure?

Nail wraps

It’s been 19 days since I put the leopard spot nail wraps on and other than a bit of wear among the edge of the nails, they look great! No peeling, chipping, nothing. I’m very, very impressed! The only downside with them is that I think they took a few chips of my nails off when I removed them, but I’m not entirely sure. It was hard to see if they did or it was some sort of glue/sticker residue. But then again, I have some pitifully thin and peeling nails so it’s not fair to judge the wraps on my suspicions. They actually last perfectly for so long that I see regrowth of the nails.

Hubby saw me warming towels in the oven and asked me what I was doing. I explained that the nail wraps requires heat to be removed and since I don’t own a hair dryer, I had to use oven heat and towels. Hubby then said he actually had one. He went digging for it and sure enough, we do have a hairdryer in the apartment. I had to laugh though: That thing has to be from the 70s! I need to remember to take a picture of that thing; it’s hilarious how old it is!

Anyways, mostly I wanted to try an idea I had for nail polish.
I have a light blue, a purple and a pink in the same brand and I wanted to make a “rainbow” where I mixed two colours to graduate them. The idea in theory was fine, but even after letting it dry for 30 minutes after the last coat, I managed to ruin it when we put socks and shoes on to go for a late night snack-run *sigh* So off with that again. I know it wasn’t your standard nail polish, but it was still a good demonstration of how much easier the wraps are in comparison!

(I always go outside the nail side when I paint my toenails. Its easy to remove the extra polish from the skin later and you get a better coverage and smoother cover when you just have to worry about the strokes instead of corners)

I then wanted to try the other kind of nail wraps. Strangely enough, the pink, white and black kind turned out to be a lot harder to work with than the leopard spotted ones. They were a lot thicker and harder to cover over the nails. Very strange since they were from the same brand and line!

I got a few “edges” on the wraps where they didn’t bend perfectly over the nail-shape so I doubt I will stay as happy with these as I were with the other ones. On experimental basis, I gave my nails two layers of a top coat before adding the wraps.

I’m wondering though: What is best for weak nails? What damages the nails most? Glue or nail polish? Will nail polish bind stronger to the nails than the glue and damage them when I peel them off?