Pouf!

What happens when you comb two day old double Dutch braids out? 
    

Graphics and general weirdness

It was a surprise that I had so much fun with the simple little pictures I did in paint some time ago: The leave in conditioner-murderers, the conditioners purchase and the time line over my length. Maybe I should find some sort of photo editing program so I can do more fun and silly things with my pictures?

Any suggestions?

For a very long time I’ve also had the idea of getting some business cards printed for the blog. Then whenever I encounter curiosity about my hair in real life, I could hand over a card with the address and go “Start with the Beginners guide to healthier hair”.

Heh.
It actually happens more often than you would think!
    

      
Usually I’ve been telling people search for “long hair care” which of course works better if your native language isn’t English. It’s funny though; even with all the information you can find, a lot of people haven’t even thought of that you can find a whole lot of knowledge about growing healthy hair online. I swear, 99% of the time people respond with “Oh, I didn’t know I could find that…” Maybe it’s a sign that there is so much junk out there online that people have stopped using the internet for real information?

Of course now that I have my blog and have collected a lot of information in it that I think could be useful to people no matter how well they take care of their hair already, I have a specific place to point them to.

But now it seems that my internet has started reading my mind, because everywhere I go online I swear I see ads for Vistaprint that makes business cards at a very nice price! Huh.

Should I be very, very scared? Are the terminators taking over the internet? Is my little HP laptop equipped with a brain scan chip?

Of course if I were to get some business cards printed there, I’m back at an old issue I have here on the blog: I really need a nice icon or logo!

I have been playing around with putting some of my pictures up as logo but never felt happy with them. Then I drew the girl with the laptop and even though it was a quick 10 minute thing and I took the picture of it with my phone, I still feel it’s the best logo/header yet. Of course it would be better if I somehow could incorporate a bell or a tower in it, but how?

    

   
If I order business cards, what information should be printed on them? Naturally the address, but what else? My email? Some sort of slogan? A description?

So, maybe I should spend a little more time on that tonight. Create a different and better version of the girl with the laptop and get the business cards ordered?

Wednesday the 2nd of October

I’ve been feeling pretty crappy since before the Halloween party and going out when I wasn’t feeling 100% definitely didn’t help. So I’ve been staying in and feeling sorry for myself a lot. The double Dutch braids stayed looking surprisingly good for days.

This is what they looked like yesterday before I washed:

Classic length double Dutch braids! 

Note the VO5 bottles in the tub, heh.

Braids with this level of messiness are really good for quick and efficient S&Ds

“Stuck in a rut”

It’s a complaint I hear on the hair circuit a lot. I have been there a couple of times myself too. But the truth is; it’s not necessarily a bad thing.

First of all, people should stop beating themselves up over feeling “stuck in a rut”. Naturally you can’t be 100% interested in something 100% of the time. If you could, that would cross over in crazy obsession. Not a healthy state of mind!

Second, there is a reason that “benign neglect” is preached so much. It’s simply the healthiest thing you can do for your hair!

Everything you do to your hair from the second it leaves the follicle will damage it: Combing, exposing it to sun, rubbing against your clothes and twisting it up in up do’s etc will do some damage to it. Of course we can combat some of the damage with hair treatments and protecting up dos, but the healthiest thing for hair is to not handle it more than absolutely necessary!

Do the washes to keep it from turning into a total grease-ball. Do the detangling necessary to keep it from getting matted. Do your up dos to keep it protected and out of harms way.

Other than that; stop beating yourself up for “having lost interest”. You haven’t, you are just practising benign neglect and there is nothing wrong with that!  Some of the most breath-taking heads of hair belongs to people who have the most “boring” and simple routines there are. Benign neglect simply works.

As long as you don’t fall for the temptation of thinking a cute, shorter cut will spark your interest in hair again, you are not doing anything that can cause regret later. If you feel the need for something new and exciting, try with fake bangs, a crazy coloured clip in or maybe take the creative urge out on your nails.

Leave it be and let your hair interest stay on the back burner for a while. Once it returns again, your hair will have grown, not been damaged while you ignored it and be ready to enjoy your renewed attention again.

Repeat after me: It’s not a rut, it’s a routine!

One thing I try to advertise is to make a habit out of your hair-handling and up dos. If it’s something you just “do” without having to think about it, the handling is much easier for you and less damaging for your hair.

Try to think of when you tie your shoelaces or eat a sandwich. If you just do it without thinking, there is no problem. But if you first start thinking about every step or analyse the motions you do, you end up unable to remember how you tie the knot or with tomatoes on the floor.

One of the steps towards making a habit out of handling and putting your hair up is to stick with a routine.

For example, since I’m dominant right handed I start detangling the left side first. When detangling the right side, I always feel like my right hand “gets in its own way”, so with the easier left side done I’m left to focus on the right. When I braid, I always start on the right side, which gets the right side done first so I can use my right hand to help on the left side if necessary.

Another thing I always try to advertise is to pick an up do and practise it until you can do it in your sleep so you can always get your hair up and look presentable even if your child is screaming, your hubby yelling you have to go now, the dog is barking, the doorbell is chiming and you hear something shattering and breaking somewhere in the background and it most definitely sounds expensive….

So if you ever find yourself in a “rut”:

• The first rule is: Do no harm.
• Second rule: Practise benign neglect and don’t feel guilty for it. Not even a little bit.
• Third rule: Decide on your routines and practise them until you no longer have to think about them. Pick an up do and keep practising. You will thank yourself for your work later.

Halloween party outfit

We weren’t entirely sure how dressy the party would be so I went for a fairly simple schoolgirl outfit. I was curious if hubby would approve or not but he definitely loved it, heh.

It put my hair in twin Dutch braids and it took me an astonishing 40 minutes to get them done! I managed to get the right braid done in an extremely weird mix of Dutch and French on the first try and I have absolutely no clue how I managed to butcher a Dutch braid like that!

I was a bit worried about unwanted attention to my hip+ length braids but it wasn’t bad. I encountered curiosity, but no unwanted attention, which was pretty cool considering we were out among drunk and happy people.

The 5 most annoying hair length stages

1) Long enough to get in your face but too short to tie back

This one was horrible. It might be less annoying for other people, but I have no natural parting and my hair falls straight downwards from the top of my skull. Every day I woke up, I found myself irritated by the hair and had to head directly for a shower and styling session to tame it before I had a fit over the tickling. Of course the use of styling products meant you were forced to shampoo it out in the evenings too, otherwise you would rub the product into your pillow and skin at night. Gross. Headbands didn’t help either for a long period of this; I couldn’t keep them from slipping back if they had to be secured at a point where they still held my hair back. Argh!

2) Classic to knee

This one just never ended?! It took me some 3 years to get from classic to knee length and it was driving me nuts. I have never before had the feeling that my hair just didn’t grow, but I sure felt it from classic to knee! I guess the problem is that it’s a long stretch and it doesn’t have any good “markers” anywhere along the way. Anywhere else you have markers at bones and joints. Instead, your markers are reduced to things like “I think I might be a bit below mid-thigh, but I’m not entirely sure.” It felt like it didn’t really go anywhere until I went for no trims in 2011.

3) BSL to waist

This is one of the major downsides to having thick hair: At lengths where people with thinner hair than you can do a variety of cool and pretty up dos, you’re still hopelessly stuck with simple braids and ponytails. It wasn’t until I hit waist I could do even the simplest cinnamon or Chinese bun.

4) Longer than your arms-length

I know I have covered a lot of the annoyance of the classic to knee, but having outgrown your arms turned out to be quite irritating. It doesn’t matter if its 2 cm or 20 cm longer than my arms-length, it makes handling more difficult. I’ve had to do a few adjustments to be able to handle my hair, but no matter what it’s still a lot more time consuming.

5) Flip length to armpit length

Boring. All I could do was ponytails and holding it back with headbands. It’s a length that is often considered “long” in the rest of the world, but there is so little you can truly do to it. At least I was able to switch from using harsh styling products to leave in conditioner, though.

Healthy hair 2012

I just finished up my hair resolutions for 2012 and put it in a new page. Now that I have it all typed up, I think it sounds really good and I want to start on it right away!
      

Hah, there is still a little over 2 months left of 2011 and I’m already worrying about 2012?
       
Now yours truly is going to bed! Hubby and I both didn’t get a lot of sleep last night due to a late-night pig-out on way too much delicious Thai food.
        
It really makes me feel old: When I was just 5 years younger I could eat anything and then sleep like a stone, but now…? Meh.  
                                    

Length charts

Or, “the result of my photo session with hubby yesterday”

While I let my hair dry, I gave the ends a bit of oil to keep them smooth. But I guess that was a mistake since they ended up looking clumpy on the pictures!

Approximate lengths to different milestones. Measurements done by hubby.

After having done the length chart in centimetre, I thought it could be fun to go back over my old pictures and put months and date on when I approximately hit the different milestones.

I think I remember when I trimmed a lot to get rid of layers and when I pushed for more length, but it was still surprising to see how I completely stalled out some years.

Bald to when it started to lay down on its own, I remember only trimming the neck. From there to the shortest layers were long enough to reach into a “half up” kind of ponytail, I trimmed the back/neck length back over and over.

When I reached that and could make a simple, quick ponytail I pushed for length again.

From the months and dates, I can see I must have trimmed a whole lot between armpit and hip. It’s funny, because I don’t remember that! It does make sense though. My fist trimming-spree was to keep it looking acceptable until I could get it in a ponytail, but I remember I still had some layers left. I guess I didn’t get rid of the layers around waist length.

Photo-session with Mr. Igor

Each time I have asked Mr. Titian to help me take pictures, it’s always really amusing the see what he *actually* took pictures of after I get them on a computer!

Today was no different. I asked his help to do a “length chart” where I can mark my different milestones for comparison to everyone else.

“Alright honey, I’m going to stand here, so you just need to make sure to get all of me in the picture. I will crop it later. None of your trademark feet-free pictures. Hey, don’t take the picture yet!”

“You big moron. Okay, detangle-time!”

“Hey! I told you don’t take pictures yet!”

“Okay, ready. No wait. Stupid tangly hair…”

*Grumble, grumble*

“Make sure to get all of me in the picture. That includes feet, you know!”

Argh.

“I don’t wear make-up” make up

I got a few questions about my make-up routine, so...

First, you should put some time and effort into finding the right products. This is an absolute must. If you use the wrong colour or texture products, you can look sick or “mask like”. It can be a good idea to ask a sales representative, but be critical: Sometimes they just want to make the sale and don’t listen to you at all. If you ask for a concealer and the sales girl starts telling you about mascara, tell her you’re going to leave unless she plays by your rules. You have the money, so don’t feel forced to listen or buy if you don’t want to.

The right product will blend effortlessly into your skin and look natural in all lights. If you have to work too long to blend a product, it isn’t right. Also, don’t ever listen to weird ideas of testing a product on the inside of your wrists or something similar: A product needs to be tested where you’re going to use it. It’s the only way to see if it blends perfectly in. Your wrist doesn’t have the same skin type or tan as your face!

Don’t settle for anything that doesn’t feel or look perfect. There are too many great options out there to go for “close enough".

The following is taking you through all the steps I could possible do for a still-natural look. Feel free to skip any of them; I just wanted to demonstrate them all while I was at it.

You will notice I use a lot of Lancôme products. It stems from many years ago when a Lancôme sales representative actually *listened* to me and helped me find and buy the exact products I wanted. I have since then experimented with different brands, but I keep returning to Lancôme because they look and feel natural on my skin.

Other than the products themselves, you should invest in a good foundation brush. It makes a world of difference! With a brush, you can focus on small, troublesome areas, blend and tone out and keep it looking natural. Fingers or makeup sponges just doesn’t have the same effect. (Oh and this is a good thing to use your “leftover” shampoo for cleaning…)

Mine is from Lancôme

A concealer is used for concealing dark under eye circles. It’s a real miracle for disguising those late nights where you just haven’t gotten enough sleep. Usually it will be slightly lighter than your skin and have a yellow-ish tone to hide the violet tones from dark circles (Look at a simple colour wheel to see why) Dot it on and tone it out to cover the dark areas.

I use Lancôme long-lasting softening concealer in 01: Beige pastel

If you like to play up your eyes and cheek bones like me, tone the concealer out up to your eyebrows and down your cheek bones. Sometimes I use a mix I made myself for this: It contains a light eye cream, concealer and some shimmering YSL highlighter. It’s not as “covering” as the concealer and it gives a discrete glow. 

If you don’t have a tendency to redness and irritation like me, skip the next step.

Dot on an anti-redness foundation on the trouble areas and work it into your skin. Tone out slightly in concentric circles from the trouble spots.

(It seems to be a big discussion on the order of which you apply the different products, but I like this order. Concealer first because it’s a lighter, “special” tone and I don’t want mixing foundation in it, then the anti-redness concealer because often that will be enough and I can skip the regular concealer)

I use Lancôme Maquicomplet in 01:Clair Doré

Now for the foundation. I guess for a lot of people, just having a single foundation is enough. I have 3. It can be a good idea to have them in different tones as you change levels of tan during the year and your winter skin can be far from your summer skin. In between, you can always mix two tones together to match to perfection, or use the lighter one on a lighter area like your forehead and the darker on a darker area.

Dot foundation on in areas where you feel you need more coverage and tone it out carefully. Go down your neck and out towards your ears. If you like me don’t have naturally good skin, it can make you feel a lot better about it to spread the “good” areas. No matter what, try to avoid “lines” between non-covered and covered. Brushes are fantastic for this.

I have the following 3…

Lancôme teint idole ultra in 03 (This is the darkest one. It only matches when I have a real, actual tan)
Lancôme color ideal in 010 (The middle one that works most of the time)
Lancôme teint idole ultra in 010 (As one of my friends named it: The atomic winter shade. Thanks Jane, appreciate it. Hmpf)

You can now use a clear powder to “set” the foundation and hide shiny areas like the T-zone if you feel like it. Brush it on lightly.

I use Lancôme color ID in Fair 1

Now for shaping and contouring the face. You can find lots of resources telling you how and where to apply blusher according to your face shape, but I will just share what I do.

I apply a highlighting blusher in a pale pink on my cheekbones, and then tone it upwards towards my temples.

Next, suck in your cheeks and where the hollow appears, apply a darker blusher. This will help shape your face and in my case, break up a jawline that I think is too dominant.

I like using a very pale, shimmering pink from Dior (Can’t find any information on colour or line on this one?) or Wet n wild Mega glow in catwalk pink. It has 4 different colour “stripes” so you can always mix the amount of blusher or bronzer you want to perfection.

The first brush is the one that came with the Dior blusher and the second brush is one that came with a BareMinerals foundation. I liked the brush better than the product.

Finishing touches. Take a shimmering highlighter or a bright eye shadow and dot the product on the very inner corner of your eye, then dot the same product on the top, middle of your eyelid right at the lash line. These two simple dots will make your eyes appear wider and brighter.

I use a palette from Lancôme in 203: Delicate romance. I have only ever used the white one!

Next take a light or white eyeliner and run it along the wet part of your bottom eyelid.  This will make small eyes appear larger.

I use a Helena Rubinstein eye pencil in 08: Moon dust

Last step is to apply a bit of discrete lip gloss.

I use either a Lancôme juicy tube shade (Have like 3) or a lip gloss with SPF.

Done!

(Oh and brush your teeth before you leave the house for an instant face-brightener!)