Strange product experience of the day

I wanted to do an overnight Nodosaurus. 

I had recently bought a Garnier Fructis mask that was on sale, and here I have to admit I’m always a bit lost to what the name of a Garnier product is because there are always so much writing on them.

It says “Intense mask” and “Ultra-nourishing 3 minutes” on the lid and “Nutri repair 3 intense” on the side.

Then it says “3 fruit oils: Olive, avocado & shea + apricot micro grains” on the side as well as a bunch of other fluff about “Deep nutrient mask” and “Anti rough effect”.

I then tried to find an ingredient list for this online. No luck. It always leaves me slightly creeped out when companies don’t want to share these on their product pages. Why the secrecy? Are they afraid people will be able to tell their claims of super fancy hype-tech © molecules with deep-penetrating oil complex are in reality just a bunch of cones?

Oh well, too lazy to hand-type it all.

I just skimmed the list…

(Even skimming the list made my eyes hurt. Print it a bit better, will ya??)

Mineral oil high on the list. Oh my gosh, you will, like, get hair-cancer or something from this!!

(Really fantastic to have a head of hair that is so easy to get along with and that doesn’t listen to positive or negative hype. As long as I keep aloe vera and coconut oil away from my scalp, it is all good. But I digress)

Colour high on the list.

Blackcurrant seed oil. Odd that they don’t brag about that one when Fructis has such an obsession with fruit oils and fruit extracts?

Sugar cane extract. Sweet.

Olive fruit oil.

Camellia leaf extract. My hair loves this oil. Strange that this one is unlisted on the front too.

Linalool. Hah, my previous ingredients-checks have had an effect: I remember this one.

In Europe, Linalool is included on the list of “allergenic” substances. The European Cosmetics Directive requires manufacturers of cosmetics and personal care products to indicate the presence of certain “allergenic” substances in the list of ingredients if they are present above certain levels in the product (see Annex III). The presence of Linalool must be indicated in the list of ingredients when its concentration exceeds: 0.001% in leave-on the skin products 0.01% in products that are rinsed off the skin

Source

This one is about in the middle of the ingredient list, so I doubt it is below the 0.01% concentration.

Apple fruit extract. Ah, remember when Fructis smelled like horribly artificial sour apple bubble gum? This takes me back… *Swoons in memories of being off on the boarding school and smelling like sour apple bubble gum for like a year. It didn’t mix well with wearing CK One by the way. Ah, the mid 90s… *

Avocado oil.

Shea butter. Hm, not “extract” or anything, just shea butter.

Lemon peel extract.

Apricot seed powder.

Seems like your typical Fructis product. So far so good.

I opened it.

What is this?

Exfoliating grains?

…In a conditioner?

Is this what they meant with “Anti rough effect”? That you exfoliate your hair smooth?

I went over the ingredient list again, but found nothing, not even in the annoying fluff on the front about any sort of grains. It does mention “apricot seed powder” as one of the last items on the ingredient list, but hmm, this doesn’t look like apricot seed powder does it?

Zoom!

Weird.

I decided to put it in my hair anyways and did a Nodosaurus.

The bag immediately started slipping though. They really weren’t kidding about the “anti rough effect”! I couldn’t even keep the Nodosaurus in and ended up having to rinse it out before going to bed.

Odd product all the way around.

Really liking the blue

Such a simple and quick way to spice up a braid or bun!

Answers from a thread

I’d like to share my answers to a thread on UTT: Link.

What is your cinnabun diameter? (Different buns have different measures, I figure a cinnabun is a tight bun that will make it easier to compare apples to apples.)

I’d say around 12-13 cm?

What length hair do you have? (in inches or cm, please; waist or BSL or other varies so much from person to person) 

I measured for the first time in several years and got 144-145 cm or so, which  is around top calf length. 
(Pardon the slightly messy ends) 

What is your pony circumference?

 12 cm.

How would you describe your taper and/or how long has it been at your current length or longer?

Hmm, I don’t think my hair tapers a lot but since it is so long, the ends are pretty thin. It doesn’t taper to fairy tale ends though.

Just for fun, here is a side shot of the cinnamon bun. 

Short pieces

Link

Since there always seems to be some confusing about those short pieces whenever they are brought up on hair forums, I think I will try to push my luck and try to explain those…

The short pieces by the temples are simply a fact on a head of hair. There isn’t anything you can do to make them grow (much) longer or stronger. These pieces have a shorter life span than the rest of your hair. It’s genetically pre-set like that. The active growing phase of hair is called the anagen phase and usually said to be up to 7 years, but we all know that isn’t true.

One of the theories on why any living thing lives so and so long is that each cell only has a certain number of mitoses it can do. That’s where a normal body cell “copies itself” although that’s a wrong way to put it since it really splits itself into two identical new cells. But just like taking a copy of a copy, things will eventually go wrong and the complex process replicating will end up with errors in the DNA. (This is what can also result in cancer) This will eventually lead to faults in the code and cells won’t be able to fulfil their job as well. Slowly, the complex mechanisms in the cells will break down. Every single function a cell can perform is the result of reading the DNA sequence correctly, this gives the cell the “recipes” it needs.

The theory is that it’s the same reason you go grey in that area first. Because those pieces have a shorter life span before the follicles stop producing the hair strand (Called the catagen and telogen phase) and ejects the strand from the follicle, the theory is that you have only so many “life spans” of each strand before the genetic code and efficiency of the follicle cells starts to deteriorate. This is where the errors start to show by colour changing in the hair strand.

Normally the different kinds of melanin which gives hair its colour will be deposited in the inner parts of the hair strand (The cortex) The outer parts of the human hair is quite see-through, so “colour” is determined by what melanin types are deposited inside the strands. Take away all the melanin and you are left with the “surface” only of hair. Its just like with the polar bear: Its fur is actually see-through, but the light reflects on it and gives it the appearance of being white. “White” is really the colour of all light being reflected back by the surface instead of being absorbed.

Of course in my opinion, I see a problem in assuming that the catagen and telogen somehow is more demanding on hair than the catagen and telogen phase and causes the follicle-cells in that phase to deteriorate faster than the other follicles. Maybe it’s like how some light bulbs has only so many “switches” in it… Leaving it on for long periods of time is no problem, but turning it on and off is what determines how long it lives. 

Or maybe it’s like how if you have a damaged nail and needs to have it pulled off or otherwise removed, it grows back increasingly weird if it happens more than once. Normal, undamaged nails seems to have no problems like this.

Of course that is just my personal speculations and maybe I’m trying to draw parallels that make no sense.

Maybe it’s a genetically set thing to show a certain age. Just like when a silverback gorilla actually gets… Well, a silver back. Maybe us humans going grey like that is supposed to happen to show that we were smart and resourceful to live long enough to go grey and show to our tribe that we are someone to listen to. Of course, again, that’s just my personal speculation. 

The fact remains though, that certain areas of your scalp grows sparser, finer and has a shorter life cycle than the rest. And this seems to be the same for everyone no matter your hair type or what ever your growth pattern otherwise seems to be. The same areas seem to be affected first if you should experience any kind of hair loss.

But course in my opinion, those short pieces are just super irritating. 

Photo thieves

Sigh.

I can’t exactly say that the constant image-stealing heightens my opinion of hair fetishists as being bottom feeding scumbags.

Link

It further creep me out when their disgusting fantasy makes something out of the photo that it definitely wasn’t. “Long oily double braids”? Ick. What you see is double braids that reach about armpit length, there is no evidence of them being “long” except in the mind of the creepy freak. And “oily”? This picture was taken before I started oiling, so again, this is only in the fantasy of this thief.

I took the picture to show how my new bone stick had broken off in my updo and the tip was still embedded in the braid. It’s evident above the tips of the sticks.

And what kind of creepy loser sticks “© All rights reserved” on stolen material?

That takes a special kind of delusional, self absorbed insanity…

Pinned!

Sure, this happened some days ago, but it is still really, really cool and I want to share my joy.

Check this out: I’ve been pinned by Grahtoestudio!

I have been pinned before, but having (hair) fan favourite Grahtoe acknowledging me is pretty damn cool!

 Link 

New purchases

I fell for this cute headband in H&M and a hair donut in Glitter. I do have a hair donut already but I find myself wearing it so rarely…

This one is covered in fake hair instead of being only that scratchy, spongy material they usually are made from.

I also found something I’ve been looking for for a while:

A set up small-ish hair clips that are flat and don’t dig into your scalp. These are even concave so they’re pretty “skull shaped”. I’d like to wear the double figure 8 buns more often but I don’t own a lot of suitable clips.

Some smaller elastics. I find it quite irritating that I have to twist my elastics around 5 times or more to make a simple braid. Especially when I make double braids, yikes…

The store gave out these little brochures…

Link

(Opens as a magazine viewer)

Link

As easy and obvious as some of these seem to me, I actually like this one. There is a simplicity to these and the styles are actually very hair friendly, including the tools used to create them.

I found it nice to see such a commercial guide that was about techniques and tools instead of heat, backcombing and products!

(Please pay no attention to the rather embarrassing mixture of Danish and English…) 

Blue :)

What do you think? Too bright? Would a slightly darker blue be more flattering?

Heh. Just joking of course.

It’s a clip in that I removed the clip from and braided into my hair.

I quite like it though! 

Trim

Ugh. It makes me pretty depressed how a 2 cm trim only results in so few hairs cut!

I know that taper comes with the increased length but still…

Product surprise

Anyone try this line or conditioner?

I needed a wash badly in Denmark and only had a Lidl near me. The only conditioners they carried were Pantene and this brand, so I picked the latter.

I didn’t expect much from it since it was really cheap, especially for a 300 ml bottle, but I really liked it!

I will definitely buy it again. And extend a product recommendation to everyone.