An experiment in laziness: Day 5

Out of pure stubbornness I kept the braids in and did two horizontal Royal buns.
No one at work has commented on the halo. Hmm! 

Scalp is slightly itchy and a little sore to touch in the partings in the back. Not noticeable greasiness though, but when I scratch the sore parts of my scalp I can feel the oil underneath my nails.
Strangely, the dry flaky sebum my scalp tends to produce the most of, haven't really been provoked by this experiment. Does my scalp really dislike rinsing? I thought it liked it? But I guess "It feels good" doesn't mean "It's actually the best choice"? Does my scalp really like to be left this much alone?
Strange.

Although I guess in theory I could do five days on the same braids, I don't think I want to do it again. Not feeling put together just isn't worth the time saved.

An experiment in laziness: Day 4

Okay, the halo is getting irritating now. I tried to tame some of it by running some leave in conditioner through the loose hairs to gather them up a bit for a more purposely-messy look, but after the commute to work the effect was ruined.
My scalp is really longing for a rinse.
It has been really awesome to be able to jump into the shower without worrying about my hair though. A real time saver there.

Today's style was two low nautilus buns.
I didn't notice until lunch that one nautilus was more pointy (Or whatever you want to call it?) than the other. Double nautilus buns have a tendency to get too much "inner" compared to "outer" and then it "pops" out. I guess it's too much length compared to the thickness of the braids that does it. A single nautilus doesn't have this effect.

Yesterday's four buns was the definite win so far, and this has been my definite fail.

An experiment in laziness: Day 3

Felt like playing around with it a bit on the third day and did four little cinnamon buns.
The halo is now developing more all over than just at the edges.

The four little cinnamon buns were super cute!
I don't think I've ever done these before?
This is definitely something I will do again!
Also, this is a fun and playful style so the flyaways doesn't actually hurt the look...

An experiment in laziness: Day 2

Second day and seeing some flyaways at the edges. Not too bad so far.
I remember having a leave in-conditioner once that had a lot of hold. Maybe I blogged about it and can find it again? Some more hold would have been perfect.

Today's bun is a single, massive, Royal bun.

An experiment in laziness: Day 1

First day of the experiment and I'm off to a good start with vertically stacked braided Chinese buns.

I think I did a bit more of an infinity shape structure with the bottom bun than the top one?
Still good though.

An experiment in laziness

Next week will be really busy for me. So while I was preparing for a week of work and sleep and little time for anything else, I had a thought...

The braid bases are great for busy days because I can easily "reuse" them for different styles and go directly to sleep with the braids. But how long could I stretch the "reuse" period? How lazy efficient could I possibly get and still stand myself?

There are a few factors in this:

• My scalp loves water, so it will not enjoy going rinse free and not having the braids redone. My scalp is slightly dry and I don't produce a lot of sebum, so I won't get noticeably greasy unless I stretch the no-wash for... weeks? Irritation and itchiness could be a factor though.
• How many updos/buns I could do with the braid base. Doing a good braid base would be kind of pointless if I can't use it for different buns. I always get this irrational irritation at those who have long hair but can't do anything cool with it. The options of updos is what made me grow it this long in the first place.
• Flyaways/halo. I think this will be the limiting factor. I don't generally like messy updos: Why waste time on making something cool with your hair, if you're just going to mess up the structure anyways? Wouldn't you want your effort to show? There won't be much I can do for this, since you have "wear" from sleep, wind and rain. A strong leave in-conditioner might help, but there is only so much they can really do and I'm not willing to use stronger styling products.

What braid base to pick?

My theory is that although I would initially think a Dutch braid base would be the best for it's ability to tame the halo, the Dutch structure itself will increase rubbing against a pillow. The braid needs to be "flat" against the scalp instead of protruding. 

My conclusion: Why not try four simple braids?

Styling options for four braids:

• Single bun options: Royal bun and (Complicated) Chinese bun
• Double buns options, horizontal: Royal buns, Chinese buns and Nautilus buns
• Double buns options, vertical: Royal buns, Chinese buns and Nautilus buns
• Quad buns options: Nautilus buns and cinnamon buns

I'm happy with the braid base.
Tomorrow I will start the experiment....

Today's hair

The Chinese bun is one of those buns I really love. So quick to make and easily distinguishable from any other bun I could do instead. Unfortunately it has almost completely slipped out of my style rotation the last year or two because it's just so much easier for me to do something with a braid base that I can sleep on and just wrap up in a bun in the morning for work.

Shampoo

I originally started blogging to keep track of what I had tried/done to my hair and what I wanted to do to my hair in the future with more length. And now is one of those moments where it's really cool to be able to just use the search function on my blog and see that I last shampooed 13 months ago.
Yep, there it is.

The hot and dry air inside and the cold wet air outside causes my scalp to produce some irritating flakes. Other than the seasonal autumn irritation, my scalp is usually really happy. It's slightly dry, but not irritated and just generally so much easier than the rest of my skin. If I could do CO everywhere I would!

I can manage the flakes with the good old CO wash, lots of scalp scritching or scrubbing and rinsing it every day. Last year I put a lot of effort into avoiding having to shampoo. We had just returned from Madeira, and the transfer from hot and awesome Madeira to cold and wet Sweden really provoked the flakes.

But this year I just couldn't be bothered. Shampoo isn't something bad or evil, it's just something I would like to avoid for my scalp when it seems so much happier without it and I can keep my hair 99% as clean on CO.
(Although I am a little worried that the flakes provokes greasiness on my scalp, which will then provoke the skin on my face...)

Today's hair

I've been neglecting hubby a lot lately, so I'm taking him out for dinner.

I felt it required something nice for an updo and went with the crown wrap/Chinese bun combo.

I really like that one!

Story time

The story of the woman who (maybe) assumed my hair was some sort of sexual and/or religious thing.

Many years and a few jobs ago, I worked in this office that had a relaxed attitude to everything. So often my coworkers would have their friends come over for lunches or such.
For some reason I ended up chatting with a coworkers friend, who was waiting for her to finish a meeting.

She asked me about my hair, which was up in a cool bun.
She asked me the usual hair questions that you always, always get.
You know: "OMG, it must be so difficult to wash" and "How do you not smother in it at night? Tehehehee" kind of stuff.
I answered honestly. The usual answers to the same tired old questions.
"No, it´s not really that hard to wash. Does it take you longer to soap up in your shower when you gain weight?" and "I have it in a braid at night".
The usual stuff.
She then followed up by asking if I never have my hair down.

I replied that no, I almost never do. Not because of the length, but because I have almost no parting and my hair falls straight down in my face, so I need to put it up to see.
She then got a kind of funny look on her face and asked "So the only one who sees your hair down is your boyfriend?". And I replied "Huh, yea" because that was the truth.

She then made the weirdest, most exaggerated, cartoonish wink and grin at me and wandered off to find her friend.

I stood there for a few seconds before I realized what had happened: She had assumed my hair was something sexual between and my boyfriend. Or religious maybe? Both of the above?

Gross.

I spent the next few seconds debating how to react. Should I follow her and explain that it wasn´t the case (Still so gross)? Would this be the lady doth protest too much-territory?

How could I even be sure it was what she meant? Was it just me over analyzing the situation?

I ended up not saying or doing anything.

It still grosses me out to this day though.