Today’s hair

I wanted to demonstrate the braided crown braid-fake infinity combination for the knee length updo ideas-thread on UTT

So here is today’s hair

 

From the front

 

Side…

You can see the wrapping/braiding pattern from the back

Other side

I have no great secrets to this one. I like Dutch braids because the pattern is prettier, you put one braid around the head in front of the start of the braids and put the hair stick through the end of the first braid, then wrap the second one around the stick in an infinity pattern

Colouring eyelashes

I got a few questions about this, including from real life friends so I thought I would put a post up on it.

This is one of the things I really swear by. It’s quick, efficient and will keep you naturally looking great for over a month with just 5 minutes spent!

Have the following items ready:

• Cotton pads
• Mascara brushes. Old and cleaned ones
• The box with the dye solution
• Toner. Just the kind you usually use

Before you start:

Put your hair up and keep it back with a bandanna. You don’t want any stray hairs getting in the way, in your eyes or accidentally ending up black.

Be aware that once the two liquids are mixed, the result is instantly permanent! I’m demonstrating this over our coffee table, but you should always do this in a place where spills won’t destroy your tables. It doesn’t come off anything, including nails. They have to grow out if you spill or get a smear on them.

I use a brand called Depend, but back in Denmark I used Swiss O Par. It’s exactly the same thing though: Same contents, same method and same colour choices: Black, brown and dark brown. I use black. There are other options out there with a longer dye release, but it sucks sitting blind for up to 30 minutes when you can get it done in less than 5!

 

  
The pack comes with these little “protection pads” to put under your eyes. I don’t use them at all though. I’ve been wearing contact lenses for some 15 years of my life and dying my eyelashes for 10, and my near-eye motor skills are so fine-tuned I think I could do this in a moving car.
 

 

Maybe my lack of spills is also to do with that I don’t use the stupid Q-tips that come with the pack. You’re supposed to use them for applying the liquid on your eyelashes, but to me, that is just ridiculous: You come dangerously close to actually dripping the liquid in your eyes.

  

 
Use them to mop up spills or clean your ears instead.
 

 
Instead, I use an old mascara brush. Dip it into the little bottle with the first solution.
 

 

Then brush the liquid on my lashes. Start on the inner corner of your eyes, it’s easier that way.
 

 

When the lashes are nice and wet, I get the cotton pads ready. Pour a bit of toner on so you’re ready to remove spills if necessary, and you don’t have to fumble around with this after the dye. This will also give the solution a bit of extra time to soak in for better dye.
 

 

Now I brush the liquid on again to make sure I have a good coverage.
 

 

Next, take the tiny comb and the gel solution. Spread a thin strip of the gel on the very outer edge of the little comb.

  

 

Comb your lashes through, starting at the inner edges of your eyes. The gel seems to “plump up” when it comes in contact with the liquid. The mix of gel and liquid turns black and your dye is done!

 

 

Just to make sure I have enough coverage, I take a second old mascara brush and brush through my lashes to make sure I have covered and mixed everything.
  

  
Now it’s time to clean up. This is where you will be happy you have made the cotton pads ready and you just have to reach out and grab them. 
  

  
And voila, done! The dye lasts until your eyelashes shed, so 4-6 weeks depending on their growth.
  

Cassia result

I really worried I had overdone the cassia yesterday, but my hair obviously agreed with it!
  
Soft, smooth, shiny and very, very red!
   
I’m definitely going to skip the tea from now on if it will save me from the dripping issues.
 

Cassia

I’ve been way overdue for a good deep treatment for a while, but I just haven’t bothered.

Whenever my hair begins to need conditioning, it starts retaining water and stays moist and dripping for hours. When it’s freshly conditioned, the water “slides” off and it dries top down.

Since my scalp is still irritating, I decided on the cassia treatment I have considered for scalp exfoliating. My hair was still annoyingly moist from my post gym shower, so I mixed up the cassia and applied it directly without pre-wetting it.

My mix today consisted of more cassia than usual, a pack of henna and placenta, a tablespoon cholesterol treatment, a tablespoon of the Respons treatment that turned out to be too heavy for me in itself (Hubby hated the smell too, but it’s more important that I didn’t like the product. Hah!) leftovers from the Schwarzkopf ultimate repair and I filled up with the blue VO5. I skipped the tea altogether.

I smothered it on trying not to manipulate it too much. I never trusted the grainy cassia structure versus my hair! Then left it under cling wrap with the two heat pack hearts and warm hats for 1½ hour.

Skipping the tea completely solved the dripping-issue I normally have with cassia treatments! Hmm. Worth considering skipping the tea in the future??

Rinsed. Hair felt dry and cranky as usual after cassia. Smothered it in VO5 and put it up with cling wrap, warm hats and heat packs for another 30 minutes. Rinsed again.

My hair now feels fantastic. Smooth, strong and shiny! It’s already almost dry from the shoulders and up, even in the braid. I wonder though: Did the stronger cassia mix mess with the colour? It’s impossible to see while it’s still damp. I will report back tomorrow.

Now, Igor needs her sleep.

Goodnight and sweet dreams everyone!
    

I’ve got mail!

I ordered a replacement for my old TI 92 calculator that got stolen and since amazon doesn’t ship electronics like that to Europe, I had to get a middle woman to ship it to me. Luckily the sweet Triumphator from UTT offered to help me and my calculator arrived yesterday long with some cool and crazy hair colours she couldn’t use anymore. I’m going to have some fun with these!

 

Look how big this thing is compared to my little 10” laptop!

I really love getting mail. Feels like Christmas to unwrap a new package!

Stupid scalp…

Well, the flakes aren’t getting better and I feel pretty confused about it. My scalp is really itchy and flakes keeps coming off when I scratch it. I was talking to hubby about it and we both assume it’s the dry air inside. Hubby has always been prone to nosebleeds and he has been getting them a lot more often the last few weeks.
We’re discussing getting a humidifier, see if that helps and I’m going to do a cassia scrub tonight. Anyone else have any suggestions to flaky scalp?

In the meantime, here is a very charming picture of the snow landscape that has become my head…

Tempting

I stumbled over this:



Tangle Teezer for sale on a Swedish cosmetics site for 169 kronor. Shipping is 30 kronor or free for purchases over 500. Link.
(For the “comb” that is 138 Danish kroner or 18,5 Euro or 25,2 USD)

I’m tempted. The tangle Teezer is one of those very, very hyped products you always hear about in the longhair circuit. But on the other hand, as I have experienced multiple times before, hype =/= good product. At least not for my thick hair.

I checked around and found other Swedish sites selling it too, some cheaper, some more expensive.

But I find myself returning to the conclusion that A) It’s too fine-toothed for me and B) I don’t think I can make friends with the weird shape.

Kind reader Julya pointed me to a place that sells combs I will probably be better off with. Link.

I keep eyeing this one:



The hard rubber combs with handles should be perfect. Water safe and a good size. I think 2-3 of these will be my Christmas gift to myself? And maybe an argan oil too…? Hm.

Urgent wash day

I have been beating myself up for not doing something cool and fun with my hair for a while. Keeping a blog really shatters your illusions about how often you do things with your hair!

So I had planned to do double Dutch braids, wrapping one around my head like a headband and then seeing if I could secure it with the second braid in the form of a Nautilus at the neck. I thought maybe my large Flexi 8s would be the right size for holding a braided Nautilus done on only half my hair.

Well, I still plan on trying that…

But I woke up to a spontaneously itchy and flaky scalp. What the heck? Where did that come from? I’m mystified. There have been no signs of my hair greasing up or getting irritated at all, it was like an unprovoked night-time attack of the flakeys!

Is it the winter cold kicking in messing with my sebum? Too much time spent in hats maybe? Something I ate??

So instead of doing something fun with my hair, I had to go for an emergency wash. Eh, yeah, that’s just as fun. Not.

Towel drying a bit after having scrubbed the scalp with three handfuls of the blue VO5

Sexy Smurf!
Note the sexy hint of cling wrap at the neck and the oh-so-seductive extra big hump from the heat pack and three old hats, yummy!
Testing out the new smaller self-warming hearts and the Schwarzkopf ultimate repair conditioner for deep conditioning. A little creativity with a bandage and you can be surprisingly mobile while doing the SexySmurf: I gave the kitchen a much needed cleaning. Then rinsed and did a quick ACV dip.

Doing something “fancy” on freshly washed hair always spells disaster for me, so it went in a simple English braid.

The Ultimate Repair conditioner seemed pretty nice. My hair is left shiny and easy to manage. Feels thicker too. It felt a bit “slick” or something that made it hard for me to judge when it was rinsed clean. I can’t say I care much for the scent though. Hubby likes it but I’m a bit… Meh. About it.

Slightly scary…?

I got both Biologist and Chemist friends hooked on the Flexi 8s. Especially Chemist friend who ended up ordering from them three times and has a collection with 4 different sizes and 10 different designs. (Hm, that’s more than me!)

Seeing her collection made me itch to buy some XLs to see if they fit better for a figure 8 bun since the megaflexi doesn’t hold as tight as I wish. But then again, I do still think the completely rude reply I got to my suggestion makes them owe me a big fat apology before I spend more money there…

When I took my megaflexi out and down to take a picture, it just looked a bit odd…

An extra small Flexi 8 fits inside my Megaflexi

And a mini is completely dwarfed by it

Monday the 8th of November

I went shopping with chemist friend and had a blast. She is really awesome to shop with: Just girly enough but not so much she would spend hours fussing over which plum shoes are plum enough for the winter trend. Hah. Just like me.

I wasn’t going to get any new conditioners since I still consider the bathroom to be stocked after we went to Öob some weeks ago. Yet I slipped when I spotted this Schwarzkopf Gliss conditioner. Usually when they add ingredients to hair products they boast of something like “Wild bamboo seed extract” or “Moisture tech repair enzyme” or “Rose petal extract” or something else equally impressive sounding but nonsensical. This one boasted of keratin. Lots of it too. Interesting!

Now that I think about it, I also spotted some Tresseme at an Ica (Supermarket) that was being unusually specific about being cone-free. Are we finally moving away from the hair product ingredients that sound “pretty” and impressive, but are still nonsensical and un-scientific? Of course I’m not making the best case writing this when I’m dealing with a conditioner named “Ultimate repair conditioner”, hah.

I’m not entirely sure if hair is actually able to bind keratin into its structure, but it seems more promising than yet another product with Cute and Exotic Extract #294.

It doesn’t happen a lot that I’m genuinely interested and excited about trying a new product so I have moved the conditioner in question way up on my to try-list.

My little re-usable heating heart leaked a bit a few days ago so I tossed it out. I’m really glad the liquid inside isn’t poisonous, but it still felt a bit weird. I have never had one that actually leaked before, but it is after all only fused plastics so…

Turns out I was a bit of a moron though. I found a pack and bought it without thinking twice about the front displaying two hearts. Yep, there were two smaller ones inside instead of the large one I thought it would contain. Oh well, it might even work better this way.

I needed to replace two of my foundation products, but it turned out that they don’t have the Maquicomplet anymore. Oh the horror! When I started asking the salesgirl about other products that would be really good at covering redness, she started giving me a speech about some product that was good at covering all ”…Also under eye circles”. Argh! I got out of there quickly.

Since I’m feeling chatty, allow me to explain…

Under eye circles runs in the violet-ish colour, so to cover them, concealers will have yellow pigments to cancel out the violet tones. Anti-redness products will contain green pigments to cancel out the red. Throw some green pigments on your violet-toned under eye circles and what do you end up with? Yea, not pretty. Same reason why concealers shouldn’t be used on redness.

A makeup sales girl making such a statement simple doesn’t know what she is taking about, which is a bit scary since its hardly rocket science. Maybe this is why women like Chemist friend don’t wear foundation or anything since “I can never get it to look natural”. Yea, I wonder why with crappy advice from “trained” sales people like that?

I’m going to fill the old foundation leftovers in the little black container so I can keep it in my bag. And then keep my eyes open for a replacement of some sort but not bother to ask the staff again.

Meh. I swear, just like with stylists, it’s never a good experience when you ask a salesgirl. Actually that’s a little harsh. I’ve had one good experience with someone who actually genuinely knew her makeup and respected what I was interested in without pushing products I didn’t want (Which is why 90% of my stuff is Lancôme) where as I’ve had zero good experiences with stylists.