Cassia and oil

I was going to do a cassia treatment tonight but my cassia pack wasn’t opened yet.  Meh. I always do a test on some shed hairs before doing a treatment. It might not be necessary before each treatment but at least the first time you take a pack in use. Since cassia is a natural product you don’t have the same guarantee of a uniform product as you do with a conditioner.
                                              

                                         

This is why you collect some shed strands from time!
                                   
Then I thought of doing an OCM. I do them from time to time but since OCM are good for mostly whiteheads and blackheads, it doesn’t do much for my skin issues. But they do feel nice. I thought maybe I could add a few drops of my new tea tree oil to the oil mix?
                                                      
Since I was thinking about oils I realized my trusty oil spray was being pretty icky. Containers for oil always have such a tendency to get greasy and disgusting!
                                                                   

                                               

So I emptied it and cleaned it out. All nice and clean, yay!
                                       

It’s a fairly expensive pump-action oil spray intended for cooking.

                                
Look how my collection of oils has grown too!
                                                         

                                                       

Argan: Strange smell but a fantastic ability to boost the copper tones I so love in my hair!
Coconut: A little more annoying to work with then the rest since it solidifies but it seems to have the biggest impact on my hair. My skin hates it and I break out if it touches it.
Hemp seed: Light and nice. Fantastic on the skin.
Macadamia nut: Penetrates nicely and is easy to clean off.
Olive: My least favourite oil. It’s icky and sticky and difficult to rinse clean. Doesn’t seem to have much of an effect on my hair.
Walnut: Light and nice.
                                        

Now the question is what I should fill into my nice and clean oil spray and what to use on my skin?
                                                           

                                           

I settled for a somewhat random mix of 4 parts argan oil, 4 parts macadamia oil, 2 parts hemp oil, 2 parts walnut oil and one part olive oil for the oil spray. Maybe I should get an essential oil with a nice scent for my oil spray? One that doesn’t mess with the hair but only adds scent (Although I wouldn’t totally hate it if it darkened my lighter ends just a tad. Even though I’m doing my best with covers and sunblock, ten years does take the colour out of hair…)

                                                             

For the OCM I went with 3 parts of hemp seed oil, 1 part olive oil, 1 part walnut oil, 1 part argan oil and a few drops of tee tree oil. I thought of trying the macadamia too but better try each of the new ones at the time. Who knows if I will tolerate them or not? My skin absolutely hates coconut oil and it makes me itch and break out. I know I tolerate hemp, olive and walnut oil.

                                                                
I like spreading the oil out with a brush and using an electric toothbrush to work it in. Just using your fingers doesn’t really work as well especially around “corners” like the nose.

Hair diary

Monday the 5th of March
Deep conditioning with El Vital. Wow, it’s been a while since I did a real deep conditioning. Must have been before I left for Denmark? Ages ago, hah. Well, time to put a bit of effort into the hairy health project again!
Hairstyle of the day: A simple English braid for the slippery freshly conditioned mane.

Tuesday the 6th of March
Doing a S&D. Finding a whole lot of splits! More than usually definitely and a different type than my regular splits. Usually I find “eyes” and “deep splits” where the damage is detached from the end of the hair and formed a bit up. I guess it’s from elastics, which wouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. This time I find a lot of “real” splits formed at the end. I guess my last trim took off a lot of un-damaged ends and took the new ends up to where the damage is located? Kind of funny to see it change.
Pretty AnntoiNet's sent me an email yesterday that I didn’t see until today asking if I was interested in upgrading my order to express mail since it would have international tracking for my large and expensive order. I like businesses that take a real interest in their customers!
Hairstyle of the day: Braided Nautilus bun.

Wednesday the 7th of March
Today was supposed to be an olive oil-day but I was never a fan of olive oil and I was itching to try my brand new macademia oil. It has a nice thin-ish consistency and smells pleasant. I do an Ankylosaurus with it overnight.
According to the USPS tracking number, my PrettyAntoniette package has already left the US, yay!
Hairstyle of the day: Figure 8 bun.

Thursday the 8th of March
The macademia oil has a nice absorption. I use a bit of watered down leave in conditioner to wash some of the surface oil out. I don’t intend to wash it clean, just to get the majority of surface oil off. The oil has a nice non-sticky kind of effect even though it’s not completely cleaned out of the hair. Then I put it up in a nautilus bun. One of those “Get it out of the way and ignore it” days.
Having one of those days where everything gets on my nerves. The big tax day was Monday and it has been grating on my nerves since. Except for last year, I’ve had to pay taxes back every single year since ever no matter if I studied or worked (Or how much I worked) But since I actually got money back last year I thought I would this year again. They must have changed a rule because I haven’t made any more money this year? I had to pay quite a bit back and it put a real stick in the wheel for my plans. I had planned to buy myself two new identical phones, one for my Danish number and one for a new Swedish, and I fell in love with an expensive sliding phone. Damn. That will have to wait.
Hairstyle of the day: Dutch braid.

Friday the 9th of March
The macademia oil has fully absorbed.
Reminder to self: Email Hairsense. They have taken the money but no email, no shipping, no notice they even acknowledged my order.
Hairstyle of the day: Figure 8 bun.

Saturday the 10th of March
After my morning hair rinse I don’t use leave in conditioner. My plan was to do a cassia treatment in the evening according to my hair plan but hubby distracts me with takeout Thai food, candy, beer and rented DVDs. Mmmh, night home on the couch > cassia treatment.
Hairstyle of the day: Braided Nautilus bun.

The exciting life of Igor

My hair-skills are really suffering from my injured hand. Sucks being dominantly right-handed and having it injured. Maybe I should put some work into getting more ambidextrous? I can’t even brush my teeth with my left hand. 
   
Today’s hair is a severely crooked braided Nautilus with the elastic showing, sigh.
    

  
It’s a beautiful bright and sunny, although cold day. Perfect for going shopping: Hubby needed some new shoes more suitable for spring.
   
I needed to get my favourite glasses repaired. Not only does my hand injury screw up my hair, it makes me really clumsy too. I dropped my glasses a few days ago and all the tiny screws in them sprang to all sides and they fell apart. I was actually impressed that the tiny screws could work themselves out on a single impact like that.
   
Ah, good as new.
   

  
I’ve had to resort to my backup glasses. They look very similar to my favourite grey pair, just in black with green details. I still don’t understand how I could have bought them though!
  

             

What’s the problem, you ask?
   
This.
         

  
The little square “block” thing is really catching my hair and hurting it. Hidden dangers to your hair… Let this be a warning to all the longhairs out there!
 
I got a nice bottle set at Åhlens that I fell for because of the flower print and pink cap.
    

   
Right now one of the big ones contains pure lemon juice and the small spray bottle contains a facial mist of my own recipe. Its half toner/skin tonic and half pure lemon juice with a few drops of honey. It has a nice skin brightening effect, the lemon acid combats outbreaks, the vitamin C gives skin a nice boost and seems to be slightly moisturizing too.
  

     
I got some smaller bottles too that I will need to send out oil samples in soon. The smaller bottles were 20 kronor each and the pink/flowery set was 55 kronor at Åhlens, if any Swede reading this should be interested.
     
After finishing our shopping, hubby and I went to New Delhi in Lund for lunch. They have a really good buffet and I would kill someone for their recipe for shredded chicken and their pickled onions!
    

    
Look how nice the oil samples looks! It seriously looks professional with my blog-sticker on! Hubby asked me if I was opening a hair-business, hehe. Maybe I should.
Maybe “Developed and used by Igor!” would have a certain attraction?
  

    
Feeling really satisfied with what I did with the bottles, I fed “our” little wild birds.
    

We have a minor army of chatty tree sparrows

  

   
great tits
         

 

blackbirds

    
and an adorable little family of blue tits. We have followed the little family since the male sat in the bush outside our kitchen window and sang. He attracted a lady and they nested in the vent in the next building where they got four chubby little babies on their wings. They stick together and are usually the first to spot it when we put food out for them.
  

  
From time to time we have a pair of common wood pigeons stopping by too. They make me smile because they always look so completely confused.
    

   
Last summer we had a family of wagtails visiting too with their fluffy grey babies.
      

I love watching the frantic happiness from feeding the little birdies just some scraps of food. Feeding birds is really good for the soul!

Now I’m sitting here typing this blog entry.

Once I’m done, hubby and I will watch some TV and have some chocolate fondue. I got it as a very early birthday gift (My birthday isn’t for another month) from Chemist Friend. So yummy dipping strawberries and marshmallows in melted chocolate!

After some chocolaty goodness, I’m going to finish up re-reading Making Money
 

      
and start on World War Z.
        

   
All in all a good day!

Family hair

I just shared this on UTT so I wanted to show my family and their hair here too. I think I’m really lucky with my hair genes! 
    

  
Left to right is:

Mother’s mother, age 86. That’s her natural hair colour, a dark brown with lots of silvers.
Mother, age 57. She used to be a honey blonde but went grey and then white. She has more white and grey than my grandmother :D I know she had waist+ length hair once.
Mothers father, age 85. He had very dark brown/light black hair when he was younger.
Yours truly. Looking very brunette in the light!
Father, age 70. (Yes, my dad is only 15 years younger than my granddad) He had light brown hair when he was younger.
   

I find it interesting that my grandparents who both had very dark hair got a blonde daughter and that no one in my family has even the slightest hint of red that I have. My guess is that it’s a long dormant gene back from my distant Spanish ancestor who made my grandfather so dark and Spanish-looking he would be mistaken for a local in Spain.

Almost killed my hubby last night

The weapon?   

A bottle of El Vital Color Vive leave in spray.

  

      

I was getting ready to go out with the girls (Punk concerts at Debaser in Malmö and yes, it was totally awesome!) and had to redo my figure 8 bun from the morning since it had started slipping and pulling on my slippery freshly washed hair. So with the help of a few smoothing sprays of the leave in, I turned it into a braided Nautilus bun.

   

I could just catch the end of a Spartacus episode replay and did my hair in the living room. I didn’t think about it until hubby almost fell on his face when he walked past me. The spray of this thing really went everywhere and made the floor insanely slippery.

    

  = Me, the murderous wifey.

Incoming loot

I just gave my credit card a little workout

First at http://prettyanntoinets.com/

Pretty scarves!

Beautiful beanies!

Two of these. One for me, one for a friend.

Bonnets!

Loc cover!

Silk pillowcases. I ordered a silver and a purple.

Not bad on the shipping either!

I emailed them to ask if they could do an alteration to the beanies so I could use them for sleep cap but unfortunately they don’t do custom orders. I’ll probably take them to Chemist Friend #2 and ask her to do alternations to them. Hopefully I’ll learn to sleep with a silk cap or silk pillow with an arsenal to experiment with.

Then I took my little plastic card to http://hairsense.com

I’m happy I tried with one comb first that I got in a trade from Teufelchen.I was so happy with it I decided for a bigger order from them.

I wanted combs for detangling, distribution of conditioner in the shower and for smoothing hair for up dos.

 

The last one is for a friend though.

 

I got free shipping on the order, yay.

Now for the impatient waiting for my goodies!

“The loot”

What I picked up from my parents’ place. 
     

     

250 ml macademia oil and 300 ml argan oil. Been itching to try both, but decided to bring them home unopened!

       
Vitamins. Hah, I had completely forgotten I ordered two packs. Ironically the large pack on the left is the 200 tablet pack and the small one on the right is the 300 pack. I always think they look like some sort of aquarium cleaner or fish food. Hmm?

We got to talk about vitamins when my brother and his girlfriend were there and she pointed to some of the herbs in the ingredient list and said they were really good for your immune system.

   

         
A hair specific supplement with vitamin Bs and fenugreek. I fell for it because it contains fenugreek and it seems to be found very regularly in herbal blends for scalp remedies or regrowth formulas. One pack for me, one pack to mail to a friend.
   

    
Two fibre supplements. I try to recommend people to take either a yoghurt supplement or a fibre supplement. No reason to pile expensive foods or hair supplements on if the digestion isn’t working well.
 

     
Left is fish oil that turned out to contain vitamin E. Ugh, the website didn’t mention that! It turned out my parents would take it so I couldn’t be bothered to return it and complain. I’ll get a vitamin free omega 3 supplement from gymgrossisten.com instead. Right one is a herbal blend for “detox” that I have tried before with some success.
   

     
The free stuff: A fibre supplement for weight loss purposes (Propped up against a can) and a tea tree oil that looked more like a full sized bottle than a sample.

Trim result

I had planned on getting a trim while in Denmark, but my mother turned out to be cheap on my behalf and offered to do it for me. When I insisted that I had planned on going to a stylist, she got a bit offended and thought I didn’t trust her. Oh well, it kept the peace and I saved the money.       

I had her take pictures before, after and of the trimmings.

    

I have to admit I was shocked to see what my ends looked like! I knew they were thin after No Trims in 2011, but the reverse U shape was a surprise. I guess it’s from my (bad) habit of snipping the tassel of my braid. No matter what I guess it’s difficult to get a good idea of when your ends really look like when your hair is knee length and you always wear it up?

         

        
After she took about 5 cm off. I wanted a little less off, but the last 2-3 cm didn’t consist of a whole lot of hairs and was barely enough to even the hemline up!
       

      
The sad leftovers. Mom teased me that it was less hair than when she trims her bangs. Hah…
    

It’s good to be back!

I had a good and relaxing week at my parents in Denmark but now it’s good to be back with my loving hubby in Sweden. I injured my right wrist a bit helping dad put up some insulation, but I’ve had a tendency to get outbreaks of carpal tunnel ever since I first discovered a computer so it’s nothing new. It will take me a while to sort and crop pictures though.  
   

Until then, I want to show this: It’s some old tree across the street, but in all the time I can remember I always thought it looked like some sort of creature with high piggy tails, floppy ears and sunglasses. It always made me smile!

 

What do you guys think?

 

Blog break?

I have to admit I have almost completely mentally checked out of Sweden already. Haven’t even gotten around to blog for a while. Guess I really need to get away from things for a little while, even if it requires being around my family?

Anyways, I’ll be in Denmark until next Monday so I probably won’t check in.

Take care, everyone!