Maybe I'll go into a bit more details on this in my next post...
Anyways. Something I find really nice is to make solid braid-base in the evenings that I can "re-use" for two different styles the next two days.
It saves me some time and effort in the morning.
The crazy thing about this? No one has ever been able to tell. Even when I press my colleagues for their opinion, no one has spotted anything "off" about my hair.
It's like a dirty little, totally awesome secret.
As long as I cycle my styles into obviously different styles, I guess no one can tell and everyone thinks I look well put together and professional.
Base: Horizontally split double braids
This one causes me a little trouble because it's hard to find the exact place to split it to make both braids equally thick. It's always higher up than I think. This one also works well with five-stranded braids.
Option 1: Double vertically stacked buns.
I always thought this style would be considered "childish", but so far I only got comments on how crazy it is I have two, "normal sized" buns.
This is a seriously good option for day two. The style "lifts" some of the short, face framing hairs up so they fall out. So it makes for a good "messy on purpose" style. A little leave in-conditioner to tame the short hairs and it looks great.
Alternative option: Bottom braid turned into a braided Nautilus bun, and top braid wrapped down and around. I just don't think this one is particularly cute though!
Alternative option: Top braid turned into a braided Nautilus bun, and bottom braid wrapped up and around. It gets a bit of a "lump" instead of the nice, flatness of the royal bun.
Base: Vertically split double braids
I really like this one. It's very comfortable on its own and something that looks more complicated than it is.
Option 1: Braided Chinese bun.
This is a really good style for day one, because it benefits from being smooth and flyaway-free, so the details show well.
Option 2: Horizontal double buns.
Option 3: Partially or completely tucked under braids.
This is a really good style for day one, because it benefits from being smooth and flyaway-free, so the details show well.
Option 4: Crown wrap.
At times where "messy on purpose" is in style, this is a good option for day two.
So maybe the perfectly planned updo cycle for a week of work would be:
Sunday evening: Wash followed with making vertically split double braids
Monday morning: Braided Chinese bun
Tuesday morning: Horizontal double buns
Tuesday evening: Wash followed with making horizontally split double braids
Like there is something wrong. It doesn't appreciate what it usually likes, the texture feels off or it just tangles more than usual. You have more bad hairdays than usual.
Does it needs to be cleansed deeper? Or does it need a deep conditioning? Was it cone overload? Oil buildup? Maybe it needs more moisture? Protein? Hard water build up? Chlorine?
It can be really hard to tell, since hair products are literally made to mask problems and make your hair look and feel good.
You can get some answers by washing with a clarifying shampoo.
These might also be found under titles such as "purifying", "detox" and deep-cleansing".
Clarifying shampoos will remove all the potential problems and leave your hair squeaky clean, ready to be diagnosed.
The difference between regular shampoos and clarifying shampoos is that clarifying shampoo contains none of those nice ingredients that will make your hair and scalp feel better after use. A clarifying shampoo is a cleanser, nothing more. It doesn't deposit anything back on your hair. It will remove the leftovers of whatever it was you were using to tame it.
But it also means that they strip away the natural oils and product leftovers that keep your hair shiny and your scalp well-moisturized. Your hair might feel really awful afterwards, but that can be fixed after the diagnosis.
As awful as this sounds, this is actually the effect you want if you reach for a clarifying shampoo!
Since there are no laws about printing "clarifying", "purifying", "detox" and deep-cleansing" on a shampoo bottle, take a look at the ingredient list to make sure you actually have a clarifying shampoo on your hands.
It should contain no silicones. Those help "coat" hair. Silicones can be identified by the ending "one" or "xane". Especially amodimethicone is prone to build up.
It should contain no quaterniums. Those help binding to damaged areas of the hair. Quaterniums can be identified by the ending "ium". Especially polyquaternium 10 and 11 are prone to build up.
Avoid guar hydroxypropyltrimonium chloride and anything that ends with "methosulfate”
The ingredient list should generally be as short and simple as possible. You just want cleansing agents in this. No occlusives like oils or cones. No humectants like glycerin or sorbitol.
In this case, where you need an absolutely stripping product, the best-avoided sodium laurel sulfate is an okay choice on your ingredient list. (Yes, even though it's so potentially irritating it can be used to trigger a positive reaction in patch testing because it will cause irritation in half an hour when applied undiluted) Think about it like this: You would rather only have to use a clarifying shampoo once and get the answers you need, than having to repeat the process.
Make sure to ingredient-check so you only have to clarify once and can return to your usual haircare routine again!
The process for troubleshooting your hair is simple
Wash your hair with the clarifying shampoo. Be thorough, but don't let it sit for longer than normal. If you have picked an actual, clarifying shampoo, it shouldn't be necessary to repeat it either.
Rinse thoroughly.
Wrap your hair gently in a towel and let it air dry naturally.
Observe how your hair looks and feels
Important notices
Do not condition after using the clarifying shampoo! No matter how awful your hair feels like after the shampoo, don't add anything else to it.
Do not blow dry to speed up the drying process! Not with cool air either, as the air stream can help make the hair scales lie flat and keep hiding what your hair needs.
Do not comb your hair during the drying process, as this can also help smoothing down the hair scales.
Afterwards
It can be difficult to accurately describe how hair feels, but if your hair feels...
Brittle: You probably overloaded on protein. Give your hair some regular moisture.
Crunchy and dry: You probably overloaded on protein. Give your hair some regular moisture.
Fragile: Your hair could probably use some protein to rebuild it's strength.
Halo of flyaways: Your hair could probably use some moisture.
Lost all body: Your hair could probably use some moisture.
Tangly: You probably overloaded on protein. Give your hair some regular moisture.
Wirey and rough: Your hair could probably use some protein to rebuild it's strength.
If your hair now seems happier than it was before, it was probably just too many good things at once in your haircare routine. It happens to everyone sooner or later. You get carried away with wanting all the best for your hair, and it has resulted in build up.
If none of these descriptions helped, or your hair feels like a combination of all, your best guess is the best treatment. Maybe you should reach for a beloved old favorite now that you have removed the problem-causing build up.
Recognizing a conditioner with protein in it: It sometimes says on the front, but is written out on the ingredient list and not hidden under numbers or Latin names.
Recognizing a conditioner with moisturizing ingredients in it: Look in the ingredient list for cetearyl alcohol, glycerin, hyaluronic acid, panthenol, propylene glycol, sodium PCA, sodium lactate and sorbitol. There are many more moisturizing ingredients though!
The Christmas calendar/advent calendar market really exploded this year, didn't it? Seems like every single brand or store made their own ones this year.
For once I actually felt like I had to limit myself, instead of just buying the ones I found interesting.
I had to pick them myself, since Hubby didn't provide me with a Christmas calendar this year. Pout.
Christmas calendars are an important Christmas tradition for me, since this is what I grew up with. Hubby and I have had to do some work on incorporating our sets of Christmas traditions. Traditional foods and celebrations are definitely not the same. Neither the things you just "do" up to Christmas.
It's actually a little funny how many different traditions you find in Denmark, compared to Sweden. Maybe it's because of the many islands, which would naturally limit how things spread back in old times. Sweden is more of one, uniform landmass, so maybe that's why their traditions are more the same?
Of course hubby went with the "All I want for Christmas is you"-approach, which earns him lots of credit, but no Christmas calendar.
But when he saw what I had ordered for myself, he suddenly felt left out.
So, a few hours of work later, and Hubby was very pleased. Even a few harsh words about being a dumbass who won't just admit that why yes, I would like a calendar, thank you, how considerate of you couldn't wipe the smug look off his face. Jerk.
A nice luxury liquorice calendar for Hubby. I never encountered the brand before, but it was quite pricey, so I hope it's good!
Kinder chocolate barely counts as real chocolate, but yea, this is a guilty pleasure for both of us. I know Hubby will share!
I randomly found another liquorice calendar for Hubby. They had in the the Danish Netto-stores. It's a soft, not-really-salty, not-really-sweet-either liquorice that both Hubby and I love. Hubby was the smuggest about this one. Luckily, it has both the original and the seasalt ones and Hubby doesn't like the seasalt ones, so those are mine. Muahahah!
Finally, Hubby also got an advent calendar with a few grooming products.
His last set turned out to contain so much aloe vera that I can't kiss or snuggle him after using them, without me breaking out and my skin feeling like it was burned. Ouch!
It amuses me how "advent calendar" and "Christmas calendar" seems to be used at random.
In Danish, an "advent calendar" is exclusively for being given on the last 4 Sundays (Which are the four advents) until Christmas, and "Christmas calendar" is for the first 24 days of December. No exceptions allowed.
My first calendar is the Lookfantastic Advent Calendar that just looked so beautiful I had to have it. This was also the most expensive one.
It did not disappoint in real life!
This Christmas calendar is for 25 days since it's UK-based.
However, I do not recommend Lookfantastic. It took them well over 14 days from me ordering and paying, to receiving the first part of the order. And that was all items that supposedly were in stock! WTF.
Here's an unboxing video of it.With so many unboxing videos out there already, so I guess there isn't much of a point to make any unboxing-posts, is there?
The second calendar is the one I'm the most excited about!
Lumene is one of those few brands where I can honestly say "I like that brand" and not just "I like a lot of their products". Even my beloved COSRX has a heavily aloe vera'ed line that I wouldn't even want to touch the packaging of.
Lumene is skincare for Scandinavians by Scandinavians, so it works well with my sensitive skin. (Did you know that 10% of native Scandinavians have allergies to fragrance?) I started using it some years back with good results, but it was right before I found Korean skincare (Back in... 2013? 2014?) and transitioned exclusively to that. I guess there isn't any reason to not incorporate some Western products as long as I still use the Eastern methods and techniques, right?
So when I randomly found in the bloggosphere that they had made a calendar this year for the first time, I had to have it! It's sold online and exclusively at Åhlens, so it might not be so easy for non-Scandinavians to get.
Look at it: So pretty! Clean and stylish. It looks so very grownup.
The unboxing video is in Swedish. Sorry. Can't find one in English!
The next one is Skinstores 12 miracles of beauty. They sold me on a spoiler: That the calendar would contain a Foreo-product. I have wanted a Foreo (Any model really) for some years now, but never really got around to buying one.
Well, here it is! Somewhere in one of the little drawers...
However I am quite pissed off at Skinstore: I bought my calendar at 149 USD and the week after, they dumped the price to 99.
Not. Cool.
Between Skinstores endless spam-mails and now this, Skinstore have earned themselves an unsubscribe from their maillist and a removal from my bookmarks.
At least the calendar is really pretty.
Again: So many unboxing videos out there already! Here's one.
Hubby and I got into a pretty interesting discussion about this.
He asked me when I had intended to open it, since it doesn't add up to the 24 days of Christmas of traditional Danish and Swedish Christmas calendars. I shrugged and said I had assumed I would just open it on the last 12 days. Hubby then pointed out that it probably refers to the 12 days of Christmas, beginning the day where most people celebrate Christmas (December 25th) and ending on January 5th. Hubby explained there is a old Swedish tradition of counting the 13 days of Christmas (Since Sweden celebrates on December 24thlike a lot of other countries) so the span of celebration becomes the same. This is traditionally the day to remove all your Christmas decorations in Sweden.
I thought this was pretty cool, and decided to start opening this calendar on the 25th.
Then I felt a little sorry for Hubby for not having a 12 days calendar of his own (Even though he has been super annoying and smug about his own Christmas and Advent calendars!), so I secretly slipped little fun-sized chocolate bars into the drawers. Now Hubby is part of this too, and maybe we have established a new family tradition.
The last Christmas calendar I fell for, is Rituals.
Their products always smell really good. Just passing by their stores makes me sniff the air furiously. Of course I mostly stay clear of (Heavily) scented products, but rinse-off products seems to be okay. Some bath and shower products would be great!
It came in a really pretty, classy box. Dark green and red with gold print.
It smells really good too. Usually mixing so many different scents together result in a weird mix, but this smells really nice!
It had some silly cardboard decoration-parts though.
You're supposed to put it together into a Christmas-tree shape, with the sides and toppers. I did not care for it.
I prefer the box just like it is. It's pretty enough as it is, without the silly extra pieces sticking out.
Here's an unboxing video.
Rituals also have a seriously pretty deluxe-version in a "real" Christmas tree shape. I couldn't find one in a physical store and didn't feel like ordering it online, so I picked the "regular" version.
I've been on a silly "Relive the 90es" kind of kick lately.
Been rewatching a lot of the shows and cartoons I loved back then.
Ah, memories.
And of course there is Sailor Moon episode 36, which I couldn't find a youtube link to, so I can't embed it in Blogger.
The remake Sailor Moon Crystal also has a plot point about Usagi's hair growing to her Princess Serenity-length. Episode #9 it was in the manga too. But...Why does her bangs not grow??
So I got curious and Googled around a bit. Here's a really, really weird one:
I also found a cartoon with an awful message about natural hair:
This is just incredibly offensive. "What is that??" WTF.
I thought this was a pretty cool detail on a ponytail.
My plan was to use this at the beginning, and then braid it in a seven-stranded braid. According to my calculations, the small "neck" portion would be about 2/5th of my hair, so the ponytail part should be easily split into five.
Off to a good start with the detail! It did get a bit loose/messy in one side, but that can be fixed with some practice.
Of course my mirror was right in the middle of it. Argh.
I'm not entirely sure what to think.
The positive: It has a fairly nice "lift" effect to keep the braid off my neck, it was fairly easy to do and felt really "firm" and secure.
The negative: I got some messiness from using the hair-lassoo and I screwed the seven-stranded braid up. Somehow along the line I managed to turn it into a five-stranded.
Notes for next time: Get the beginning part smooth and nice. Definitely braid it into a seven-stranded braid, just because it feels cooler.
I usually buy my conditioners following the rule "Whatever is on sale", and then just grab one of each line out of the brand. So now I have a lot of conditioners from the same brands, but different lines. So I was thinking that maybe I should do a comparison for all of those "doubles" so in the future, I will only get the best one at the next sale.
Inecto super moisturising coconut conditioner Inecto marvelous moisture argan conditioner
I'm going to compare them on a few different factors:
First impressions
Effect: Shine and manageability
Ingredient analysis and interesting ingredients such as "actives": Oils, fruits, keratin, sunscreen
First impressions
Inecto super moisturising coconut conditioner
Mild coconutty smell. Rather runny.
Here's a general observation on both products: I absolutely loathe companies that doesn't publish ingredient lists on their website. It immediately makes them think of them as fat liars.
What are companies trying to hide when they do that? The fact that their "organic, fair trade coconut oil" is number 26 out of a 28-ingredient list?
It's so dishonest and untrustworthy.
Immediate minus points for that.
Effect
Inecto super moisturising coconut conditioner
Inecto marvelous moisture argan conditioner
Argh. Both of them had a really weird effect on my hair.
As soon as I started rinsing, it gave my hair a really weird effect from root to tips: Sort of like if my hair had a crazy attack of super static. It wasn't tangles, more like all the hairs clung together. When I started detangling from one side, it would stick together from the other side as soon as I had finished. It also left some sort of strange "dry" feeling to my hair, even when wet. This weird effect was only underlined by my hair suddenly being really noisy and making a screeeeeeetcccccch noise when I pulled (forced) my comb through. It was really weird and upsetting!
I hurried to put some coney serum in my hair before even attempting to towel dry it and detangle further.
Poor hair!
I do have to admit though: They made my hair pretty shiny.
Also I think they had a fairly good cleaning effect?
Why did my hair hate this so much?? Applying the Beauty Brains "First five ingredients rule"
Argan oil just exactly squeezes in as the last one.
Other than that, it's a straight forward cone-free conditioner with no surprises.
10 ingredients in total
2 marked as a "2" for acne-trigger. 20 %
2 marked as a "2" for irritation-trigger. 20 %
1 marked as a "4" for irritation-trigger. 10 %
This doesn't look so good in percentage, when you have so few ingredients.
5 marked as "green" for safety. 50 %
3 marked as "yellow" for safety. 30 %
And one marked as "green-yellow" for safety. 10 %
Argan oil doesn't have a safety-rating though?
Coconut oil just exactly squeezes in as the last one.
Other than that, it's a straight forward cone-free conditioner with no surprises.
The Inecto conditioners seems to follow the rule of "Just replace featured ingredient X with featured ingredient Y" for this line. It's not necessarily a bad thing though; in my case where I have problems tolerating coconut oil, I could pick the argan conditioner if I liked the line.
10 ingredients in total
2 marked as a "2" for acne-trigger. 20 %
1 marked as a "4" for acne-trigger. 10 %
Of course the high-scoring ingredient is coconut oil, which is a very strong trigger for skin irritation for me.
1 marked as a "1" for irritation-trigger. 10 %
2 marked as a "2" for irritation-trigger. 20 %
1 marked as a "4" for irritation-trigger. 10 %
This doesn't look so good in percentage, when you have so few ingredients.
6 marked as "green" for safety. 60 %
3 marked as "yellow" for safety. 30 %
And one marked as "green-yellow" for safety. 10 %
Lady Igor says
This shouldn't be a surprise by now, but... Since I didn't like the effect of these, I would prefer to pick none of them.
However, if I did have to pick, I would pick: Inecto marvelous moisture argan conditioner
Pointing out the obvious: The argan conditioner has argan, instead of coconut oil. So you're avoiding a potential skin irritant and acne-trigger well known for being comedogenic.
I guess if you love your conditioners cone- free, this is good?
Bonus product: Inecto Smooth me Coconut hair serum
First impressions
Slightly runny, brown product. Smells really good!
Effect
Really nice. Slightly hard to control when applying because of the runny texture. Very good shine, very good smoothing effect. Doesn't seem to offer any hold though.
This serum is cones, cones and more cones.
Not that I mind of course. I do like cones. But if you bought this product for the coconut oil, you are looking at nothing more than
7 ingredients in total
1 marked as a "4" for acne-trigger. 14 %
1 marked as a "5" for acne-trigger. 14 %
Yikes. A little scary to see an ingredient that scores higher than coconut oil!
1 marked as a "1" for irritation-trigger. 14 %
1 marked as a "3" for irritation-trigger. 14 %
This doesn't look so good in percentage, when you have so few ingredients.
5 marked as "green" for safety. 71 %
1 marked as "yellow" for safety. 14 %
And one marked as "green-yellow" for safety. 14 %
Lady Igor says
This serum actually worked really well. I quite liked it for the shine and smoothing effect. But then again, it is mostly just cones. However I think the ingredient list is a bit scary... How do you make a mostly coney product ingredient list look like this?
I love the Chinese bun! It's such a cool and cute style. So simple, and yet so awesome... Especially if you want to show off your pretty hairsticks too!
