Today's hair

I'm going to have a few really busy days ahead of me, so I hope these two braids can be used tomorrow and the day after that for updos, before I have to remake them. That would save me a little time...

I have braided a paranda into the bottom braid to match my shoes.

Another rope braid

The same coworker let me "borrow" her hair to try the rope braid on again.

I think I got a better hang of the technique this time. It felt a lot easier. I guess I just have to keep practicing until my muscle memory has a better grip on it.

Putting the ends up in a bun helped keep the shape a lot cleaner, but the bun itself was difficult to form because she doesn't have a lot of length to work on.

A few more tries and I think I can attempt doing my own hair. Hmm.

Today's hair

I was going to use my new Ron Quattro's for double buns, but I must have severely miscalculated the length I need?

I had to resort to my old Quattro-pins instead...

And arrrgh my poor skin really hate the summer heat and humidity in combination with my general stress-level. Sigh.

Neutrogena visibly clear

My skin is being super unhappy right now. It's the combination of workload (Stress and not enough quality sleep) and the hot, humid weather. 

So I have treated myself to the Neutrogena visibly clear light therapy mask. It wasn't even that pricey.

Why haven't I done that before? I love gadgets and devices!

It gives out blue and red light. The blue lights in the mask kills the acne-causing bacteria and the red light reduces inflammation.

I rarely get acne, but I do get a lot of redness and irritation from having sensitive skin. I guess it can't hurt to kill some bacteria without using a product though? But it's a shame you can't reduce or increase one light over the other.
There are more advanced masks out there (Even some where you can adjust what wavelengths/colours you want the mask to do), but this one was available on a website where I have successfully ordered skin and hair stuff from before. 

I hacked this incredibly wasteful product to get a lot more uses out of it:

The hack is really simple. You just solder a piece of wire between two points and done.

I found some other guides where you do some more advanced work on the device and hook it up to a USB for power instead of batteries. However, then you have to have a USB power source nearby when you use the mask.

Here's a guide for those who don't have a soldering iron:

I haven't tried this one though, so I can't say if it will actually work.

Hacking the device will however turn off the 10 minute timer and the display.

And here is my skin in it's current "Mad at you!!"-mode....

The mask is sort of warm(ish) and relaxing on the face, and it makes me want to use its warmth to make a sheet mask penetrate better. But I guess that would reduce the effect on the light quite a lot.

Pros

• It's a product free tool. Which means no risk of allergic reactions or intolerance or cross-reactions (Big plus for me!). It can just be tossed on top of your already established routine with no risks of screwing the routine up.
• Although it's not actually comfortable as such, it's still not something that is so irritating or disrupting to your life that you would shy away from using it. I use it in bed before going to sleep. It's a nice and relaxing little ritual actually.
• Easy to hack.

Cons

• Not actually that easy to do other things with the mask on. The light aiming right into your face makes it hard to read and I found there was a big difference in how easy I could follow something on a screen. My tablet was the worst and Mr. Igor's gaming monitor was the best.
• You can pretty much only see straight ahead and slightly upwards (Might depend on the shape of your nose as the "glasses" underneath the shield holds the mask in place) I walked right into the garbage bag that Mr. Igor had put out in the hallway and was a minute away from taking outside. Yuck. I can't recommend wandering around too much wearing it. 
• Cannot be combined with wearing glasses.
• Extremely wasteful product if you don't hack the activator. You're supposed to toss the activator with batteries and all when it reaches 0 and is programmed to turn off forever. Come on, Neutrogena... At least put in some smaller batteries or something? Four AA batteries to power this for 30 uses? Not cool. 

I expected Mr. Igor to joke about my desire to "put weird things on my face" or something like that, but he actually thought it looked pretty cool. I sort of agree. It's like a weird sci-fi welders mask (Yes, I can actually weld and I'm a bit proud of it). It's just missing the joint so you can tip down the shield over the attached glasses. 

Rope braid

It doesn't happen very often that I'm impressed with a hairstyle tutorial. Usually I find them overly complicated, potentially extremely damaging (So much backcombing and products and heat!) or just that the time spent results in something I can whip up similarly in 5 minutes or less.

But this tutorial impressed me:

I've been trying to rope braid my own hair before with zero luck. But this looks like something I could, with time and practice) actually make work with my own hair.
He makes it looks clean and simple, and the time spent creating the style seems absolutely worth it.

So I talked a coworker into letting me try on her hair.

For my very first try at this, ever, I'm impressed. Obviously, I need to practice some, but the basic pattern is there. Some more experience and less uhm'ing and errh'ing at the attempt, and I think this could be really pretty.

Also, I think that putting the rope ends up in a bun might eliminate some of the messy sagging at the neck and create a cleaner, neater rope.
Hmm!

The Starfleet Science Insignia in action

I doubt anyone could recognize the symbol "in the wild"?
Embarrassingly I have to admit I didn't even recognize it myself when I bought it, so that's one point off my nerd card....

Matte Quattro i action

Okay, the matte effect is a little more discrete once it's in the bun, but I like that it doesn't "outshine" my hair!

The Quattro's are here!

Yay! The feel really strong and awesome. 

Especially liking the matte one in the foreground.

The cutlass in action

I like it!
The stick-part was is very smooth and hairfriendly and the topper-part is a fun little detail.
Too bad it almost drowns in my massive braided Chinese bun.

Later at work, I tucked the length of the braids into a full infinity-shape instead of the Chinese bun.

(Bandage on my neck is due to a staple somehow getting stuck in the strap of my work bag and it scratched me up pretty bad. Ouch. Annoying location for an injury.)

Product showdown

This product showdown is slightly different, because this time I'm not trying to determine which product I already own that I will buy again. This time, I've bought two tiny sized products and will see which one I will get in full size.

L'Anza Healing moisture Moi Moi hair masque
L'Anza Healing moisture Kuikui nut conditioner

First impressions

L'Anza Healing moisture Moi Moi hair masque
The little bottle itself smells vaguely and deliciously coconutty.

L'Anza Healing moisture Kuikui nut conditioner
This bottle also smells sweet and good.

Effect

L'Anza Healing moisture Moi Moi hair masque
First, I want to extend a complaint: This conditioner is seriously slippery! It made it impossible to work the tiny little bottle and squeeze it dry. I actually had to rinse my hands and the bottle clean, then empty it carefully into my palm while avoiding getting any conditioner on the other hand. It was surprisingly awkward!

L'Anza Healing moisture Kuikui nut conditioner
Same complaint about the slipperiness of the conditioner here! Although this time I was prepared and emptied it in one go, in the same awkward fashion as I did with the Moi Moi one.

Ingredient analysis

L'Anza Healing moisture Moi Moi hair masque

Water (Aqua/Eau), Cetearyl Alcohol, Glycereth-26, Cyclopentasiloxane, Glycol Distearate, Silicone Quaternium-3, Polyether-1, Dimethicone PEG-8 Benzoate, Keratin Amino Acids, Cocos Nucifera (Coconut) Oil,  Aleurites Moluccana (Kukui) Seed Oil, Macadamia Ternifolia (Macadamia Nut) Seed Oil, Calophyllum Inophyllum (Tahitian Tamanu Oil), Gardenia Tahitensis Flower, Cereus Grandiflorus (Cactus) Flower Extract, Ceramide-2, Glycerin, Dimethiconol Meadowfoamate, Dimethicone PEG-8 Meadowfoamate, Sodium PCA, Magnesium PCA, Zinc PCA, Manganese PCA, Sodium Hyaluronate (Hyaluronic Acid), Tocopheryl Acetate, Glycine, Alanine, Creatine, Saccharide Hydrolysate, Magnesium Aspartate, Dimethicone, Cetrimonium Chloride, Steartrimonium Chloride,  PEG-4-Ceteth-20, Dipropylene Glycol, Propylene Glycol, Trideceth-12,  Urea, BHT, Mannitol, Cellulose, Hydroxypropyl Methylcellulose, Caprylyl Glycol, Isopentyldiol, Phenoxyethanol,  Fragrance (Parfum), Butylphenyl Methylpropional, Coumarin, Limonene, Linalool, Chromium Hydroxide Green (CI 77289), Blue 1 (CI 42090), Yellow 5 (CI 19140)

Okay, here is something interesting: This little "sample size" conditioner has a different ingredient list than what I find on the full sized products online?

For this one, it was a lot of the same ingredients, just a different order of them.

This makes this product showdown a little odd, because I intended to buy the full sized conditioner of my favourite, but since the ingredient list for those are different, then...???

Applying the Beauty Brains "First five ingredients rule"

Water (Aqua/Eau), Cetearyl Alcohol, Glycereth-26, Cyclopentasiloxane, Glycol Distearate

Based on the first five ingredients on the list

Interesting ingredients

• 
  

22 ingredients in total

2 marked as a "2" for acne-trigger. 9 %
1 marked as a "5" for acne-trigger. 4 %

1 marked as a "1" for irritation-trigger. 4 %

1 marked as a "2" for irritation-trigger. 4 %
1 marked as a "3" for irritation-trigger. 4 %
1 marked as a "4" for irritation-trigger. 4 %

15 marked as "green" for safety. 68 %

5 marked as "yellow" for safety. 22 %

And one marked as "green-yellow" for safety. 4 %

L'Anza Healing moisture Kuikui nut conditioner
Water/Eau (Aqua), Glycerin, Stearyl Alcohol, Cetyl Alcohol, Cyclopentasiloxane, Trimethylsiloxyamodimethicone, Keratin Amino Acids, Aleurites Moluccana Seed Oil (Hawaiian Kukui Nut),  Macadamia Integrifolia Seed Oil (Hawaiian Macadamia Nut), Saccharum Officinarum (Hawaiian Sugar Cane) Extract, Hydrolyzed Algin (Sea Kelp), Sodium Hyaluronate (Hyaluronic Acid), Dimethicone PEG-8, Meadowfoamate, Sodium PCA, Magnesium PCA, Zinc PCA, Manganese PCA, Tocopheryl Acetate, Polyquaternium-71, C11-15 Pareth-7, C12-16 Pareth-9, Dimethicone, Cetrimonium Chloride, Steartrimonium Chloride, Trideceth-12, Sodium Benzotriazolyl Butylphenol Sulfonate, Buteth-3, Propylene Glycol, Tributyl Citrate, Hydroxyethylcellulose, Sodium Hydroxide, Polyether-1, BHT, Methylchloroisothiazolinone, Methylisothiazolinone, Fragrance (Parfum), Butylphenyl Methylpropional (Lilial), Limonene, Linalool.

This one also has a different ingredient list than what I find on the full sized products. Odd.
Where the Moi Moi conditioner had a lot of the same ingredients just in a different order, this one was very different from the full size ingredients list I found online: The full sizes have more silicone and qauterniums, and the small size is missing featured ingredients like Tahitian Sea Water and Chlorella Vulgaris Extract. It's no loss for the defect to be missing Tahitian sea water (But... why? What benefit could this possibly have?) or sea kelp extracts, but it is a little odd to pick that out of the ingredient list.

Applying the Beauty Brains "First five ingredients rule"

Water/Eau (Aqua), Glycerin, Stearyl Alcohol, Cetyl Alcohol, Cyclopentasiloxane

Based on the first five ingredients on the list,

Interesting ingredients

• 
  

27 ingredients in total

1 marked as a "1" for acne-trigger. 4 % 

2 marked as a "2" for acne-trigger. 7 %

1 marked as a "5" for acne-trigger. 4 %

1 marked as a "2" for irritation-trigger. 4 %

1 marked as a "3" for irritation-trigger. 4 %
1 marked as a "4" for irritation-trigger. 4 %

17 marked as "green" for safety. 62 %

6 marked as "yellow" for safety. 22 %

1 marked as "red" for safety. 4 %

And one marked as "green-yellow" for safety. 4 %

Lady Igor says