Today's hair

I was curious and made two little buns out of the "looped" braids. Of course this completely ruins the little loop-detail. But I was surprised to find that it didn't seem to add any extra hold. On the contrary it got pretty uncomfortable quick.

Today's hair

I figured the detail of the bottom braid wouldn't show, but it felt weird to just leave it "unlooped".  I think this looks pretty though.

Today's hair

Tonight's hairstyle is two horizontally split braids with a single "loop" before being braided. I'm going to turn this into a single, big bun tomorrow and hopefully the details will show.

"New" hairstick

Continuing the history nerding: I went to Trelleborg (The Danish one, not the Swedish one) with author-friend, engineer-friend and Mr Igor and came home with some nice souvenirs.
The weird poles and striped markings are from the museum setting up for a viking festival that we would miss by two days. A shame, because it looked like it would be huge when it were set up.

Trelleborg was a fortress set up by the first commonly accepted king of Denmark, Harald Bluetooth  around the year 980. He united the various warring tribes into a country (Which is why the technology is named after him), and the borders of mainland Denmark has overall been remarkably unchanged since.

My new throne room.

Following Mr. Igor out to the ring fortress.
Because of the festival approaching, there were quite a few cars and workers around to cut grass and do maintenance. It really ruined the view and impression!

Here is one of the few good pictures I got, where I stand on top of the fortification and look back towards where I took the previous picture. You can see the bridge over the ramparts, the stones marking the placement of longhouses and the reconstructed longhouse in the back.
Amazingly it looks like both rivers have barely moved their position for the last 1039 or so years! Today they still line up with the fortification really well.

Anyways. I bought myself a new coffee cup. It says "My drinking horn" on it and I had to have it.

I also bought two little bronze sword dangles based on the Glastonbury sword.
With a little bit of force, I turned them into sword dangles for two hairsticks I removed the original dangles from long ago (Cheap wooden "beads" that kept getting stuck in my hair) Much better!

The Elling woman

The Elling woman is a danish bog body and quite famous in the longhair circuit for her long, well preserved hair and complicated braided updo.

I have tried recreating her style several times, but it doesn't really work so well for me. A modified, simplified version works pretty well, but not a close-to-original-recreation, no. It's not a style designed for thick or heavy hair.

I visited the museum she is exhibited in, along with author-friend, engineer-friend and Mr Igor.

The museum is Museum Silkeborg, located in (You guessed it) the town of Silkeborg in north western Denmark.

The first building hosts exhibits from the stone age and almost up to modern times along with the gift shop.
The second building is reached by going through the first building and hosts exhibits about the danish iron age, and a nice little cafe that makes a pretty good apple cake.
(Which led to some discussion in the squad, since I was the only one not completely grossed out by sour cream on said cake. Our group consisted of me, my Swedish hubby, a French-German and a French, so... It must be a cultural thing since this is perfectly acceptable in Denmark? What do you guys think?)
But most important of all: This building has two of the most well known bog bodies in the world, resting just a few meter apart just like when they were buried.

All pictures should be clickable for a larger size.

The iron age clothes were quite colourful!
The exhibit of Mr. Igor showing off in "his" chainmail is not permanent.

 

They had a very nice little exhibit about historical hair and beard, many of them something I recognize from the longhair circuit.
Note the small combs on the black pedestal.

Some of the styles are of course speculative and based on carvings in wood or stone, and not actual styles that have been found.

The top left blonde updo is the Suebian knot, that I also tried recreating.
I thought the complicated braids on the blonde doll to the right was a speculative reconstruction, but apparently that style has been found preserved.

The Elling woman herself almost blends in with the rest of her exhibit. Only her hair sticks out from above her leather "sleeping bag". Of course the most famous part is her updo and not much else of the body is preserved. In fact the body was so damaged on discovery that the sex was unknown until the clothes showed she is a woman.
The Elling woman is of course mostly famous for her hair and updo, but even that was hard to make out. I'm impressed the researchers have managed to make out exactly what was done to her hair. For me, it was hard to tell.

The Elling woman died age 25-30 years old at around 360-210 BC. She was found in 1938.
This is around a time period called the pre-Roman iron age or the Celtic iron age in Denmark. The names almost speak for themselves: The finds have a strong Celtic influence in style and decoration, and it's the time before the Roman iron age started influencing northern Europe.
This is also a time where there have been noticeably less finds than other time periods, which combined with knowledge about climate change to a colder and more hostile climate has led to speculations of a drop in population.
Of course this has also led to many theories on why so many bog bodies are from around this time: Changes in the local plant life, prey animals being affected by this and bad harvests could easily make people desperate to appease their gods. The general lack of findings from this time makes the bog bodies even more remarkable and valuable.

Her hair is surprisingly thin in person. I always assumed it was a lot thicker from seeing the famous drawing of the updo structure.
Of course this explains why this updo is such a "Was fun to try for the historical aspect, but doesn't work well for me" for so many fellow longhairs.
And it really is: It still blows my mind that you can replicate a style someone used 2229-2379 years ago to keep her hair neat and gathered up.

It is not known what her original haircolour was, since the bog dyes hair, skin and clothing over time. However, her hair is darker than the Tollund man who was found in the very same bog, close to each other and having been buried a maximum of 195 years before.

The actual hairstyle is this:

1.  The crown part of her hair is gathered, swept back and braided in a English braid.
2. At the nape, an additional 4 strands are added. All seven strands are twirled like rope to keep them separated from each other.
3. But the seven strands are braided from the nape in bundles of two, two and three strands into a English braid.
4. The braid is secured in a knot, but might have become messed up and damaged during the sacrifice and burial. The exact look of the original knot is not known and maybe it was more complicated than what we see today.
5. The loose ends are gathered in two strands that are twirled around themselves and each other.
6. The braid from the nape length on has been pulled up under the top English braid (This is surprisingly comfortable actually) and twirled around the base twice. 
7. The rest of the braid and loose strands hang down the back. But again, this might have come loose during the sacrifice and burial, and it might have been fully secured with the braid completely turned into a bun.

The fact that all the strands are kept twirled separately to form a "rope" while simultaneously being fed into a three-stranded braid in bundles like this, makes me doubt she did this style herself. She must have had someone else who could actually see what they were doing, doing the twirling and braiding at the same time to create this style. Also I would think you need an extra pair of hands to help holding on to the strands or doing the twisting.

Here is my own lazy/comfortable-Elling variation for comparison:
(Or rather, what I could actually do with only two hands and my own braiding abilities)

 

I haven't been able to find an accurate recreation of this style on youtube, which supports my theory that the Elling woman didn't braid this hairstyle on herself.

There are some very nice variants though. And I guess the end result is close enough.
But it does seem to have some symbolic or cultural value to make such a distinct seven-ish stranded braid, when a normal three stranded would be a lot easier and no one would be able to tell unless they got up close to examination it.

But the most famous bog body in the museum is not the Elling woman.

The museum also hosts a permanent exhibit of the most famous bog body in the world: Tollundmanden.
The Tollund man lived to around 40 years old and was short for his time, at only 161 cm (5 foot 3). He was found just 40-100 meter away from the Elling woman 12 years later (Distance varies from source to source) He was hung between 405 and 384 BC, so somewhere between 24 and 195 years before the Elling woman.The reason the Tollund man is so exceptionally well preserved is that he was placed in a bog on a day where the temperature was below 4 degrees Celsius, so the bog had time to take effect before decay set in.

And he is famous for a good reason. He is simply fascinating and disturbing at the same time.
At least 2400 years old and you can still see his cheek stubble, wrinkles and the peaceful look on his face. Someone obviously took great care to make sure he went into the afterlife looking peaceful. I almost expected him to yawn and blink. You automatically lower your voice near him. It's uncanny.

More about the Tollund man
And a little more here
Again, pictures should be clickable for a larger size.

Today's trampy toenails

It's really sandal-season around here, so I felt for something completely girly for my toenails.
So lots of hearts and bows on white background or pink, metallic bases.

Product showdown

Up today are two value size L'Oreal conditioners I found:

• L'Oreal Elvital dream length
• L'Oreal Elvital color-vive

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

L'Oreal Elvital dream length
Has that sort of clean and "soapy" scent. Mr Igor approves of the scent. Good, thick formulation.

It has a pretty cute ad campaign going about "saving the last three centimeters". I've been trying to find the leave in-conditioner but with no luck.

  

The colours used on the package and the name itself really reminded me of the Garnier Fructis Goodbye Damage, but on second look maybe not so much.

L'Oreal Elvital color-vive
Also has that sort of clean and "soapy" scent, that automatically gets approved by Mr Igor. Really thick formulation, almost deep conditioner texture which makes it almost drip free.

Effect

L'Oreal Elvital dream length
This left my hair incredibly soft and slippery, so much that it was actually rather hard to handle for me!

L'Oreal Elvital color-vive
Soft and slippery, but not as hard to handle as the anti-breakage.



Ingredient analysis

L'Oreal Elvital dream length
Aqua / Water, Cetearyl Alcohol, Dicetyldimonium Chloride, Cetrimonium Chloride, Niacinamide, Ricinus Communis Seed Oil / Castor Seed Oil, Sodium Benzoate, Hydroxycitronellal, Hydroxypropyltrimonium Hydrolyzed Wheat Protein, Hydrolyzed Corn Protein, Hydrolyzed Soy Protein, Hydrolyzed Wheat Protein, Phenoxyethanol, Steareth-6, Acetic Acid, PEG-100 Stearate, Trideceth-10, Trideceth-3, Trisodium HEDTA, Chlorhexidine Digluconate, Dimethicone, Limonene, Panthenol, Benzyl Salicylate, Linalool, Benzyl Alcohol, Isopropyl Alcohol, Amodimethicone, Alpha-Isomethyl Ionone, Tartaric Acid, Geraniol, Cetyl Esters, Citronellol, Coumarin, Hexyl Cinnamal, Parfum / Fragrance, (F.I.L. C214649/1)

Applying the Beauty Brains "First five ingredients rule"
Water, Cetearyl Alcohol, Dicetyldimonium Chloride, Cetrimonium Chloride, Niacinamide

When only looking at the top five ingredients, this is a emollient and moisturizing product.
Which means I would want to use this as a CO cleanser for the surfactant to dissolve scalp oils. I would also use this as a deep conditioner for a moisture booster.

Interesting ingredients

• Cetearyl Alcohol is an emulsifier which means it can dissolve oils and be used for cleansing.
• Niacinamide aka vitamin B3 is a very effective skin-restoring ingredient against ageing and environmental stress. Not entirely sure what good it would be for hair, but I can't protest against having it in a product that touches my scalp.
• Castor oil is an oil often found in products for the scalp and is said to boost hair growth.
• It has some different proteins in it: Hydroxypropyltrimonium Hydrolyzed Wheat Protein, Hydrolyzed Corn Protein, Hydrolyzed Soy Protein and Hydrolyzed Wheat Protein,
• Benzyl Salicylate is a sun screen ingredient and hurray for that. I love seeing sunscreen, any sunscreen, in my hair products!
• Amodimethicone is a cone particularly prone to build up.
• Panthenol does maybe-maybe not penetrate and strengthen hair.
• Cetyl Esters is an emollient.
• Alpha-Isomethyl Ionone, Geraniol, Citronellol, Coumarin, Hexyl Cinnamal and Parfum / Fragrance, (F.I.L. C214649/1) are fragrances. Why so many?

I would expect this conditioner to result in some very soft hair from the ingredient list. Unless my hair decides that the proteins are too much.

36 ingredients in total
1 marked as a "2" for acne-trigger. 3%
3 marked as a "2" for irritation-trigger.  8%

18 marked as "green" for safety. 50%
11 marked as "yellow" for safety. 30%
4 marked as "red" for safety. 11%
And one marked as "green-yellow" for safety. 3%

L'Oreal Elvital color-vive
Aqua/Water/Eau, Cetearyl Alcohol, Behentrimonium Chloride, Cetyl Esters, Tocopherol, cocos nucifera oil/coconut oil, Ethylhexyl Methoxycinnamate, Trideceth-6, Chlorhexidine Digluconate, poly (linseed oil), benzyl alcohol, benzyl salicylate, linalool, Benzophenone 4, Amodimethicone, isoprpyl alcohol, alpha-isomethyl ionone, geraniol, citric acid, potassium hydroxide, butylphenyl methylpropional,citronellol, cetrinonium chloride, BHT, hexyl cinnamal, parfum/fragrance.

Applying the Beauty Brains "First five ingredients rule"
Water, Cetearyl Alcohol, Behentrimonium Chloride, Cetyl Esters, Tocopherol

When only looking at the top five ingredients, this is a emollient and surfactant product.
Which means I would want to use this as a CO cleanser for the surfactant to dissolve scalp oils. I would also use this as a conditioner for a moisture booster.

Interesting ingredients

• Cetearyl Alcohol is an emulsifier which means it can dissolve oils and be used for cleansing.
• Cetyl Esters is an emolient and should result in soft hair.
• Tocopherol is an antioxidant. Questions is if it will rinse out or leave on.
• Cocos nucifera oil. Coconut oil. Love it or hate it. For me, it results in closed comedones and irritation. This means I would avoid using this as a cleansing conditioner and getting it on my scalp!
• Ethylhexyl Methoxycinnamate is a sunscreen ingredient. Nice!
• Linseed oil. Does this penetrate?
• Benzyl Alcohol. Another sunscreen ingredient. Very nice indeed!
• Amodimethicone is a cone particularly prone to build up.
• Benzophenone 4. Three sunscreen ingredients in one conditioner. Very nice!

Also I find it quite interesting how different the two ingredient lists are. Often it's basically just the "active"/selling point-ingredient that has been swapped out along with a few ingredients for stability or scent. But these two have very different ingredient lists.

Since this conditioner contains coconut oil, I would not want it on my scalp. This is a protein-free moisturizer and I would use it as such.

26 ingredients in total

2 marked as a "2" for acne-trigger. 8%
1 marked as a "4" for acne-trigger. 4%

1 marked as a "1" for irritation-trigger. 4%
2 marked as a "2" for irritation-trigger. 8%
1 marked as a "4" for irritation-trigger. 4%
And one marked as a "0-2" for irritation-trigger. 4%

10 marked as "green" for safety. 38%
12 marked as "yellow" for safety. 46%
3 marked as "red" for safety. 12%
And one marked as "green-yellow" for safety. 4 %



Lady Igor says
I actually like both in each their own way, but... The L'Oreal Elvital color-vive is awesome for the SPF, but since it contains coconut oil I would limit using it to the ends. The L'Oreal Elvital dream length is a good deep conditioner all around and I could use this on my scalp to CO too. However, my hair can be quite sensitive to proteins, so this is not a product I could use too much.

So I guess L'Oreal Elvital dream length wins. But reluctantly, since I really do love SPF in my hair products. The risk of irritating my skin isn't worth it though.

Package II

Since the package made it safely to France and fellow longhair Charlaine, I can reveal the contents.

I found these scalp scalers in a portion of my hair/skin storage and didn't even know I had them laying around. Hmm, says something about how much stuff I have in storage!

Since Charlaine likes scalp scalers and we traded some a few years back, I thought it would be fun to surprise her.

Today's hair

I really like this bun!
It's very flat and creates a good silhouette. It's very comfortable. And as opposed to the nautilus bun, it shows off the thicker part of my braid, instead of the thin ends.
But it really needs that French "layer" instead of a plain English braid to avoid that "blob" sticking out in the middle.

But... What should it be called?
Pretzel bun is already taken and it's not really an infinity shape either (Also taken).
Overhand knot bun? Omega bun? (I feel like the omega symbol would come the closest to describing the motion I do to secure the bun)

Today's hair

Following my idea from the other day: A single braid with a "French" layer.

Going to see how this works as a base for the modified Nautilus bun-idea.