Look what my dad made for me! Part III

There are still issues with bringing mr Igor, who is Swedish, into my home country, which is Denmark. So I went on my own for a family birthday.
But it feels like it's my own birthday, because look at my dads awesome work!
I brought one of my favourite hair sticks based on its shape so we had something to compare to.

Today's hair

Yikes. Some difference from yesterday.
I was caught outside in a tiny bit of rain and it really messed the base braids up!
So much for my clever, lazy plan of squeezing four days of updos out of the base braids...

Today's hair

Tuesday's updo is two stacked, braided Chinese buns held with Ron Quattro pins

Today's hair

First updo of the week is two low, Royal buns

The U-pins are from Ron Quattro

Held well, looked good (Unlike my skin. Argh)

Today's hair

You probably all know by now that I love being lazy with my hair...
The last few weeks attempts of making the braided log roll work for me, and the updo work for the Iyarri Chronicles Art & Hairstyle contest has really filled my mental energy quota for messing with my hair.
So I made the four small braids, which does take a while to finish, but is really versatile and I can usually get four days of acceptable updos out of.

A few more pictures from the Iyarri Chronicles Art & Hairstyle contest

I asked Nightblooming if it was okay for me to share some of the pictures we took for the contest (Some times it isn't) and she said yes, so here is a mixed bag of the serious (Attempt of the character) and less serious (Meta pictures and just messing around for fun) pictures we took

Happy anniversary to Nightblooming!

Today is Nightblooming's 13 years Etsy anniversary!

Nightblooming and her products are pretty much Longhair Circuit Royalty, not to mention she is a generally really cool person, so I figured I would spend a blog post talking about her.

She recently published a book (Which I review without trying to spoil anything here) and have several e-books about haircare, such as Rehabilitating Damaged Hair Naturally (Which I also review here) Coloring Hair Naturally with Henna & Other Herbs and a free e-book Natural Hair Care Articles.

 

So for all of the many, many, many, many, many, many people bored at home and itching to mess with their hair (No, seriously, it's both sad and hilarious how many hits a simple Google search got me) Why not give her natural products and haircare books a shot instead of messing with your hair?

 

Better to change your hair for the healthier than to turn into another sad statistic in the "quarantine bangs" meme.

 

About a month back, she announced a Iyarri chronicles contest and I thought it could be fun to enter something like my new rope braid or something similar. So I did!

I liked this passage in the book:

A female Iyarri stepped forward, wings all shades of gold-red and
ochre, like a phoenix not yet burst aflame. She was older, her hair done
in a complex looped bun, the strands a mix of silver, copper, and gold.
Tiahmani whispered in my ear. “That’s Denôé, head of the Idura’s
Iadnah.”
If Denôé were human, I would have guessed her to be in her sixties—
though she walked to the center of the library with the straight-backed
grace of royalty. Her voice was clear.

Denôé then proceeds to make a pretty strong speech with no sugarcoating her words or what the consequences for what have happened will be (Trying to avoid spoilers here). She's only in there for like 5 pages, but she's an important figure with power in the story, and I liked the description of her hairstyle and what little we learn about her personality.

So I drafted mr Igor to take some pictures for me as Denôé. We don't get any description of what she wears, but I imagined it something like business casual, but I might have been influenced on her speech most of all. I decided to tone it more down though and mr Igor and I ended up having some fun with some more meta photos instead.

I'm not going to share any pictures from our photo-session, because I'm not sure if I'm allowed? But I will share this: After we were done, I re-wrapped the base braids into more of a Chinese bun. Which looked awesome!

But by then, I was in my fluffy kitten onesie, so not really competition material, and I can share that.

You can't tell because of the massive Chinese bun, but there is two hidden Dutch braids under it!

Follow me around

I made this video as a test before the covid issues exploded. I never really intended to use this, but since so many things are different now, I'll show it anyways. This is for my preparation work for phase 1.

Hair and surgery

Yes, I made a video on this.

And here is a little "behind the scenes" of the updo for the video

Product showdown

Up today are

• Garnier Fructis Coconut water
• Garnier Fructis Strength and shine

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

Ah, the smell of Fructis always takes me back. When I did my year of boarding school (It's a tradition in Denmark to take a year "off" for boarding school between finishing the compulsory education of 9 school years and entering secondary school. The focus is more on personal growth and experiences, and many of the boarding schools specialize in things like sports, music or travelling. There are also schools with different languages, like for the German-speaking minority in southern Denmark) there was a girl in my corridor who bought a Fructis product because it was the hot, new thing. It completely stunk up the corridor until she had used it up and it sort of became a running joke for us. Good thing "Atomic ultra sour super green glow-in-the-dark-neon-green apples" is a fairly pleasant smell. And a very good thing that Fructis has since toned the scent level way, way down for their products!

Garnier Fructis Coconut water

Smells like Fructis. Sour green apples.
Good formulation that isn't too thick or too runny. Was easy to distribute in my hair, but did cause some dripping.

Funnily, this seems to be a mostly Australian/New Zealand product line? When Googling, this is where I get my hits from. Strange to find it in Sweden.

Garnier Fructis Strength and shine
Smells like Fructis. Sour green apples.
Good formulation that isn't too thick or too runny. Was easy to distribute in my hair, but did cause some dripping.

Effect

Garnier Fructis Coconut water
This left my hair nicely soft and shiny. It was reasonably easy to rinse out and my hair felt clean and good afterwards.

Garnier Fructis Strength and shine
This also left my hair nicely soft and shiny. It was also reasonably easy to rinse out and my hair felt clean and good afterwards. It was pretty hard to tell these apart, but I think this one left my hair slightly more shiny?

Ingredient analysis

Garnier Fructis Coconut water

Aqua / Water, Cetearyl Alcohol, Behentrimonium Chloride, Glycine Soja Oil / Soybean Oil, Cetyl Esters, Niacinamide, Saccharum Officinarum Extract / Sugar Cane Extract, Cocos Nucifera Fruit Juice / Coconut Fruit Juice, Cucumis Sativus Fruit Extract / Cucumber Fruit Extract, Hydroxycitronellal, Hydroxypropyltrimonium Lemon Protein, Sodium Benzoate, Phenoxyethanol, Chlorhexidine Digluconate, Camellia Sinensis Leaf Extract, Linalool, Pentaerythrityl Tetra-Di-T-Butyl Hydroxyhydrocinnamate, Benzyl Alcohol, Isopropyl Alcohol, Propylene Glycol, Alpha-Isomethyl Ionone, Capryloyl Glycine, Pyrus Malus Fruit Extract / Apple Fruit Extract, Pyridoxine Hcl, Geraniol, Citric Acid, Citronellol, Citrus Limon Peel Extract / Lemon Peel Extract, Potassium Sorbate, Leuconostoc/Radish Root Ferment Filtrate, Hexyl Cinnamal, Glycerin, Parfum / Fragrance. (F.I.L C194970/1)

Applying the Beauty Brains "First five ingredients rule"
Aqua, Cetearyl alcohol, Glycerin, Distearoylethyl hydroxyethylmonium methosulfate, Isopropyl palmitate

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.

Interesting ingredients
Cetearyl Alcohol is an emulsifier which means it can dissolve oils and be used for cleansing
Glycerin is a really good moisturizer and an humectant.
Panthenol does maybe-maybe not penetrate and strengthen hair.
Mel is honey. Almost at the bottom of the list!

This conditioner is cone free.

One thing really confuse me though: "Hydroxypropyltrimonium Lemon Protein".
Lemon... Protein?
Nutritional value of lemons

Uhm, yea. Okay. Lemon protein.
Doesn't sound like the most logical place to find protein, but what do I know?

Questionable extracts
Saccharum Officinarum Extract / Sugar Cane Extract
Cucumis Sativus Fruit Extract / Cucumber Fruit Extract
Camellia Sinensis Leaf Extract
Pyrus Malus Fruit Extract / Apple Fruit Extract
Citrus Limon Peel Extract / Lemon Peel Extract

Leuconostoc/Radish Root Ferment Filtrate

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

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

18 marked as "green" for safety. 54 %
11 marked as "yellow" for safety. 33%
2 marked as "red" for safety. 6 %

Hydroxypropyltrimonium Lemon Protein and F.I.L C194970/1 are not listed on COSDNA, so there are missing ingredients for the statistic.

Garnier Fructis Strength and shine
Aqua / Water, Cetearyl Alcohol, Behentrimonium Chloride, Starch Acetate, Niacinamide, Saccharum Officinarum Extract / Sugar Cane Extract, Hydroxyethylcellulose, Chlorhexidine Digluconate, Camellia Sinensis Extract / Camellia Sinensis Leaf Extract, Benzyl Alcohol, Isopropyl Alcohol, Pyrus Malus Extract / Apple Fruit Extract, Pyridoxine Hcl, Cetyl Esters, Citric Acid, Citrus Grandis Oil / Grapefruit Peel Oil, Citrus Medica Limonum Peel Extract / Lemon Peel Extract, Hexyl Cinnamal, Parfum / Fragrance

Applying the Beauty Brains "First five ingredients rule"
Aqua, Cetearyl alcohol, Isopropyl palmitate, Glycerin, Distearoylethyl hydroxyethylmonium methosulfate

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.

Interesting ingredients
Cetearyl Alcohol is an emulsifier which means it can dissolve oils and be used for cleansing
Glycerin is a really good moisturizer and an humectant.
Panthenol does maybe-maybe not penetrate and strengthen hair.
Olea europaea fruit oil is olive oil and pretty far down the list.

This conditioner is protein free and cone free.

Questionable extracts
Saccharum Officinarum Extract / Sugar Cane Extract
Camellia Sinensis Extract / Camellia Sinensis Leaf Extract
Pyrus Malus Extract / Apple Fruit Extract
Citrus Grandis Oil / Grapefruit Peel Oil
Citrus Medica Limonum Peel Extract / Lemon Peel Extract

19 ingredients in total

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

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

11 marked as "green" for safety. 57 %
4 marked as "yellow" for safety. 21 %
And one marked as "green-yellow" for safety. 5 %

Camellia Sinensis Extract / Camellia Sinensis Leaf Extract, Pyrus Malus Extract / Apple Fruit Extract and Citrus Grandis Oil / Grapefruit Peel Oil are not listed on COSDNA, so there are missing ingredients for the statistic.

Lady Igor says
This is pretty hard to conclude on because the ingredient lists are so long and pointlessly complicated. But I think the Garnier Fructis Strength and shine has the least annoying ingredient list. This one also seemed to leave my hair a little shinier, so I like this one better than the Garnier Fructis Coconut water.