Stupid scalp…

Well, the flakes aren’t getting better and I feel pretty confused about it. My scalp is really itchy and flakes keeps coming off when I scratch it. I was talking to hubby about it and we both assume it’s the dry air inside. Hubby has always been prone to nosebleeds and he has been getting them a lot more often the last few weeks.
We’re discussing getting a humidifier, see if that helps and I’m going to do a cassia scrub tonight. Anyone else have any suggestions to flaky scalp?

In the meantime, here is a very charming picture of the snow landscape that has become my head…

Tempting

I stumbled over this:



Tangle Teezer for sale on a Swedish cosmetics site for 169 kronor. Shipping is 30 kronor or free for purchases over 500. Link.
(For the “comb” that is 138 Danish kroner or 18,5 Euro or 25,2 USD)

I’m tempted. The tangle Teezer is one of those very, very hyped products you always hear about in the longhair circuit. But on the other hand, as I have experienced multiple times before, hype =/= good product. At least not for my thick hair.

I checked around and found other Swedish sites selling it too, some cheaper, some more expensive.

But I find myself returning to the conclusion that A) It’s too fine-toothed for me and B) I don’t think I can make friends with the weird shape.

Kind reader Julya pointed me to a place that sells combs I will probably be better off with. Link.

I keep eyeing this one:



The hard rubber combs with handles should be perfect. Water safe and a good size. I think 2-3 of these will be my Christmas gift to myself? And maybe an argan oil too…? Hm.

Urgent wash day

I have been beating myself up for not doing something cool and fun with my hair for a while. Keeping a blog really shatters your illusions about how often you do things with your hair!

So I had planned to do double Dutch braids, wrapping one around my head like a headband and then seeing if I could secure it with the second braid in the form of a Nautilus at the neck. I thought maybe my large Flexi 8s would be the right size for holding a braided Nautilus done on only half my hair.

Well, I still plan on trying that…

But I woke up to a spontaneously itchy and flaky scalp. What the heck? Where did that come from? I’m mystified. There have been no signs of my hair greasing up or getting irritated at all, it was like an unprovoked night-time attack of the flakeys!

Is it the winter cold kicking in messing with my sebum? Too much time spent in hats maybe? Something I ate??

So instead of doing something fun with my hair, I had to go for an emergency wash. Eh, yeah, that’s just as fun. Not.

Towel drying a bit after having scrubbed the scalp with three handfuls of the blue VO5

Sexy Smurf!
Note the sexy hint of cling wrap at the neck and the oh-so-seductive extra big hump from the heat pack and three old hats, yummy!
Testing out the new smaller self-warming hearts and the Schwarzkopf ultimate repair conditioner for deep conditioning. A little creativity with a bandage and you can be surprisingly mobile while doing the SexySmurf: I gave the kitchen a much needed cleaning. Then rinsed and did a quick ACV dip.

Doing something “fancy” on freshly washed hair always spells disaster for me, so it went in a simple English braid.

The Ultimate Repair conditioner seemed pretty nice. My hair is left shiny and easy to manage. Feels thicker too. It felt a bit “slick” or something that made it hard for me to judge when it was rinsed clean. I can’t say I care much for the scent though. Hubby likes it but I’m a bit… Meh. About it.

Slightly scary…?

I got both Biologist and Chemist friends hooked on the Flexi 8s. Especially Chemist friend who ended up ordering from them three times and has a collection with 4 different sizes and 10 different designs. (Hm, that’s more than me!)

Seeing her collection made me itch to buy some XLs to see if they fit better for a figure 8 bun since the megaflexi doesn’t hold as tight as I wish. But then again, I do still think the completely rude reply I got to my suggestion makes them owe me a big fat apology before I spend more money there…

When I took my megaflexi out and down to take a picture, it just looked a bit odd…

An extra small Flexi 8 fits inside my Megaflexi

And a mini is completely dwarfed by it

Monday the 8th of November

I went shopping with chemist friend and had a blast. She is really awesome to shop with: Just girly enough but not so much she would spend hours fussing over which plum shoes are plum enough for the winter trend. Hah. Just like me.

I wasn’t going to get any new conditioners since I still consider the bathroom to be stocked after we went to Öob some weeks ago. Yet I slipped when I spotted this Schwarzkopf Gliss conditioner. Usually when they add ingredients to hair products they boast of something like “Wild bamboo seed extract” or “Moisture tech repair enzyme” or “Rose petal extract” or something else equally impressive sounding but nonsensical. This one boasted of keratin. Lots of it too. Interesting!

Now that I think about it, I also spotted some Tresseme at an Ica (Supermarket) that was being unusually specific about being cone-free. Are we finally moving away from the hair product ingredients that sound “pretty” and impressive, but are still nonsensical and un-scientific? Of course I’m not making the best case writing this when I’m dealing with a conditioner named “Ultimate repair conditioner”, hah.

I’m not entirely sure if hair is actually able to bind keratin into its structure, but it seems more promising than yet another product with Cute and Exotic Extract #294.

It doesn’t happen a lot that I’m genuinely interested and excited about trying a new product so I have moved the conditioner in question way up on my to try-list.

My little re-usable heating heart leaked a bit a few days ago so I tossed it out. I’m really glad the liquid inside isn’t poisonous, but it still felt a bit weird. I have never had one that actually leaked before, but it is after all only fused plastics so…

Turns out I was a bit of a moron though. I found a pack and bought it without thinking twice about the front displaying two hearts. Yep, there were two smaller ones inside instead of the large one I thought it would contain. Oh well, it might even work better this way.

I needed to replace two of my foundation products, but it turned out that they don’t have the Maquicomplet anymore. Oh the horror! When I started asking the salesgirl about other products that would be really good at covering redness, she started giving me a speech about some product that was good at covering all ”…Also under eye circles”. Argh! I got out of there quickly.

Since I’m feeling chatty, allow me to explain…

Under eye circles runs in the violet-ish colour, so to cover them, concealers will have yellow pigments to cancel out the violet tones. Anti-redness products will contain green pigments to cancel out the red. Throw some green pigments on your violet-toned under eye circles and what do you end up with? Yea, not pretty. Same reason why concealers shouldn’t be used on redness.

A makeup sales girl making such a statement simple doesn’t know what she is taking about, which is a bit scary since its hardly rocket science. Maybe this is why women like Chemist friend don’t wear foundation or anything since “I can never get it to look natural”. Yea, I wonder why with crappy advice from “trained” sales people like that?

I’m going to fill the old foundation leftovers in the little black container so I can keep it in my bag. And then keep my eyes open for a replacement of some sort but not bother to ask the staff again.

Meh. I swear, just like with stylists, it’s never a good experience when you ask a salesgirl. Actually that’s a little harsh. I’ve had one good experience with someone who actually genuinely knew her makeup and respected what I was interested in without pushing products I didn’t want (Which is why 90% of my stuff is Lancôme) where as I’ve had zero good experiences with stylists.

Pouf!

What happens when you comb two day old double Dutch braids out? 
    

Graphics and general weirdness

It was a surprise that I had so much fun with the simple little pictures I did in paint some time ago: The leave in conditioner-murderers, the conditioners purchase and the time line over my length. Maybe I should find some sort of photo editing program so I can do more fun and silly things with my pictures?

Any suggestions?

For a very long time I’ve also had the idea of getting some business cards printed for the blog. Then whenever I encounter curiosity about my hair in real life, I could hand over a card with the address and go “Start with the Beginners guide to healthier hair”.

Heh.
It actually happens more often than you would think!
    

      
Usually I’ve been telling people search for “long hair care” which of course works better if your native language isn’t English. It’s funny though; even with all the information you can find, a lot of people haven’t even thought of that you can find a whole lot of knowledge about growing healthy hair online. I swear, 99% of the time people respond with “Oh, I didn’t know I could find that…” Maybe it’s a sign that there is so much junk out there online that people have stopped using the internet for real information?

Of course now that I have my blog and have collected a lot of information in it that I think could be useful to people no matter how well they take care of their hair already, I have a specific place to point them to.

But now it seems that my internet has started reading my mind, because everywhere I go online I swear I see ads for Vistaprint that makes business cards at a very nice price! Huh.

Should I be very, very scared? Are the terminators taking over the internet? Is my little HP laptop equipped with a brain scan chip?

Of course if I were to get some business cards printed there, I’m back at an old issue I have here on the blog: I really need a nice icon or logo!

I have been playing around with putting some of my pictures up as logo but never felt happy with them. Then I drew the girl with the laptop and even though it was a quick 10 minute thing and I took the picture of it with my phone, I still feel it’s the best logo/header yet. Of course it would be better if I somehow could incorporate a bell or a tower in it, but how?

    

   
If I order business cards, what information should be printed on them? Naturally the address, but what else? My email? Some sort of slogan? A description?

So, maybe I should spend a little more time on that tonight. Create a different and better version of the girl with the laptop and get the business cards ordered?

Wednesday the 2nd of October

I’ve been feeling pretty crappy since before the Halloween party and going out when I wasn’t feeling 100% definitely didn’t help. So I’ve been staying in and feeling sorry for myself a lot. The double Dutch braids stayed looking surprisingly good for days.

This is what they looked like yesterday before I washed:

Classic length double Dutch braids! 

Note the VO5 bottles in the tub, heh.

Braids with this level of messiness are really good for quick and efficient S&Ds

“Stuck in a rut”

It’s a complaint I hear on the hair circuit a lot. I have been there a couple of times myself too. But the truth is; it’s not necessarily a bad thing.

First of all, people should stop beating themselves up over feeling “stuck in a rut”. Naturally you can’t be 100% interested in something 100% of the time. If you could, that would cross over in crazy obsession. Not a healthy state of mind!

Second, there is a reason that “benign neglect” is preached so much. It’s simply the healthiest thing you can do for your hair!

Everything you do to your hair from the second it leaves the follicle will damage it: Combing, exposing it to sun, rubbing against your clothes and twisting it up in up do’s etc will do some damage to it. Of course we can combat some of the damage with hair treatments and protecting up dos, but the healthiest thing for hair is to not handle it more than absolutely necessary!

Do the washes to keep it from turning into a total grease-ball. Do the detangling necessary to keep it from getting matted. Do your up dos to keep it protected and out of harms way.

Other than that; stop beating yourself up for “having lost interest”. You haven’t, you are just practising benign neglect and there is nothing wrong with that!  Some of the most breath-taking heads of hair belongs to people who have the most “boring” and simple routines there are. Benign neglect simply works.

As long as you don’t fall for the temptation of thinking a cute, shorter cut will spark your interest in hair again, you are not doing anything that can cause regret later. If you feel the need for something new and exciting, try with fake bangs, a crazy coloured clip in or maybe take the creative urge out on your nails.

Leave it be and let your hair interest stay on the back burner for a while. Once it returns again, your hair will have grown, not been damaged while you ignored it and be ready to enjoy your renewed attention again.

Repeat after me: It’s not a rut, it’s a routine!

One thing I try to advertise is to make a habit out of your hair-handling and up dos. If it’s something you just “do” without having to think about it, the handling is much easier for you and less damaging for your hair.

Try to think of when you tie your shoelaces or eat a sandwich. If you just do it without thinking, there is no problem. But if you first start thinking about every step or analyse the motions you do, you end up unable to remember how you tie the knot or with tomatoes on the floor.

One of the steps towards making a habit out of handling and putting your hair up is to stick with a routine.

For example, since I’m dominant right handed I start detangling the left side first. When detangling the right side, I always feel like my right hand “gets in its own way”, so with the easier left side done I’m left to focus on the right. When I braid, I always start on the right side, which gets the right side done first so I can use my right hand to help on the left side if necessary.

Another thing I always try to advertise is to pick an up do and practise it until you can do it in your sleep so you can always get your hair up and look presentable even if your child is screaming, your hubby yelling you have to go now, the dog is barking, the doorbell is chiming and you hear something shattering and breaking somewhere in the background and it most definitely sounds expensive….

So if you ever find yourself in a “rut”:

• The first rule is: Do no harm.
• Second rule: Practise benign neglect and don’t feel guilty for it. Not even a little bit.
• Third rule: Decide on your routines and practise them until you no longer have to think about them. Pick an up do and keep practising. You will thank yourself for your work later.

Halloween party outfit

We weren’t entirely sure how dressy the party would be so I went for a fairly simple schoolgirl outfit. I was curious if hubby would approve or not but he definitely loved it, heh.

It put my hair in twin Dutch braids and it took me an astonishing 40 minutes to get them done! I managed to get the right braid done in an extremely weird mix of Dutch and French on the first try and I have absolutely no clue how I managed to butcher a Dutch braid like that!

I was a bit worried about unwanted attention to my hip+ length braids but it wasn’t bad. I encountered curiosity, but no unwanted attention, which was pretty cool considering we were out among drunk and happy people.