Tuesday 18 February 2014

Sally Hau...um, Order.

It's not really a haul if you're only buying one thing, and the rest is so you get free postage, is it?

Last year, I swore off scissors (kinda). Plus, it's been over a year since my last trim. Somewhere between Paris and (new) home, my old hair shears went missing.

I didn't want a supermarket pair, and my last pair from Superdrug were shockingly bad.

So I went to the experts and ordered some from Sally.
They have free delivery over £25, the scissors were £21 and it's about £6 for the bus ticket to my nearest store, so online delivery it was.
I just ordered a few non-essential fillers to get me up to the price and away we go!

I had to pick it up from the post office and the box said....



Yikes. No wonder the man in the Post Office gave me an odd look.

A few details about Sally's delivery service: They only charge you when your items have been dispatched, and they can come at different times. So the filler stuff was actually in the suspicious looking box above and the scissors came through my door a few days later.



Another thing is that not everything in their stores are featured on the website, which is annoying, but it's definitely better than it used to be, because it used to drive me absolutely bonkers!

As per usual, the Wonder Thing cut my hair. I asked him to take off anything that wasn't curling at the end of my twists, which was about 1 to 2 inches. He threw the strands in the bin before I could take a picture of them, because he's normal (I guess), so here's a picture of one of my lovely and fresh blunt ends.


Monday 17 February 2014

Wash Day

In the aftermath of four weeks no water and then 4 days no moisture, it suffices to say that this was always destined to be a bit of a long and complex one.


(L-R): Darjeeling tea, olive oil, rhassoul clay mix, aloe vera juice.

1). I pre-treated with Vatika Oil...4 days before hand because I had netball come up unexpectedly and life's so busy that it just gets put on hold until I can find the time again.

2). I decided to deep condition before hand with Aubreys Organics Glycogen Protein Balance Conditioner (AOGPB). As I was slicking it on my head, I realised that if I was also planning to do a mud wash, I'd have been better off using the AOGPB after rinsing the mud wash out.
But it was too late, my head was already half saturated and waste not want not, obviously. So I left that on my entire head for about 30 minutes.



3). I made up my mud wash with about 3 teaspoons of rhassoul clay, 3 tablespoons of water and 2 tablespoons of Apple Cider Vinegar. The mix foamed, which I didn't manage to capture. It does that every time, and I'm beginning to wonder if it's the Apple Cider Vinegar I every time. I put that on top of the AOGPB because I don't like ducking in and out of the shower.
Do you know what it smells like when you mix a creamy, milk protein containing conditioner with an acidic clay wash?
Like sour milk, mis amigos.
I tried, but I couldn't stand it and had to rinse out the grossness.


4). I did a black tea rinse in the shower. I put the tea in an applicator bottle and squirted it generously over the twisted sections of my hair and scalp. I then applied Herbal Essences Hello Hydration over the top, with a little bit of olive oil, and then left it on for about 5 minutes.


5). I rinsed out the conditioner, tea business and then spritzed on a generous amount of aloe vera juice to each section.

6). I wrapped my hair in a T-shirt, but after 10 minutes, it was already really dry O_o I don't know what happened, but I'd planned to Curlformer set, so I had to hurry up!



7). At first, I started applying Anita Grant's Cream Cafe Latte Leave in and Organix Anti-Breakage Serum to each section, but it was taking too long, so I just starting using my shea butter mix instead. I think I'm out of the habit, because it took me nearly two hours to put them all in! Not without some casualties, of course...



8). And the resulting Curlformer Set. Yummy, yummy, yummy.


Although the wash day was a big mishmash of everything one may want to do to their hair in their entire life, at the end my hair was deliciously soft and scrumptious. I had a little bit of half crescent moon breakage in the shower (from coils at the very ends of my hair) but I already know I'm way overdue for a trim, so I didn't stress too much.
I don't think the tea rinse did too much - my shedding was the same as normal, despite having de-tangled 4 days prior when  I took out my small twists - but maybe I used too little.
Hey, I've got tea to spare, so no worries about wasting any next time...

Tuesday 11 February 2014

Tea-mendous!

I have a quite a few friends moving about, in and out of the country.

You know what lovely, kind, panicking people do when they move from country to country with limited time?

They tend to give away their stuff.

And if you're a Chinese girl living in England, you know what you're going to have a lot of?

Tea. Specifically, black tea. Loose leaf black tea.



And you know who doesn't drink black tea, as in not at all?

Yep. You got that right. Yours truly.

I guess this means I'm going to take up tea rinsing for real and see if I can finally find a solution to stop me whining about my excessive shedding.

Unless anybody wants to come over to mine for a cuppa?

Monday 10 February 2014

No Water Month - How did it Go?

So, I went a whole month without washing my hair.

At first, I kept telling myself that it was absurd, that I would cave, that water = moisture and I was basically setting myself up for a setback.
Around week three, when it started to get a little itchy, I put some diluted apple cider vinegar on my scalp, and boom! Back to calmness. At first, I thought I could scrub my partings (what partings? My frizz eats my lame partings for breakfast!) with an old, no longer used toothbrush. As soon as those bristles met with my hair I couldn't even move it one jot, it was so comfortably entwined with my coils.
So, fingers it was, as it is with the rest of my hair care, really.

I moisturised every couple of days with coconut oil or Anita Grant's Cafe Latte when I wanted a little bit of a yummy scent. I could tell when my hair needed some moisture, because it would feel crisper than normal, or I could hear it, like a rustling alarm.

Time to moisturise!

Incredibly, it worked well. As in, really well. My hair, when I took it down, was well moisturised and not at all crunchy - not even the ends. Plus, the take down was reeeeally easy. Not anything worthy of hyperbole - the usual knots and tangles in my finer, wavier area were still present to greet me in their usual, sullen manner - but there were a lot less of them (which I appreciated).

The only negative aspect of this experiment was the aesthetic side. I disliked the perceived limp appearance of my twists and constantly wore it up in a bun to prevent me dunking my head in a bucket of water for some plumpness.