Monday, 31 December 2012

Length Check - Dang

I can't believe I forgot about this!
 How did I manage to do that?! 
Maybe I am so swamped by other things that this failed to be a priority?
Or maybe, subconsciously, I'm still sulking
Er, let's not just assume that's it's one over the other.

This was taken in November, because...er, I've been too lazy to take another one since?

Not armpit length yet but positive thoughts that 2013 will be the year I break my pattern.

On a completely related note, I noticed I still had some dyed ends from the last time I dyed my hair.
Sweet, I thought, excellent time to measure and accurately work out my growth rate.

9 inches from my roots to the dyed ends. 
                                                          In 23 months. 
                                                                           0.4 inches per month on average. AVERAGE.

Snap. I am a slower grower.
And look how small an inch is! Takes me about 3 months to do that even.

I...just...can't...deal....

This is me to my hair scissors right now


Monday, 17 December 2012

My Twist and Curl......former set

So, during the Christmas holidays, I chanced upon pure, unadulterated hair gold

For me, at least.

I was bored and simultaneously feeling extremely inspired to play with an idea I'd had for a while now. I'd always wanted to try a twist-and-curl, but I don't own any rods or rollers (any more) and was loathe to buy any for a simple experiment.

I parted my hair off into six sections (I got the number from Shelly, who also has quite fine hair like myself) and my fringe and dampened them as I went along with a vinegar water mix, since it was...week 1 of not having washed (a pattern that sadly continued for another 2 weeks). I flat twisted the roots to prevent too much volume there and for increased definition.

Also meant I minimised the amount of handling I had to do on my wet hair. I only twisted until 2 inches of hair were left, to minimalize tangling at my fragile ends. They kept trying to undo, so I ended upholding some of them in place with hair bands/ponytail holders. First time in my life I've ever had to do that!
I also applied Eco-styler gel on the ends of my hair, in the hope they would keep their shape.


 On the fatter twists, I used a curlformer on each twisted section, so some twists had 2 curlformers per twist.


Just to note, this was far nicer and easier to sleep in than when I do my whole head full!

The next morning, I admit, I was holding my breath a little when I took the Curlformers off. 


I shouldn't have worried. Perfect curls, every time, no?


The first unravelling had me a little nervous and unsure, but then I fluffed with my fingers to mess and place it some...



Turns out I still love big hair. After all this time.
Mum: *side eye*Your hair looks a mess. Harsh. Not even a gentle 'You're not going out like that, are you...?'
Wheeee! Look at me! I'm Curly Nikki!
I'd never really gotten the fuss about the twist and curl until I tried it.
Instantly, my ends didn't look as raggedy. Immediately, it felt so much more fun, and bouncy and lively!
Genuinely, the pictures don't do it justice. I fell in love all over again.

 I loved it so much, I wore it down and out, as it was. And I never do that! And this was despite my woollen scarf and the wind and drizzling rain.....

Yeah. By the end of the day, my hair had gotten so obnoxiously big, I had to tie it up from fear of it being a hazard in the car, and people staring at me... but man, it felt great while it lasted!

For other people's adventures with a twist and curl (and my references, really) check these out:
Curly Nikki's original tutorial here and a small update here.
MahoganyCurls' tutorial here.
Shelli of hairscapades tutorial here.
Shelli also talks about the progression of her T'n'C here.

Sunday, 9 December 2012

Going, going....



"Due to poor restocking from the company we have no choice 

but to discontinue the range. Please stock up while you can

as once our current stock goes we will be unable to get any 

further stock."

I know a lot of British bloggers have been talking about and loving these products lately, so if you're one of them, you may want to get some before they're completely gone...

Friday, 7 December 2012

Your Shortlist

A peek at my to-do list. You're welcome!
Wrinkled clothes for  the win!
It was only last year really, on my search for more British (hair) bloggers (mainly for product accessibility) I discovered that I was part of an international community.

A group of my friends and I were eating in a restaurant. I piped up to ask a question about the hair of one of the ladies - I was pretty sure that when I'd first met her, her hair was curly, but for the past few weeks, her hair had been straight.

I simply asked her whether she'd used a blow dryer on her hair. She said she had, which elicited a noise of surprise from one of the other ladies and another question:

"So, is it actually your hair?"
The first lady nodded, bemused "Yeah, it's mine. I get annoyed when it's curly, it tangles too much and I hate combing it so I just straightened it (I think the word she used was 'glissant')."

 Hair-wise, we were a motley crew - straightened natural, chemically untouched wearing a weave, relaxed, natural in the cutest and roundest afro, braid extensions and...er, me. It was kind of nice that we were all different.

We chatted some more about it, more questions were asked:

Braids: I know you're Brazilian, so is your hair yours?
Under Weave: I'm Brazilian and so is my hair! *laughs*

Me: People do hair tutorials on Youtube -
Everyone else: - Hair?! On Youtube? Really?

They found the idea of it so very bizarre.
 I admit, when I first started, I never really considered looking on Youtube, only ever in forums. Fortunately, someone sent me a link and it was upwards from there!

I ended up scrawling some notes on the back of our food receipt for the cutest afro, of some people she might want to Google for style ideas. I know she could probably understand what they were saying, but for me, hair is a leisure activity and sometimes you just can't be bothered to go and look up what they say, because it's too darn hard and it simply shouldn't be.
She doesn't speak a load of English and she loses track when it's spoken to fast, so I tried to think of people who used a lot of pictures and words on their screen, demonstrated what they were saying with actions, didn't have videos with too much superfluous chat and whose names I could remember how to spell.


My list was woefully short and, in hindsight, maybe more inspirational than practical:


Which makes me wonder what other people would have chosen - 
who would have made it onto your shortlist?  

Monday, 3 December 2012

Bun Challenge, Week 3

My scalp had been really oily for the last week. Like, rubbing-my-finger-on-my-scalp-meant-I-didn't-need-to-use-oil-my-cuticles oily. I reckon this is because I only did a Cassia last week instead of a cleansing wash. If it continues to act like this, I'm going to have to do a proper wash every week, despite the other shenanigans I may be planning.

 The thought of having to do a Bentonite mask...then a Cassia treatment...then a deep condition....all in the same day is seriously filling me with dread.
I'll try it out eventually - not today though!

On a fantastic note, I checked out my ends the other day to check for splits. I have to do this every month, since my hair is so fine, they tend to pop up regularly.
Over the entirety of my head, I only found two.


Yeah, that's how excited I was. Two splits? Over my entire head of fine hair? Including my crown? 
Hello happiness!


I snipped them off, because they were pretty huge BUT I think this is a definite sign of progress!

 - I oiled hair with coconut oil, finger detangled and then left it overnight.

- Mixed up bentonite clay with water and ACV, slathered my head and scalp in it. Left on for 30 minutes.

- Rinsed thoroughly, making sure to aim the shower head at my scalp to remove any debris.

- Gently wrung excess water out of my hair and applied the oily conditioner from last week. Left on for about 5 minutes and then rinsed.

- Applied home made leave in, and then sealed with a few drops (like, 6 per side) of hemp seed oil, and then coconut oil to cover the smell. It's so...pungent that it makes me really paranoid that I'll be stopped by the sniffer dogs at the station.

Then I flat twisted the hair in two parts back into a ponytail. Divided ponytail into three twists and finally, pinned them up into a bun.

Yes, the lighting is terrible, but at least you can see the glint of the pin, revealing it's location :)
Yeah, the lighting is pretty appalling...

Monday, 26 November 2012

The Aftermath Wash

Theme tune for this post? 
It's been a long time (Cassia), shouldn't have left you, left you without a dope beat to step to...

 It's been a while, but I said I would, so I did - another Cassia treatment that it!


- Generously applied coconut oil all over and left it overnight.
- Shampooed front (and highly abused) section of hair with some random sulphate body wash to get the cones out.

- Mixed up my Cassia mix: Three shovels tablespoons of Cassia and enough hot water till it looked like cake batter. Not overly runny but not as thick as before.

- Slathered it all over my loose hair and covered it and left it for an hour.


Lack of a plastic cap meant that I used a plastic bag. However, I do not (yet) lack the pride to put that picture up here.

- Before I jumped in the shower to rinse it all out, I poured some more hot water in a bowl. In a separate bowl, I mixed together some conditioner and hair oil, and then plunked the bowl full of conditioner into the hot water bowl. Like a bain marie.

The conditioner + oil

It was slightly too much...


...So I spooned it back into the bottle #NoWastage.

- Rinsed Cassia out and then applied conditioner mix to hair, also separating hair into six twisted sections.

- Covered with another plastic bag and gently heated up the whole bag situation with a hair dryer 10 minutes for 2 minutes at a time, every 5-10 minutes. I kept the hair dryer at least 6 inches away the whole time - I didn't really fancy melting the bag onto my head.
When I went to rinse, it looked like the conditioner had absorbed beautifully into my hair. Good sign, I hope!

 Rinsing out was easy as eating pie - literally. I finger de-tangled in the sections and my hair just did it. No complaints. No questions asked - it just happened.

- I wrapped my hair in a towel while I lotioned up, to absorb excess water.

- Then I applied my homemade leave in to each section, and some hempseed oil on the ends, since I've run out of brazil nut oil. Hempseed oil does not even smell half as good as brazil nut oil does :( Satin scarf on under a hat and out I went.

- Hair still wasn't dry 5 hours later (of course), so I used a blowdryer on the twisted sections on cool, so I wouldn't have to go to bed with wet hair. Wrapped the ends of my twists around bobby pins and then pinned them up onto my head,

- Unravelled in the morning (after putting them in a ponytail for a bit, to remind my hair of gravity's purpose).


Definitely not a twist out to be worn outside the house, but brilliant for my stretching purposes! 
The resulting bun.






Monday, 12 November 2012

Plan of Action - 3 Challenges for Winter

Concerning my latest hair woes, I wasn't sure what to do. I considered heat treating my hair (but if it's already weak enough to be breaking, this won't help), switching out my usual products to try some newer things (but it's not the products, it's the techniques, no?).

After a little bit of research (over two days ), I've decided that my main problem is not being diligent enough with my hair care.
My new goal is simple : Break the APL plateau some time this winter by gaining an inch all around:


9 inches all around or...I'll stop talking about it!

I've taken up two challenges, as well as (or working with) my own personal one: Loo's 1in3 rules and Shelly's Hairscapades Bunning challenge. Although one seems to defy (bunning, instead of wearing twists) the other, Alice's in-depth comment really got me thinking about lots of specific manipulations one time versus more regular, more general manipulation during styling.
That doesn't make sense right now, but I'm still thinking on about it! 

The Routine
  • I'll wash every weekend as normal.
  • I'll also make Cassia treatments something that happen at least monthly. At least. I may try and switch in some yoghurt treatments too.
  • Not de-tangling unless it's wash day. I have a bad habit of finger de-tangling through the week. Despite the fact finger de-tangling may be gentler, it's still manipulation. 
  • Moisturise hair daily. My hair really seems to like that.
  • Make sure my satin scarf stays on overnight. I'll be keeping it secure with a slightly stretched headband.
  • I'm going to try applying some heavier oils on my ends to preserve them better. I've got some brazil nut oil and I'll see how that works out. Doing fine so far, but man does it attract the dust! If not too great, I'm looking forward to trying hemp seed oil. Hellooo ceramides!
  • No cutting. Just search and destroys. 
  • Keep taking my supplements. They're nothing special but I've got them so I might as well use them. They're from Hollands and Barretts and have sugar and sweetener in them-  not that you can tell *ick face*

That's it! I don't want to tie myself down too strenuously - I've just got to be diligent and consistent
Just gotta hop to it!

Persistance supplied by 'Chemical X'

Monday, 5 November 2012

A Sunday Wash

- Since I had planned on washing my hair on Saturday, I generously applied coconut oil on Friday night.

- Didn't get up in time, so my house mate used up a lot of the hot water cleaning and informed me that there was about 25 minutes left of hot water, and she hadn't showered yet.

- So on Sunday, I decided to slick some yoghurt on my head as a sort of pre-poo thing too (I had some left over from eating porridge and couldn't bear to put it back in the fridge). My hair was in about 6-8 sections. I left it on for about 20 minutes before rising out with warm water.

- Rinsed with heavily diluted apple cider vinegar (like 9 parts water to 1 part apple cider vinegar) to combat the effects of the hard water, with a few drops of tea tree oil and massaged it into my scalp and hair.

- Gently applied conditioner and finger de-tangled with conditioner in. Left on for about 5 minutes.

- When I got out of the shower, I wrapped my hair in a normal towel, and then added my leave in, as well as some brazil nut oil and some shea butter (why? Why did I do that??) on the ends.

- At this point, I was running late for church and I panicked (maybe that's why I added Shea Butter too...). At first, I considered doing a half up, hlaf down style, but my hair was barely dry. Such impulsive actions would surely come back to bite in the form of tangling during shrinkage and SSKs and breakage. So instead, I split my hair into two vertical sections, twisted each one and then added further stretch with some hair bands (Goody Ouchless), then rolled them under.




The problem was that having applied the shea butter to my ends that were no longer in twists means I ended up with stringy hair that evening when I unravelled everything.. 


So I put my hair in a puff.


I think I need to do what I did for my self-summer challenge and plan what I'm going to do with my hair and how I intend to do it (including stretching time - because my hair very rarely dries fully overnight). I know it sounds like extra effort, but if I don't, I just always end up disappointed with my hairstyle.In two days, In the 24 hours since washing my hair, I've done about 8 styles, because I'm never really happy with them. At the moment, I've got it in twists that I did this morning for a potential twist out on Wednesday, but if that doesn't work, I'm sock bunning it until I can put my hair back up in twists.


Panic! At the APL Plateau

A couple of weeks ago, two weeks ago, I flew into a panic and a glum mood because I realised something was wrong.  I even wrote a post about it but I started using words like 'y'all' halfway through, which means I was really upset.

Extract:

If there's anything more depressing that comparing your progress against other, it's comparing your progress against yourself and finding yourself wanting. My ponytail in mini-twists in October was the exact same length as in January/February.
I have pieces in the front of my head that I'm still pinning up because they won't reach into my ponytail. Two years later and they still won't reach into the blasted ponytail!
...
This is not a setback. It's something that I've been ignorant of but it's been happening for a while.
When it comes to giving myself reasons why I'm not making leaps and bounds in all my hair-related incidents, please trust that I am always the person in the front of the queue.
I've told myself that:
  • I'm tall (5' 11.5"), so it'll take me longer than other people to hit certain points.
  • My fine hair means that splits and trims are inevitable.
  • Half an inch isn't that big! Patience, grasshopper.
  • Health over length, after all. 
  • Shrinkage is so deceiving.
  • You dyed your hair and it all broke off, so if that's not a major setback....
  • Maybe I'm a slow grower, eh? It happens!
But I know I'm not a slow grower. My hair colour from last year has near enough completely grown out. If the ends of my hair had made the same progress, I would not be writing this (extremely whiny) post. My hair is growing - it just bloody well isn't staying there. 

I don't sound right when I say 'y'all' and 'ain't' and 'in this game' (yeah, I didn't include those bits...)
You see, I'd taken out one of my twists out and tugged at my hair and it ended waaaay earlier than it should have been.
So I went out and searched for a measuring tape, came home and confirmed it.

8 inches. 

This is a problem. Mainly because that nape section always retained length well, even back in the beginning when I had no idea what to do with the rest of my hair. But now I think it's breaking the most, because at the rate it retained back in the day, it should steadily be on its way to BSL.

It's not even APL. Heck, it's barely shoulder length reaching my collar bone!

Look familiar? This is me 17/10/2012.
And this is me 31/12/2011.
Aaand on the 1/1/2011.
8 inches. After 3 years. Somehow, 10 inches of hair has gone walkies. Other sections are around 10/11 inches.
I don't know what's happening but when I started this blog, it was not after just having cut off all my hair. And that was more than two years ago. 2 years = around 12 inches, no? I'm not even there!!


I know some people think length checks are stupid and unhelpful but when you realise that in two years, you have retained -1 inches (not even an exaggeration), would you say that hair was healthy? That everything's okay? And that's with me only length checking every year, which may be why it's taken me so long to establish a pattern and realise there is a problem.

In my panic, I started googling furiously, but the only thing that seemed to come up was that other ladies with fine hair like me who weren't plateauing were using henna.
I actually looked into it, remembered the mess (rented apartment, y'all), time and faff...eurgh.

Nope. But it does mean that as of now, I'm back on the Cassia. Part of my game plan and all that.

Friday, 2 November 2012

Simple Hair Thoughts

I tried a pin up bob with my mini twists.
 It looks awful in real life but I like how it looks in the picture. Typical.
I cover my face but not my shame.
- Wouldn't it be funny if all the good stuff from my supplements was going mainly to my nails, instead of my skin and hair?

- Thinking about where you could be isn't going to get me there any faster.

- Having a real to the ground plan, as well as more specific and attainable goals makes me feel a lot better.

- One of the main reasons I wish my hair was slightly longer is so that it'd be easier to sniff when it smells delicious. Otherwise, it just feels like I'm teasing myself, haha!

- No matter how my scarf rolls up during the night, my trusty headband will keep it on. Bwhahaha! Thwarted.

- Despite all the damage I incurred from colouring my hair purple, I still want to do it again :) (example of how cute it was to be found here). I considered chalking, but then a safer alternative came along.

- I will get better at styling.

- No, Ma, I still don't know what I'm going to do with my hair that day. Just focusing on making sure that other essentials will be there. Like. Food.

- I miss the cheapness of British hair products. Wherefore art thou, Poundland??

Monday, 29 October 2012

Weave Really got to Stretch it Out...

When packing in a slight rush to move to a foreign country, there are things you may leave behind.

Unimportant things, such as your sewing machine; those pair of jeans with the hole; toothpaste.

But today, I realized I'd left behind something mega important.


It's winter! Rain, and thus tangles, will surely be upon me. How will I survive without stretching?
 What to do? 
Eotteoke?!

Ah, but look what I did remember to pack.


Weave thread somehow managed to find itself into my bag, despite the fact the first (and last) time I had a weave, I was not even legally old enough to do a paper round. Whatdaheck?!

Anyway, having stumbled across this very informative video by the lovely Nadia of GirlsLoveYourCurls, I may give African Threading a whirl this winter.

Granted, the last time I had this style done, I was too young to consent to the actions being taken upon my person, so my mum did it in looped arches over my head that had the other kids calling me spidey-head.
Nowadays, they'd be calling me innovative! 


I actually took my twists out on Friday. I'd started on Thursday night and hoped it would take me till Friday afternoon to take them all out, but nope, I didn't finish till 10pm on Friday night. So I just bunned it and left it like that.

On Saturday morning, I quickly mixed up some bentonite clay mixed with some ACV and water and slathered my head in it. I ended up leaving it in for an hour, because my housemate got to the bathroom before me >.<

When I finally got in the shower, I rinsed it all out quite easily and then conditioned. 
I tried my best to leave it on for longer than three minutes, but there's only so long a girl can scrub her elbows for.
Rinsed that out, put in my homemade moisturiser, and then decided to thread my hair to stretch it.

It took me nearly two hours to do my head, but that's because the technique takes a while to get down, and I was wrapping quite tightly. 

Also, on some of the sections, I would be nearly to the end, check the mirror and realise that I hadn't secured it tightly enough at the root and the thread had slipped, so I'd have to undo it and start again.


I used about 5- 6 foot (up to 180cm) of string for each section and on some of them, I ran out.
But the stretch was pretty awesome. Instant hairnorexia cure.

 


Taking them out was ridiculously easy. Seconds per section. Really. However, it was only a couple of house (6 hours, I think?) so my hair wasn't completely dry, but it was on it's way there.



The roots were still a bit big, because I didn't secure them all very well, so I just threw my hair into a bun. But then I remembered buns don't always work for me, so I split it into two buns. Then each bun I split into two sections and fat-twisted each sections. 


Friday, 26 October 2012

Needs Vs Want


Me:
Can I ask you a question? 
Wonder: Yeah, course. 
Me: Do you think £194 is too much to pay for a hair dryer? 
Housemate from next room: No!! / Wonder: What?! 
Me: Actually, it's in dollars. So it'd only be about £120... 
Wonder: .... You're kidding. What does the site say when you convert it to pounds? 
Me: I didn't say I was going to buy it! It's just...research. 
Wonder: You can't be serious. I've seen you walk half a mile to save 30p and now you want to splash out on a £200 hairdryer?!  
Housemate from next room: You get what you pay for!
Me: Like an investment? 
Wonder: I have a hairdryer! You can just use mine (We have already seen evidence of his friend's love of hair tools, so I guess this admission was inevitable. Didn't make it any less funny). 
Me: Well, does it have *reading from the site* 3 heat settings, a cool shot and tourmaline crystals? And ions? 
Wonder Thing: .....it blows hot hair like a hair dryer should -_- 
Me:  Ion deficiency is really bad. A hairdryer needs 'em! Ions are important!
Housemate from next room: Very important! 


Oh, looks like I got ions and iron confused. My bad.

Tuesday, 23 October 2012

Following Cassie's Footsteps

When one moves to a new place, the natural instinct is to explore it and check it out. Ascertain what your favourite shops and places and where they may be.

It's always nice to have a little bit of information.

Fortunately, Cassie of NaturalSelectionblog.com has already written a short but informative piece about her hair related travels in Paris.
Boom, instant guide to hair care in Paris.

Obviously, my first stop as a wannabe mixtress was AromaZone. 

It was exactly as described, though a lot smaller than I'd imagined. In my mind's eyes, I'd envisaged it as a ingredient emporium, but it was cosier than I thought. All the ingredients were separated into sections according to their purpose and then neatly lined up alphabetically.
I'm not exactly a diplomat when it comes to the art of the French language, so I have to admit that my knowledge of the Latin names of ingredients really helped.
So much stuff! There were testers too, so you could immediately feel the texture and smell the different oils (eurgh to raspberry oil - not as tasty as I was hoping!).

As well as the typical 'health food' shop products, they also have emulsifers, hydrolats, containers and neutral bases for the more serious mixologists; indian powders, henna, and their own line of handmade cosmetics too. There
I went to the sample area and bough some aloe vera (which I later found out was cut with sunflower oil/helianthus annus - sigh), brazil nut oil, some vanilla scented sesame oil (so scrummy smelling! Has bits of vanilla seed floating about inside) and some green montmillonrite clay - I'd been running low on bentonite clay (and it was reduced, so...). They're all under 2,00€ for a 10ml sample of anything, if you want to try before you buy, which I thought was more than reasonable, considering that most of them are organic (bio).

That was only on my first trip there, but we'll talk about the rest later on :)
It's easily reached by the metro - Odeon on ligne 4, Maubert Mutalite on ligne 10. Check to be sure..

Next up - Saint Denis Strasbourg!
That was all Cassie had mentioned, so I hopped on the Metro to the stop. My first experience upon exiting was different because I'd gone to the wrong stop - if you want to get the exact same experience as her, of emerging in front a fair and white skin bleaching shop, go to the Chateau d'Eau stop, not the Saint Denis Strasbourg one.
This will also mean that you don't end up lost in a labyrinth of clothes shops too!
When I finally found my way back to the correct, hair-related area, I did get a few guys asking me to enter their shops to get manicures, pedicures  (not so much with relaxers, since I was in mini twists). I just insisted I didn't speak French well.

Well, I don't.

 One guy was really insistent, so I simply stared ahead and said 'Non, merci' over and over again whilst walking away.
Some of them will approach you as soon as you get off the metro train, even if you're only changing over to another line!
It's far more annoying than it is scary.

I found that the hair shops were incredibly similar to many of the hair shops I'd frequently back when I lived in London, though I did find one that sold Jane Carter hair products for under 20 euros each. I don't know if that's good or not; I just know that I was surprised to see them there. 

I'll admit - I chose which shops to enter based on size. The bigger shops tended to have a bigger variety.

I went to look for the 'Little India', which I assumed was Passage Brady, but at the moment there's a lot of construction going on and only a few restaurants were open.
So I called it a day and went back home.

However, Cassie's article has proved to be incredibly helpful to me - I literally can't imagine what I would be doing if I hadn't found AromaZone! I've been back twice already (or is it three times...?)

Monday, 22 October 2012

Out with the Old

And in with the familiar!

So, after sitting down and whining and fretting about everything I wanted to do to my hair, what did I do?

Why, mini twists of course!

Putting them in:

I started it late on a Tuesday evening and finished it on Thursday afternoon.

Which means, technically, it took me less than two days and is officially fast than my last set.
Huh. Maybe I'm getting faster?
I think I changed my technique half way through, because one side was longer and straight than than the other.



Did it on dry hair, using only minute amounts of shea butter mixture on each twist section.

And then I got my hair trimmed by The Wonder Thing.



I simply pointed out the ends that weren't curling, gave him the hair scissors and let him do away with the wicked, whittled ends. I know that when it comes to cutting, I'm a bit stingy, whereas my better half was deliciously ruthless in following my instructions and snipping off up to 1.5-2 inches of rubbish ends.



After which I spent the next hour and a half stroking my hair.
Despite how much I despise cutting my hair, I love the way it feels after it's been cut. I definitely need to maintain this feeling throughout the year.

Maintenance:



Wetting my hair in the shower every morning and adding aloe vera gel and some sort of oil (usually this one) on top has kept the twists feeling great. I prefer to do this in the morning because then I'll definitely do it - at night, it feels like far too much hassle to do!
 I've got to admit, I haven't always worn my satin scarf at night - at first I thought I forgot it at home. However, I managed to find it, only to have it continuously falling off my head during the night.
Can't. Win.
I do tie the twists up at night though, to prevent too much movement and overheating of my face during the night.
I co-wash every week or so and go over my scalp partings with an old, soft toothbrush and some witch hazel every week. Also, because the water in Paris is notoriously hard (the pipes in my apartment are a mess), I've started adding Apple Cider Vinegar rinses in to my weekly co-washes.
Every now and then, I re-do the twists around the parameter and some with the loosest roots..
That's it!


It was also semi-perfect timing that I put these in, because then I could join Loo's Challenge with ease, because I was already there.

At the time of this being published, they've been in for 5 weeks (finished them on September the 13th) and I originally thought I may actually be pushing for 8 weeks (until November the 16th). I might even put them back in - who knows?

I just really appreciate the convenience of having my hair like this when I'm so busy settling in and running around. And not having to stretch on a weekly basis! (At least) What joy!

Saturday, 20 October 2012

My Not So Secret Location

Hey. Wanna know where I've been/I am? How about a couple of guesses?

1st clue: Dun dun dun dun dun dun DUN dun dun, dun dun dun duuuuun dun dun dun!*

No?

Okay, 2nd clue. It's a biggie.

Monday, 24 September 2012

Hiatus.


Life is going to get really hectic from here on out for the next month.

For at least the next month.

So I'm going to take a break from the blog until the 21st of October. Maybe. I never can usually stay away.

See you then!

Monday, 17 September 2012

Indecision

On Monday, my hair felt - well, heavy. The shea butter from last week was now backfiring massively against me and my hair felt leaden down and a general shade of bleh.

I dampened my hair with some oat water (you know, when you soak oats, the water turns cloudy? I was making some baked porridge and put too much water in but didn't want to waste it. I siphoned it into a spray bottle). So I threw two tablespoons of greek yoghurt in a bowl with a tablespoon of white wine vinegar (because I'm at my mum's, so I was Grylls-ing it). Mixed them up together and then saturated my sections hair in the mixture. De-tangling with it was pretty easy.

I finished up my baked porridge muffin cups - which tasted great with the yoghurt too! - and then jumped in the shower, made sure to rinse all yoghurt out. Then I conditioned with this random thing:


I'd seen it in the pound shop before, though I'd always seen the ones for darker hair. It claims to contain henna extract, though in what degree...*slightly sceptical look* I don't think there was anything special about it but I enjoyed the change of pace as far as the smell. Tresemmé Naturals, much as I love it, simply smells like bog standard conditioner. Usually, I prefer tasty smells, like chocolate, or coconut or berries or citrus. As long as I smell edible and not in that synthetic way (like banana flavours tend to be - bleurgh!). This conditioner wasn't yummy - I think it reminded me more of the products my mum used to use on me as a kid. It's got parabens in it, but apart from that, it looks CG-friendly.*

Then I did an oil rinse with my Felix Capillus. I wanted to slick on some aloe vera gel but...like I said, at my mums and my usual things were not available.

Bear Grylls may be unimpressed with my lack of innovation but I don't think my mum'd be best pleased if I started chopping up her cactus plants whilst visiting.

I plopped with a T-shirt, which worked surprisingly well. Usually, the T-shirt is wet and I'm still getting drips down my neck. My family officially have better quality stuff than I do.

Then I french braided my hair in my pajama style, in order to keep it stretched. I took it slower than usual and I enjoyed the results. There were less sections of hair missed and because I was focusing, the braid pattern was discernible and didn't get lost halfway down.. Yay! I cross the ends over and pinned them in place, then wore a flower in it. Like this.








And then I stayed at home, due to laziness saving my energy for the marathon I knew lay ahead.

I really want to cut my hair. But I want to see the length of it as well. And I want to dye it. But I don't think people at work would appreciate it. And I want to play with it but have the convenience of not having to do anything with it.

Decisions, decisions...why so difficult?

*I've been overly sniffing it, in order to jog my memory and now I've got a headache. So, basically, the smell may not be to everyone's taste, like most things.