Mid-Week Review....

It's only Wednesday, so really, I've only done it twice, thus far, but I'm - I'm mostly satisfied with the whole daily manipulation thing I've been doing in order to apply the MT.

Monday was a bit of an adventure, as I haven't dealt with my hair dry in a while - and my ends are velco-ish, which is rather upsetting, as they aren't NORMALLY like that. I suspect it's because I skipped my usual post DC acidic rinse (tsktsk, Kiya!) and thus my ends are a little more raised than normal. I broke out the Eqyss Survivor Detangler, though, and it worked SO well on my hair - I could almost see myself wearing my hair 'loose', maybe.

Tuesday was easier - I had a better 'grasp' on the style that I'm rocking this week (I need to take pics), and the detangler still in my hair made it even easier - but I'm still not pleased with how my ends were feeling.

I'm going to work out tonight, and I'm planning on DC'ing while I'm working out (just a quickie), and I'll do the acidic rinse afterwards to see if that makes a difference - I hope it does, because otherwise, I might have to go back to the twists, which I really don't want to do. I'm enjoying having my hair more 'loose' than normal.

Shoot, I might keep messing around and start exploring the wide world of wash & go's!

Anyhow, the style that I'm rocking now has a single part from ear to ear (roughly, it's more a little in front of my ears) with a flat twist starting at each temple and meeting in the middle as a braid in the front. The back is simply flat twisted straight down, and I stick the braid from the top into the flattwist section and hold it down with a GHD Pin, and I'm good to go! It looks like a single french twist, almost, but I avoid the dinosaur head look, and my shorter hairs in the front/around my temples aren't stressed, either.

I didn't talk at all about the LHCF Meet-up I went to! Met quite a few really nice women, had a good lunch, talked LOADS about hair, and then we went to Ulta to browse. I ended up leaving with a 10 pack of Good Hair Days Pins (which, I am utterly and totally and crazy in love with), a sample size of the Ojon Conditioner (which I largely brought because it smells SO damn good), and one of those 'temp hair dye' things in - red, of course. *lol*

I want to sing the praises of GHD pins allllll over the place! They actually HOLD my hair. One pin, and it's a stable, solid, actually a little difficult to get out, hold. I love them, and they will be MOST useful in experimenting with different styles.

The Ojon stuff smells good, but I don't know. It's only 2oz, so it's not really enough for me to try and conditioner with (hahahahahahaa! triple the amount, and I MIGHT be able to do it), so I was going to try to use it as a leave-in (did I mention the SMELL? So. Damn. GOOD!). I tried a little on my ends, and it was nice for a hot second, but once it dried, it was totally nothing special.

The Dye stuff I tried right before I DC'd, which of course washed it out. My hair is dark enough that really, you can't even see it (really, am I surprised? No, not at all), so who knows when I'll actually ever use that - maybe when I get some grays, or something.

I've started back up on my daily usage of MT - I had the itches on Mon/Tues, but I seem to be better, today. The occasional random tingle, but otherwise, it's pretty good. I've got some plans in the works for my MT mix - we shall see how that falls out.

Also, I took advantage of the break on the 'Buy Nothing' Challenge, and had fun at MountainRose Herbs. All together, I got:

Horsetail (Shavegrass) - this, I'm going to use as a booster for the MT - I'll get into more details below.
Nettle Leaf - this, I'm going to use as a booster for the MT - I'll get into more details below.
Fenugreek Seed powder - this is supposed to be the Queen of Slip in the herb world - I've been wanting to experiment with it for a while.
Hibiscus powder - I'm actually going to have to check TLHC to figure out why I wanted this (or do a quick search on my blog), but since it was in stock, and I was ordering anyhow, I figured 'Why Not?' *lol*
Irish Moss powder - this, like the fenugreek, is supposed to be slip-almighty. I remember thinking that I could make a Porosity Control dupe with this and some citric acid, so yeah.
8oz Cobalt Blue Jar - I got two of these - I thought it would be nice to have some 'pretty' containers for my mixes.
1oz Amyris essential oil - I've been on a 'goodsmell' kick for a while, and I got this because it's the cheaper (and less endangered) alternative to Sandalwood, a scent that I adore. We shall see what I think.
1/2oz Lemongrass essential oil - I was in love with the smell of some Carol's Daughter stuff, that smelled almost just like lemongrass, so I figured if I hated that Amyris, I could use this instead.
16oz Castor oil - this was VERY cheap, and if my 'boost' works the way I want it to, I might be using a lot of it.
Neem Oil - this one, was pure PJ'ism. I've heard raves about it, and figured, hey! Why not?
8oz Amber Screw Cap Bottle - this I'm going to use for the boost, as well.


Soooo. The Boost. There's currently a revival of something that was apparently on NP a while ago on LHCF, called the 'MoeGro' Recipe. I'm not even going to get into the love that my people seem to have with misspelling hair care names - I think I've whinged on that before.
Anyhow. The 'mix' is basically an infusion of either horsetail or nettle herbs in an oil that soaks into the skin, along with some aloe vera gel for the skin healing/mucopolysaccharides.

So. Me & my bright self thought that since I'm already adding oils to my MT mix (which also already has the skin healing/mucopolysaccarides in there), that it would be an interesting 'boost' to use horsetail and nettle infused oil as the add-in.

So. *sigh* It's going to be a while before I can actually try this out, as I'm not supposed to get the order from MR.com until the 9th, and then I want to wait at least another week for the oils to get good and infused, so the earliest that I could start using my boosted mix would be the 16th, which isn't BAD, but it's just - argh.

One of the sistern on the OCT/MT Challenge thread pointed out that I might be going just too too overboard, so I've decided to use the boosted mix on a specific spot on my head - I'm thinking about using it on the still slowgrowing/thinnish patch in front of my right ear. That way, I have a 'control' area, I will continue to use the 'unBoosted' mix on the rest of my hair, and I'd want to use it for at least 2 weeks to see if I can see any difference between that area, and the rest of my head. If it passes, then I'll start using in on my whole head.

Hrm. That brings me to thinking about refreshing my current mix. I'm almost out, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to need to stir up some more before the 16th - but how much should I make? Hrm. I would jsut need a months worth, so maybe about 2oz? That should be enough to get me through, and I was planning on making just an ounce of the bMT..... so yeah, that should work, nicely.

*smile* If this works the way that I hope it will, I think that I will officially be DONE with the hunt for a growth enhancer, and I'll do this as long as I can - pun, totally intended.

Hrm. I think that's it, for right now, in the wild world of hair.

I'm still mulling over what I'll do to my hair this weekend - maybe I'll experiment with the perm rods?