An unexpected (though logical) side effect of my hair vitamins regime has been - well, my hair has been growing - EVERYWHERE.
I'm a mildly hairy woman - arms, legs, line below the belly button, and one stubborn hair on my chin (besides the other areas that us adults usually have hair). Lately though, I've been noticed hair growing in other places, as well as my normal hair being longer. For instance!
A few weeks ago, I was in some meeting, playing with my wedding set, and noticed hair growing out of my FINGERS. Very fine, very soft, pitchblack hair. EEEP!
A week or so after that, I was rubbing my chin deep in thought, and found that my usual chin hair had somehow managed to grow in two inches and THICK before I found it and plucked it as I have been doing for years.
Today, I was at a lunch banquet for work, in a FREEZING room, and noticed that the hair on my arms was EXCEPTIONALLY long. Now, usually, sometimes I'll shave my arms - but my arm hair has NEVER been this long. Once again, it was pretty thin, but LONG. Seeing that prompted me to check my chin - and lo & behold! The hair had grown back - about a 1/4 inch long - AND a second one has joined it.
*checks underarms* Yup - I shaved Sunday, and I've already got a nice bit of stubble there - where as usually, I could go for at least a week before FEELING any hair, much less SEEING it.
It's really cool seeing these signs that my regime is working - the hair on my HEAD is so wild and wooly, that most of the time, I can't tell WHAT's going on in my scalp. Though - I have noticed 'tingling' up there in the mornings after I take my MSM. I don't know if it's a mind trip (which, it could be) or if I'm really feeling my scalp - do stuff. I plan on adding biotin - I'm going to order it tomorrow after I get paid, so I'll most likely start using it next week, and from what I've heard - it REALLY gives you the tingles. I've been keeping an eye on my hairline - I've been focusing the SS oil there mainly, because that is the thinnest area of my hair. I know that part of it is because I have 'baby' hair there - super fine, barely wavy, and did I mention super fine? - but I know that should grow in too with time.
I was feeling rather down on myself earlier, because I KNOW that I have not been taking proper care of myself - we aren't even going to TALK about my diet - but seeing these sort of things tells me that my body is functioning rather well - otherwisde it wouldn't be wasting energy on something as pointless as HAIR.
Wild Woman
Okay - let's catch up here.
I rinsed the henna out Sunday morning, as usual, and put the koHumectress in. I LIKED the smell, and it was really, really, thick, which is something that I've missed in the cheapie ones. I let it sit for about two hours, and then rinsed & tried to comb out.
Well. I'm not sure if the koHumctress is one of those kinds of conditioners that if you let stay on too long, it starts pulling moisture out of your hair or what, but - it was NOT pleasant. I rinsed it all out, mixed some V05 & honey together, and put that in my head.
Then, hubby called from work and said that he wanted to go out to eat - so I had to figure out what to do with my hair. I had been thinking about combing gel through my hair so see if I could hold onto the curls without them shrinking away to nothingness, and I figured - what better time? So, I mixed up some ORS L&T gel, a touch of olive oil and some HH, and slapped it into my hair, and combed it out. I have to say - I used a little bit too much, and I was worried about my hair drying in time to go out!! When I went to Sally's, I also got four large hair clips - two black and two white. I pulled out the black ones, and worked on making a semi-cute style sith my hair pullled back on either side, then a lil funky bang-type thing in the front.
I can't WAIT for my hair to get longer - it ALMOST worked, but my hair is still to 'choppy' lengthwise for it to look really nice. So, I just slapped it into a pufro, plucked out the edges, and let it dry. It looked really cute - all my curls were happily in tight lil spirals - nanoslinkyhead, as hubby called me.
I slept on it, and the next morning - YOUCH!! The gel had dried nice and crunchy, and my hair was SOOOO not feeling being combed out - so I just got it soaking wet, pulled it out as much as I could, and rocked another pufro. I knew that I wanted to twist on Monday night, so I wasn't too worried about it. I tossed a scarf over my head for my drive in to work, as I drive with the windows down, and didn't want the wind to force my wet hair to dry into a half high fro.
Interestingly enough, my hair was WET almost all day long - it didn't fully dry out until the ride HOME at the end of the day.
I knew that I was going to have to use some conditioner - to wash the gel out of my hair, as well as to give me enough slip to comb through it, so I figured I would give the koHumctress another chance. This time - it worked WONDERFULLY. I just got my hair really wet, tried to rinse out as much of the gel as I could, then squished the koHumectress into my hair. It was almost instantly soft, and the tangles loosened enough that I was able to comb through with almost no problems. My hair is still too short (on my poor, roughed up left side) to get a good grasp on to comb out the ends without tugging the roots, but the koHumectress did a pretty good job - gave me plenty of slip, and definitely cleaned all the gel out of my hair.
I rinsed it out, combed out my hair once more, then sat down to do some twists. I'm thinking it took about two and a half hours - comb/part/WP/Gel/twist. They are - medium size, I suppose, rather than my usual TINY ones. I'm working to be sure that I get used to making larger twists, so that I cna keep the twisting time to around two hours - anything longer starts to irk me - and I don't know WHAT I was tripping on with the 5-6 hour long twisting. I really think that combing my hair out WELL before I start twisting helps a lot - it makes the parting process ever so much easier.
I'm going out of town this weekend, so I think that I'm going to have to *weeps* skip a henna session....but wait! I'm taking the Labor Day holiday and a couple of days after that off - so I'll just henna late! Yesaah!!
Speaking of henna - my roots still laugh in the face of henna, so I better enjoy these red tips I have, cuz once they are gone, I'm back to my natural hair color. Ah well, I've got a year (or more) to get used to it, so I'll be fine. I simply REFUSE to bleach my hair again, so I'm going to have to work with the color that comes out o my head.
I've really gotten to like using stuff on my head that is edible. It makes SOO much sense to me - why would I want to use stuff on the OUTSIDE of me that would be POSIONOUS to the inside? I mean really, that can't POSSIBILY be healthy.
I've been thinking about trying to make a homemade conditioner - honey, powdered milk, olive oil and maybe some aloe vera..... Isn't that almost SMT? Hmm, I might need to look at that thread again.
Shopping on Sunday......
I had to go to Sally's today to get another applicator, as I forgot to get it Friday, and while there, of course, I had to drift through the aisles and see if anything looked interesting.
I considered buying some Humectress, considering all the RAVE reviews I have been hearing, but decided to NOT drop 18 bucks on 20 oz of conditioner that I KNOW I'm going to fly through. On another hair board I'm on, someone was asking whether the knock off stuff worked as well as the real thing. I'm waiting (patiently, patiently!) for my free sample of Humectress to show up in the mail, but figured while I was waiting - why not scoop up a 5 buck bottle of the knockoff stuff, and see how it worked? I also figured that it would be easier to tell a difference if I used the real thing AFTER I used the fake stuff. I would expect to see an OBVIOUS difference once I use the real stuff if they are really different. If I don't see much of a difference - or it's worse for my hair, then I know that the real deal isn't worth the money.
I plan on using it tomorrow once the henna comes off as a DT, bu t my debate is whether or not to add honey to it. I'm thinking that since it's supposed to be SUCH high class stuff, I won't. In fact, I definitely think I won't - I want to see how well it works (at 5 bucks for 16 oz) compared to the cheapo stuff (0.89 for 18 oz) plus honey. Once again, if I don't see an impressive difference - I know it's not worth it.
*nods* sounds like a plan.
So - Henna #5 is currently working it magic on my head.
I clarified before doing it - a mix of honey and baking soda and some water that I put in my hair, and let sit while I was taking a shower, then rinsed it out. I think I've figured out my personal 'siganl' that a clarification is needed. Firstly, my scalp starts to itch (though, I'm STILL wondering if that was the pectin) and secondly (and really, most importantly) my hair takes a while to actually get 'wet'. I mean, it'll be wet, but not really WET, and I have to work my hair under the water for a while before it acts right and feels really - moist. So - I left that in, and rinsed it out before doing the henna, and when I got out the shower, I noticed that my hair looks REDDER wet. I've kinda noticed it before, but it was really distinctive this time.
This henna contains
1 henna bag
The rest of the paprika
Honey
White Rain Conditioner.
Pretty basic, in other words - *LOL* except for the paprika, it's basically the mixture that I started with.
Anyhow, applied the henna firstly with lines against my scalp, then glooped the rest onto it. The usual, ya know? It's earlier (but not really by much, as I usually henna when I get home, and it was 5pm when I did it) in the day than I usually do it - but I was out with friends last night and REALLY didn't feel like dealing with it.
It amazes me just how STEAMY my head gets with the saran wrap and henna and all - I left the edge of the shower cap, and can feel the warm, moist, henna-scented air drifting out.
Fast Fingers
So, largely because I'm impatient as all get out, but also because I wanted to see if it would come out as good after I slept on it, I un-twisted my hair tonight in a twist-out.
I definitely need longer hair to pull this off right - right now, my hair looks like a mushroom - not soft enough to be limp, but not long enough to hang nicely.
Though - the twistouts I had during camp looked REALLY good - I think it was because they had shrunk up more. I figure, if it looks a hot mess in the morning, I'll just get it good and wet, and tie a PHHB around it, and be done with it.
After I took my twists out, I massed some SS oil in, and then firmly told myself to keep my fingers out of my hair, as the twist out is the easiest hair style to mess up - play in it too much, and you loose all the twist definition you had originally.
Which, is one of the reasons I'm writing this, as keeping my hands busy is the only way to keep them out of my head.
Henna tommorow! *yay*
I love henna'ing - it's messy, and it's goopy, but dang, it's FUN. And I get many lovely results - I need to take a picture outside in the sun so that I can try to get an accurate picture of the color - it's GLORIOUS. I'm not sure if it's more red, or more brown - it's - interesting, really. It's SUCH a natural color that it changes depending on what I'm wearing, the lighting, and the amount of makeup I have on. And the way it changes from FIRST rinsing the henna out to the day afterwards - it's - impressive really.
I know that some people worry about it going to 'dark' but.... *sigh* considering how DARK my natural hair color is, I figure that the darker it gets, the less obvious the demarcation will be.
Last day of twists...
...as tomorrow is a twistout!!
So - this week. My twists have been VERY fuzzy. I don't know if it's because I didn't use enough gel - and I even regelled them Tuesday night! - or if it's because I didn't use as much WP this time - but it's fuzzy as all GET out. I've got quite a few sections of hair where full length strands of hair has escaped the twist - and I wasn't even rubbing my head all that much. My scalp has also been suprisingly itchy too this week - I'm thinking it might be time for a bit of a clarifier on my scalp. I wonder if it might be a side effect of the pectin?
I plan on doing a twist-out tomorrow, and then henna'ing - though, I'm supposed to be running some errands and going over a friends house tomorrow, so - I might not get home in enough time to really do henna.........okay, yeah, who am I fooling? I'lll most likely do it tomorrow night! *LOL*
I'm pretty convinced that the vitamins are working - I cut my nails last weekend, and they are already starting to extend over my fingertips again. I have this one STUBBORN chin hair that usally is very thin and only grows to be about 3/4 of an inch, and I was looking in the mirror a few days ago, and the damn thing was SUPER thick and about 2 inches long!!!!!!!! Plus - and this is really creepy - the hair on my fingers in coming back - super fine, black hair. I used to have this before, when I was in college, but I haven't seen it for YEARS - now, they are showing back up. Yes, yes, me thinks my body is getting all it needs to grow, grow, grow!
I still seem to be shedding a healthy bit - I'm actually *gasp* considering getting a BRUSH to insure that I get all the shed hairs out. I know, I know - I think that it's insane to even TRY to use a brush on nappy hair, but then, not too long ago, I also didn't know that cones were the debbil on my hair. Maybe.
I'm debating on stopping cutting my hair for a few months - maybe from now until late October (which is when our housewarming is) just to see how much length I gain. I think I've most likely cut off at LEAST 3 inches by now, but my hair still looks the same length - which would make sense, as I figure that I grow about 3/4 of an inch a month normally - so an inch a month (because of the vitamins/nutrition) would make sense. Also - the really short patch I had in the back of my head - I'm thinking that maybe I DIDN'T break it off, but that I cut it off when I cut out a loc to to a dye test on. It's close enough to my back hairline for that to have been possible - and that piece of hair has gotten almost twice as long now - it's in a twist mostly by itself, and I can feel the thicker bottom section before the twist goes really thin - so that's a VGT!
I need to pick up a new applicator bottle tomorrow, and another set of measuring spoons (I cut the end off of one before checking that it would fit in the bottle, and it's a pain in the patootie digging it out of the bottle now) and some more paprika. Other than that - I don't think that I'll be getting any hair stuff - I've got plenty of conditioner and baking soda.
Length note: middle of the forehead twist goes to the middle of the bride of my nose - about even with my eyes.
Ahhh...
I had so much FUN playing with my hair. After I DT'd it, I broke it into about 8 fat twists, and put WP on each one. Then, I let them dry out completely. Then, I untwisted, combed out, put MORE WP on them, and retwisted. Then, I untwisted, massaged with SS oil, and retwisted. Then, I untwisted, and retwisted with L&T gel into itsy bitsy twists - and it only took me two and a half hours!!
Well, I did do another snipsnip - when I did the fat twists, I had a little 'end' bit that was TINY - maybe a 1/4 size of the rest of the twists. I snipped off those 'thin' ends, (which did feel rough as well), and twisted the rest.
During the whole twist/retwist/blow out process - I took a picture of my hair, 'blown' out.
Ummm - if I ever doubted the fact that I have thick hair, I just need to look at that picture, and return to sanity. Yes, I have a SHITELOAD of hair.
So yes, I definitely have thick hair. Sheesh. And I have a LOT of it too.
Umm. In other odd news - I've been saving my hair. I have a little bottle that used to ahve boullion in it, that I use to tuck in the strands of hair that I find when I do massages or when I comb my hair out. Hubby asked me WHY I'm saving my hair, and honestly, I don't know.... it just feels right.
