A bit of hair geekery

[urocyon]

I am sitting here with my head slathered in goop made of egg, mayonnaise, and olive oil for an hour. Topped off with a plastic produce baggie held in place by a rubber band (who needs processing caps? ;) ) and a towel. Some kind of distraction is welcome. *g*

Lately, I've been a lot happier with my hair, since I've been trying to work with it. It's rarely tangling much, and I've been finding maybe one fairy knot a week--rather than multiple a day, when I realized what I was doing was just not working. At all.

The best thing I ever did for it? Only using a wide-toothed wooden comb to untangle it before washing, instead of combing and brushing it multiple times a day to make it look less "stringy". *headdesk*

What I'm doing to it now has been a huge improvement over the purposely drying stuff I thought it needed before#, but it's still too harsh. My crown, especially, is getting a bit crispity and flyaway, and flattening out. Not nearly as unpleasant as before, but it's still time for some deep conditioning/protein treatment and a change in routine.

It's time to cave in and buy some products, other than baking soda, vinegar, and coconut oil. :) I ordered some Darcy's Botanicals Natural Coils Curling Jelly last night, hoping it will double as leave-in conditioner and lightweight gel for curl definition. Running across the excellent site, Live Curly, Live Free was a good bonus. Heck, I hadn't even thought of the perils of the "wet cut, with no regard for how the hair lies dry, then try to whip it into shape with products and heat" hair styling approach--which is the only one I've ever gotten!

Between the info there and this amazing before and after thread at naturallycurly.com, some version of the Curly Girl method seems well worth trying. Just the second photo set on that thread was enough. :/ Yeah, my hair used to look like the before picture pretty much all the time.## Eeek.

In a while, I'm planning a trip to the local Sally's. Initially, I was thinking of getting some flat clips and no-snag mini elastics, since I want to try some flat twists at the front of my head to keep the hair out of my face without having to slap on headbands or clip it back. (I finally figured that just because you don't usually see that done with hair the texture of mine, that doesn't mean it's not worth a try. With elastics, since there's no chance in hell the twists will hold themselves.) Now I also want to look for some non-scary conditioner, hopefully unlikely to break my head out, to try conditioner-only washing.

I did consider the idea before, but it scared me initially, just starting out of the "must strip my hair within an inch of its life" mentality. Only washing it with something other than water once a week or so--and oiling it!--has worked out great. Since it's still kinda dry, the CO is not looking like a bad option at all now. And I've had long enough with the minimal intervention, basically benign neglect approach, not to mind adding some slightly more complicated care back in. That's still a lot less than I was doing to it when it was longer before. :-|

BTW, the "hair reflecting mental state/abilities" metaphor also seems to apply here. Treating myself decently and trying to figure out what my strengths are--rather than trying to force my mind to do what other people tell me it should--has also led to much better results. (Not to mention getting away from the "better living through socially acceptable/mandated chemistry" approach to the point that I had no reasonable baseline, in both cases.) And metaphorically combing out some of the snakes has let me treat both my mind and my hair (and probably other people!) more kindly. Imagine that.

That's probably enough hair care geekery for the moment. It's just about time to get the goop rinsed out, anyway. Yay!
_____________

# Much in the way of conditioning made it "stringy" and "dirty-looking"--i.e., with the beginnings of some curl definition!

## So, ironically, one time I tried a spiral perm to try to make it "behave". Then kept using permanent dyes on top of that. Within a year, it started breaking off and eventually matted to the scalp--with daily sulphate washing and light conditioning thrown in the mix. I'm still impressed at how tough my hair is, to be super-fine. *facepalm*

Comments

[polemista]

Oh that CG website is a relevation!
I've somewhat curly but frizzy hair and the knots/combing and fine flying hair is a huge sensory issue. I'm so going to try their method.

[urocyon]

Same here with the sensory stuff. :/ That's another reason I've alternated between keeping it long enough to pull back out of the way, and keeping it super short once it gets in bad enough shape that I have to cut it off (no wonder it was matting up before). With any luck, a little better care will keep the frizz down.

The CG approach makes an awful lot of sense, looking at the science. Of course even wavy hair would tend to be drier. Ah well!

Good luck! I hope you'll keep us posted as to how it's working out. Mine is already feeling less crispy from the extra conditioning. :)

[polemista]

Oh I will! :D
I can't believe I looked through the entire 40+ pages thread but it was so fascinating and I recognized my hair in a lot of "before" pics. Ahem...

[urocyon]

Ha. :) I did the same thing, and kept seeing my hair in the "befores". Bit of a hair perseveration going at the moment, anyway... *g*

[foresthag]

I came across the book Curly Girl when it first came out, and haven't used shampoo since. But I find the whole thing very complicated. At one point I got so confused I cut all my hair off, down to 1" long, and adapted to caring for it as it grew longer.

Last winter I stopped using any product on it at all, and it was working out fine. But then I moved from Vancouver (soft water) to Montreal (hard water) and now it's matting, and I can't scrub my scalp down with my fingers any more because my hair is matting too much. So now I'm back to the conditioner again. (New brand/type, to see how it works.) Curly hair can be a full time job.

[urocyon]

I still need to pick up the book. It does seem complicated, trying to figure out a system that will work for you! I am kind of missing the wash and go that worked well when I was keeping it in a 3/4" buzz cut. The last few times I've washed it, I've just spritzed in some leave-in conditioner and left it. It may not look as good as with the added gel and clipping up at the crown so it doesn't flatten itself out while drying, but it's still looking better than it was--and, more important, not tangling like crazy. :)

When it was longer before, I was spending at least half an hour a day trying to get the snarls out. (A lot of them created by overcombing!) Trying to figure out some kind of routine based on CG that works for me seems like a lot of work sometimes, but it's actually been taking less time and effort than what I was doing when it was long before. So she keeps telling herself. ;) It still takes a lot less work when it's an inch long.

*nods* Where I'm living, we've got liquid chalk coming out of the tap, the kind that if you boil water it gets a mineral scum on top of it. I thought I was used to hard water before, living on karst, but this has a lot more dissolved calcium and is much rougher on my hair. I may go back to using a vinegar or lemon/lime juice in water rinse once a week or so, since it seemed to remove a lot of residue. (Used more often that that, without extra conditioning, it was drying.) Have you tried that since you moved?

Worst case, maybe doing a final rinse with a cup of distilled or deionized water would help get some of the mineral residue out of there. It's annoying to have to buy hair-rinsing water, especially when you're low on money, but I've seen a few people online who have found it necessary with hard water. I've been tempted to try it myself, but AFAICT distilled or deionized water is more expensive and harder to find in the UK than back home in Virginia, and it hasn't seemed worth the trouble of finding some sold for car radiators and lugging jugs home! I don't know if it's readily and cheaply available in supermarkets in Montreal, but they don't stock it next to the other bottled waters here.

Aha, looking for some other strategies for dealing with hard water, I saw one I hadn't considered: boiling it and letting it cool, so some of the minerals will precipitate out. That makes sense. Saving rainwater wouldn't be so feasible, living in an apartment. (I considered that here, but don't want to rinse my hair in London's air pollutants!)

I hope the new conditioner for washing helps with the matting. Maybe a deep conditioning treatment would help, too? That doesn't sound very pleasant at all. :-| Mine has acted like that after too much dyeing and too little conditioning, but I guess sufficiently hard water can almost count as chemical treatment on its own.

Curly hair can be a full time job.

It does seem like it at times! Especially when your executive function isn't up to much, and there are a lot of steps involved. I was hoping to get away with less in the way of products and fuss, but it didn't work out.

[foresthag]

A vinegar rinse hadn't occurred to me. I'll keep that in mind for the next time I feel ready to experiment.

[imafarmgirl.livejournal.com]

How long is your hair? How did the egg and etc. mixture turn out?

I need to do something about mine. I was doing well with it, but now it's all dry because I haven't been feeling well and haven't been paying attention. lol. It's long, fine and thin and more of it is falling out. Ug hair! lol.

[urocyon-c.livejournal.com]

Right now, it's only nape length. It hasn't been growing molasses-slowly, as it sometimes seems, it's just drawing up a lot. Decent growth, not much length!

I was impressed at the results from that egg pack, actually. :) I'd hesitated to put mayonnaise anywhere near my hair before, but at least beaten smooth with the egg, it rinsed out OK with lukewarm water--don't want to cook the egg! That mix was an egg, a tablespoon of mayonnaise, and 2 teaspoons of olive oil. Yours is a lot longer, I think, so it would probably take 2 or 3 eggs. It was a lot softer afterward. Apparently, if yours is fine too, it might like the egg protein. I just rinsed it out well, but it was a little greasy afterward, so you might want to wash it too.

Yeah, it's frustrating when your hair lets you know it wants better care! Especially when you haven't been feeling good already. Mine was shedding more too, not what you usually want! :( I hope you feel like doing more to yours before long.

[imafarmgirl.livejournal.com]

Right now I'm trying a different shampoo. It seems to give it some more body. It's called Wen. I'm not sure how I like it yet though.