Hair we go

I expect to look something like this post-lock down 

So it's Wednesday today and I guess K is going to the hairdresser. Lucky Scotty's new random restrictions aren't shutting down hairdressers but only a bunch of other non-essential services, like nail parlours and beauticians, that we were told two days ago would stay open. It didn't make sense then and it doesn't make sense now. Nothing does - am I right?!

But I'm so glad K brought us to this inevitable point so quickly. Hair. It was always just going to be a matter of days before we got to hair. As it turns out it was really just a matter of day.

As I started reflecting on staying inside for months on end, I tried to focus on the positives. I'm not really happy with my hair right now, but maybe if I treat it right I'll emerge in a few months with long flowing locks! I won't have to put sunscreen on everyday, I'll never wear make up, have time to apply lovely skin care. Maybe I'll emerge with beautiful skin too. These are my dreams of course, but it's possible I'll emerge sallow, after months inside and little exercise. After the amount of toast I ate yesterday it's likely I'll also emerge fatter than I am now - will online yoga really be able to compete with all the toast. Perhaps bread will become increasingly unavailable releasing me from this particular problem. But heck you guys, let's focus on the positives.

It also occurred to me that now would be the perfect time to go blonde. I could do it, stay inside, no one would know, if it looks good I can keep it, if it looks bad it would have just been a failed experiment and I'd go back to brown, just my little secret. But going blonde would require a trip to the hairdresser and I don't know if I should do that. I mean K already had an appointment, it's one thing to keep an appointment in these trying times, it's another thing to make one! Plus, do I want to increase the trauma to my children? Things are unsettled enough, going blonde may just push them over the edge. Of course, it's only day two of serious restrictions and all the kids at home, in a couple of months I'll probably be platinum blonde from a box and crying into my morning gin.

Some of what I’d like to discuss

(Some enjoyable MSC fan art I discovered the other day)

It’s pretty good to be back, you guys, and I’ll tell you why. 

My Mum had a stroke a few weeks ago*. My Dad fell over on his way to Woolworths last Friday and broke a rib**. I’m going back to work on Monday and my little baby, Tugboat, is starting childcare three days a week***. Also, global pandemic. 

Fair is foul and foul is fair!

But what I really want to focus on today is whether my hair appointment will go ahead on Wednesday and I’m not sure I’d have the space to do that if it weren’t for MSC.

As J advised, I kind of went blonde for a while there between June 2018 and June 2019, but then returned to my beloved brunette before Tugboat was born because it felt wrong to birth a child while harboring blonde highlights. 

But that was nine months ago and girl, you look at my hair and you can tell. 

I walked past a salon in the new neighbourhood the other day and thought ‘that’s it, I’m making an appointment before it’s too late’. I made an appointment for Wednesday.

And though Scott, our Prime Minister who has the nerve to be named SCOTT during a national crisis, has not closed hairdressers, I kind of think it will be irresponsible of me to go. BUT I do love supporting a small business. And they only have one client at a time in the salon, and have committed through social media to maintaining the highest standards of hygiene. But social distancing! Infection control!

What am I going to do?****

*She’s doing really well, thanks for asking

**He’ll be fine in a little while, thanks for asking

***He’s been to multiple orientations and is settling in nicely, thanks for asking.

****LOL, we all know I’m going, this is just a therapeutic exercise.

Hair we go again

Oh, geez, I hope K does not touch those buttons!

Me, I'm just at home and thinking about my hair. So what else is new. I've been thinking about it pretty incessantly for the last few decades months. Basically since I started losing my pregnancy hair. But finally I've booked a haircut. I've been putting this off because I literally do not have enough money to pay for a haircut and also because I didn't know what I wanted to do to my hair. But I've just decided not to eat for the next month so I can afford a haircut and this way I get a hot new body as well as new hair. (Just jokes. Don't starve yourself for a hot new body!! Obviously I'm going to eat but I just won't buy my coffee or something.)

I've also made some admissions to myself about my hair (and myself). Most significantly:

• My hair is so dry and frizzy, if I don't do something about it stat I'm going to descend into a spiral of self loathing. 
• A long bob actually looks shit on me and nothing like it does in my imagination, which is like this:

They say admitting you have a problem is the first step, but I feel like I've done nothing but admit I have a hair problem for the last 10 years. I guess life really is cyclical, I learn something, act on it, forget it. I guess maybe I just need to get a proper job so that I can afford haircuts and then go and get them regularly. Lesson learnt! (See you in 6 months when I've forgotten this lesson again.)

Fuck you Dove 48 hour antiperspirant

Last week I saw an ad for this deodorant which I found highly offensive. It had a bunch of women lifting up their arms so you could see their underarms. It clearly felt it was pretty confronting and cutting edge showing all those underarms. Like, hey! We're all women! We all have underarms! 

But you know what all those underarms had in common with each other? They were all hairless. You know what they didn't have in common with my underarms and a bunch of other women's underarms? They were hairless. If you want to actually show what a normal underarm looks like why don't you include hairy ones? Stubbly ones. If that ad ain't been so in love with itself I probably wouldn't have cared.  Seriously Dove, that ad was so offensive I would never by your products again. Except I already don't buy your products because I'm trying to minimise my impact on the earth and avoid the shit you put in your products. 

Short hair don't care (AM)

When I was in my late teens I had this pair of secondhand baby blue men's corduroy jeans. I effing loved those pants, I wore them all the time. I wore them so much that they just eventually became too trashed for me to wear anymore and I had to say goodbye to them. I was sad but I didn't dwell on it. It was only a couple of years later when I found the exact same pair of jeans and tried them on that I realised what they had meant to me.  I am not exaggerating when I say that putting them on was like coming home. It really was the first time I felt that feeling people talk about, coming home. In those jeans I felt more like myself than I did in anything else. But I was young and it was the nineties. I guess I eventually trashed those jeans too, but fashionwise I moved on and if I found those jeans now I'd definitely try them on but I probably wouldn't buy them. I'm a different me now.

The next time I had that feeling was years later when I cut my hair short after years of wearing it long. In my late teens and early twenties I wore my hair in a pixie cut and various iterations of a short mullet and I think I only grew it out really because LB liked it better than way and I guess I was ready for a change. Long hair looks great so why wouldn't I want to have it. But after years of longer hair at some point in my mid twenties I cut it all off and it was so liberating and again I had that feeling that I was my truest self again.

Since then I haven't really worn my hair really short, I usually wear it long but have dabbled with the odd bob. But as you know I hate my hair. It's so dry and untameable and despite the odd good hair day or phase of peace with my hair I often wonder why I bother to have it long at all. I guess in part it's a hope that one day it will miraculously be beautiful. It's also because I can't be bothered putting up with the complaints of LB (who does not like change), my mum ('Oh but your long hair is beautiful...what does LB think of your short hair?'), Baby ('I think you shouldn't get it cut above your shoulders') and Newbie ('No Mummy! NO!' when my hair is up). But you know what, screw those guys. Why would I base my hairstyle on what they want. It's not those guys that have to run their fingers through those brittle, dry, knotted ends or look in the mirror every morning and be greeted with, at best, a feeling of mild disappointment or, at worst, blinding despair. They don't have to figure out daily how to make themselves look cute with a cruel joke of a head of hair. 

And so I just did it, I cut it off. Oh I didn't go for the pixie cut or mullet of yesteryear, just a short bob, but it is so liberating, so simpatico to the rest of me. 

The weird bit at the back caught by the plant is not part of the style. Just another cruel joke on the part of the hair gods. Will they never let me have good hair for one minute!?!

Mum and LB and Baby and Newbie, don't they know the joy of running their hands through their hair and not being stalled by knots and grimmness. Don't they know they feeling of having hair in a style that doesn't just boof out straight away. No! They probably don't know that joy because they don't know the opposite, that which is my life with long hair. I feel so happy to have this haircut to remember how great short hair is. Moreover I'm reminded that really the only time I really love a haircut is if it is a drastic change. And well done of course. Why would I deny myself these truths? These joys? It's like Roxette once said, 'listen to your heart!'

The promised land (AM)

Right now it's the middle of winter, as I'm sure most of you are well aware. This means, presumably for everyone, at best dressing as well as you can when you just want to be as warm as you can. Which can mean dressing pretty badly sometimes. Desperately. For me it also means I'm in a 3/4-length puffer most of the time, so who even cares. Except I do care. A further confounding factor is that I'm 6.5 months pregnant which means I'm very uncomfortable and can't fit into most of my clothes. So looking good and feeling good is not really an option for me.

Furthermore I had a haircut about a month or so ago and though I was and am perfectly happy with it, I feel like I need to shake things up and make a substantial change. Don't worry, if you've been enjoying the sweet relief of this blog sans hair complaints I'm not going to ruin if for you. I'm not complaining, I'm just saying I'm contemplating some future options for my hair. Including:

And:*

And I plan to make this change just before I have the baby, which will be in spring.

We all know how much I make of the colder seasons, my love of autumn fashions and doonas, but there is nothing like a winter pregnancy wardrobe and blah hair to make the arrival of spring seem so full of promise.

My projected late-October self is dressed so well with such great hair. I'm reasonably slim and look younger. Even though the real late-October me will not just be 3 months older but a whole other child older too. And no doubt tireder. I will probably be at home as much as I am now, without the incentive to dress nice and with the added disincentives of being frequently covered in baby vomit and excess milk spilling from my bosom. But though I know all this in my head my heart still envisages a beautiful me, dressed however I want, but always really well. Probably laughing and looking casually, comfortably glamorous. God, I can't wait to be late-October me. 

*These images are both lifted from The Sartorialist, to whom I am very grateful for taking such great pics of great hair.

The help I need (PM)

HAHAHAHHAHAHA! A hair specialist! Good one subconscious! I mean sure, that was totally lame bowing to the patriarchy and making K's GP a man, but the hair specialist was a touch of genius!

If only, am I right?! God, I need a hair specialist. At least I've found my old GP who moved to the outer suburbs but finally does one day a week in the inner suburbs. But she's not going to sort out my hair is she?! I guess I just need to see a hairdresser. I mean, they are hair specialists, aren't they. But I've never met one that could cure what ails me. Not in the long term anyway. Long story short, I've been thinking about booking a haircut for a long time and today I'm finally going to do it. I'm delighted that I no longer have to rely on only my subconscious to tell me my innermost desires but can also use K's! Thanks K's subconscious, I'll be in touch soon with some more problems you can solve!

Back to basics (PM)

Oh god! I have so much to say on this matter. I mean, hair! Is there anything that elicits a more passionate response from me? Pretty much no. Unless we are talking about hunks. Then yes! Or that Blur concert I went to during the hiatus. Which it pains me (but probably K more) to say that although feeling like our whole lives, and more intensely the last 2 years, had been building to a point of seeing Blur together, K had to miss it because of aforementioned baby. And that concert was pretty much everything I’d hoped for and maybe even more. I guess for K though her life and more intensely the last 2 years have also been building to having a baby, so I guess it’s ok. 

Anyway, I really digress.

So geez, where to begin? One problem is that another thing I did over the hiatus was go back to my office job. And that is where I am right now, so will I be able to get down on epaper all the things I want to on this topic? Probably not. God, where do I begin?!  K’s post brought up so much for me!

A couple of months ago I moved from a fringeless style to a fringe style. That is I decided one day I wanted a fringe and I thought about booking a cut and when I could do it and then I just walked into the bathroom and cut myself a fringe. I have to say it was the best thing I’d done in ages. Hair-wise. It really liberated me from my perceived need for a hairdresser. It looked pretty good and it would grow out anyway and I didn’t spend bulk cash on it. I am pretty committed to the self-cut right now, though that may change when I need a more substantial cut. Interestingly though, I’ve been pretty happy with my hair lately. By my standards, which is to say I don’t hate it as much as usual and some days I even feel happy with it. And last weekend I even got a complement on it, so I’m in a pretty good place. That may be because I’m essentially on the Semi-Scrubs Program, which I really see as more of a Hippy Scrubs Program, but I’ll talk more about that another day.

Another part of this may be the fact that cutting a fringe into a hairstyle suffering from a post-pregnancy wispy halo has meant that those stupid wispies are suppressed under my fringe which has really helped I think.

But finally, I think I may have reached a new level of maturity on this. When I walked into the bathroom a couple of months ago to cut my fringe I had this really zen feeling that whatever happened, I could always change my hair. If the cut sucked I could cut all my hair off or wait for it to grow out. Hair changes and maybe you can embrace that and let it guide you through new cuts. When I look at photos from a holiday 2 years ago when I had a short bob I think I look pretty cute. I don’t have to stick to the program, and neither do you! Any of you! Don’t be afraid to challenge your hair, Mate, or accept the challenge it gives you. You can always change your hair!

Back to basics (AM)

Hello crab friends. Winter hiatus is over! Part 2 of 2015 has begun!

As you probably know, I spent part of the hiatus having a baby and the rest of it keeping the baby alive.  So you can imagine, the world has changed a lot for me. (Mate, your were spot on when you said this and also OMG, it hadn't sunk in that you blogged from the labour ward when Newbie was born, and what that means. Far out.)

But as they say, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Even though the last month has been a goddamn thunderstorm of transformation and change and terror and the like, an aspect of my old life has endured. Not just endured, it's clung on for dear life, like those people who the Doctors are sure will die when you turn their life support off and then the family makes the difficult decision to do that but then when they switch the machines off the people live! They live! 

That thing is my hair, you guys. It's a classic Miss Soft Crab preoccupation and even though there is a tiny crab in my life these days, it has only become more intense. 

Pregnancy was kind to my hair. It became thick and awesome and would basically look good without me having to do anything. I knew it was a temporary state, so I decided to just enjoy it while it lasted. And it's not like as soon as the baby was born my hair started to look lank and thin again. No. The problem was that as soon as the baby was born I realised that I hadn't made it to the hairdresser to get  a fringe trim before the baby was born. It was one of only two things on my list of things to do before I have a baby! The other was go to the movies a lot, which I did (well, I went twice). But the baby came early. I was caught off guard. So my fringe just grew and grew. 

A too-long fringe is highly annoying, and normally culminates in me waking up one morning, thinking I can't take it anymore and then arranging to get a haircut that very same day. That day arrived about 2 days after the baby was born. But when you've just had a baby, you can' t just go and do things because you decide you can't take it anymore. So for three weeks I felt infuriated by my fringe during most every minute of every hour of the day. And because of new baby, I was awake for quite a considerable number of those minutes and hours. But how the hell would I ever find the time to get a fringe trim? I really couldn't see the way forward. I started pinning it back with bobby pins and wearing a head scarf a couple of times (not that I know how to do that) but that just made me paranoid that I looked really terrible and was 'letting myself go'. It's a confusing time, the first few weeks. 

Anyway, after crying on the phone to my Mum and in all the rooms in the house to Appleheart, we all decided that I had to get a haircut as a matter of priority. 

I made an appointment at a local place which turned out to be very cute. The hairdresser was very sweet and her business is a one-man-band. She had excellent hair and when I saw that, I relaxed into the chair knowing that everything would be alright. 

I relaxed a little too much I think, because I didn't really explain what I wanted and the haircut she gave me has a few too many layers in it I think. And I'm worried that as my pregnancy hair starts to fall out, this haircut will look worse and worse. 

But it doesn't matter. I'm pretty sure that even if the haircut was great, I would still spend a lot of time thinking about my hair. Worrying about how it will look as it falls out. Worrying about whether it will change, which is something that can happen what with all the baby hormones. I would still be preoccupied with my hair because I am half of Miss Soft Crab and that's what we do. Even when everything changes. That doesn't. 

How do you wear that? - Bandanas

Gee, I really hope that K was asking the universe in general about how to wear bandanas, because if she was asking me she was seriously barking up the wrong tree. I barely know how to wear everyday items like a dress. This morning I decided I wanted to wear something other than jeans and a jumper but just ended up dressed like a mourning Amish woman.

Then in a move to rectify the situation before leaving the house I changed my shoes and coat but just ended up looking like a mourning Amish woman with bling on her feet. So don't look at me for advice on how to wear any damn thing. Even Amish women don't wear headscarves and instead opt for those funny hats that remind me of what doctors wear in surgery.

Oh sure, I've worn a bandana from time to time, even with the occasional successful outcome which leads me to think I'm going to do it on the regular and it will become as part of my signature style as jeans and jumpers. Part I quickly learn any success I've had with bandanas was a fluke and I was just a fool to believe.

So really, how do you wear that?

Hair Peace (PM)

I'm so glad K addressed this issue. I've been meaning to ask her if she was on the semi-scrubs program and now I know. I'm seriously considering it myself but I just bought a 1-litre bottle of conditioner recently so WTF am I going to do with that?! Plus I think it is important to note that hormonally, and therefore hairmonally (HA!), K and I are in pretty different positions. I am 1-year post pregnancy and she is mid-pregnancy. If you don't know what it is like to be a year post-pregnancy let me tell you that a few months after giving birth all that hair you have retained falls out. And then, in its place, new hairs grow. New hairs that are in a substantially different place to the other hairs on your head. My friend L-bomb had her own baby a few months after Newbie was born. Late last week she texted me and we talked about this problem.

 

 

I guess what I'm trying to say is that it will take a lot more than no scrubs to help me. But word up for K for maximising her pregnancy hair. 

Hair Peace (AM)

I thought it was about time I updated you folk on how my no scrubs life is progressing. You know, if you're interested. God knows we are, but god (and only god) also knows why we are so obsessed with our hair. I guess it's a dark (brown) mark we both bear. 

Anyway, it's been ten months now. Ten whole months since shampoo and conditioner last touched my hair, though I started washing with bi-carb and conditioning with apple-cider vinegar about 6 months ago. So I guess it's more of a semi-scrubs life, really.

Frankly, I'm pretty effing happy with things. I basically have this straight on top, curly at the bottom thing going on, which gives my hair a kind of early sixties vibe, like around the time Kennedy got shot and before all the consciousness-raising happened. When I get caught in the rain, the curly bits become dead-set ringlets (see pictures above and below). I 'wash' it about once a fortnight. And sometimes not even that often. I still do my fringe every second day or so, but only with bicarb and water. Why use anything else?

It should be noted that I also have pregnant lady hair at the moment, which is definitely a thing, so that could be responsible for my relative hair happiness. It's no longer a controlled experiment. But nevertheless, I would have to say that no scrubs has brought me a level of contentedness that I only have dreamt of 10 months ago. Don't misunderstand me, I still hate my hair some days. But not many, readers. Not many. 

No scrubs 2:0: Or, what it's like to want to eat fish and chips evenmore than I used to, which was all the time anyway. (PM)

Hey, Mate, your hair looks really good in that picture!

I guess the problem with No Scrubs 2.0 is that a) you actually are scrubbing; and b) you smell like delicious fish and chips. Mmmmmmm. Eeeeeeeewwww. 

But as long as your hair looks good and no one tries to eat you, you are still the big winner!

My hair is such a fucking mess at the moment I'm just thankful it's summer. I'm basically planning to bundle it on top of my head for the next 4 months and hope that by the time I let it out it's long enough to do something with. 

No scrubs 2:0: Or, what it's like to want to eat fish and chips even more than I used to, which was all the time anyway. (AM)

Used to be that the main challenge of my  No Scrubs life was keeping the ear worm that is the song No Scrubs at bay whenever I inspected my hair in the mirror. Now, I've commenced No Scrubs 2.0 and a new challenge has presented itself. 

But first, what is NS2.0 and why have I embarked on it? I'm glad you asked. Basically, though my hair looked about 70% great after four months without shampoo, there were also times when it looked just a little too manky for my liking. It was a line ball, whether I could get away with it or not. But after consulting with J and Legsley one day and confronting my own views on the matter, I finally called that ball 'out'. Truth was my hair looked a little greasy and something needed to be done. That something was what the internet tells me many people who shirk shampoo have done all along: use bi carb soda and apple cider vinegar as a kind of hippy shampoo and conditioner substitute. 

As per Internet instruction, I mixed equal parts bicarbonate soda and water in one bottle, and equal parts apple cider vinegar and water in another. I shook those babies up and proceeded to 'shampoo' and 'condition' my hair like they were a couple of bottles of Pantene.

The results were impressive. That stuff cleans hair as well as any shampoo I have ever used. There is not even a hint of grease on this head now, and it's been three days since I 'washed'. 

Of course, the extreme cleanliness means that the fluffiness I've been trying to eradicate through No scrubs is back. But happily, only a touch, and it subsides each day. 

The real challenge is the fact that I can't smell apple cider vinegar without wanting to eat F&Cs, and for the first day after I commenced NS2.0, that smell was fresh.    It went away after a day or so, thank god. But I think I'm going to have to use the power of bicarb/vinegar sparingly, lest I give in to the temptation caused by the smell radiating off my head. Eww. But also, mmmmm. 

No scrubs update (PM)

I know that a photo of hair does not necessarily give you the whole picture, so to speak, but from what I can see no scrubs is working out pretty well. Your hair looks good in the pictures, Mate, and it's starting to make me long for a no scrubs lifestyle. 

You ask if I've got any ideas to make the under layer look less greasy, sadly the answer is no. I'm learning I have a terrible memory. Just awful. From my no scrubs days I remember that my hair was quite good most of the time and fairly predictable and I loved those things. But I barely remember the specifics of what my hair was like in those days, let alone how I dealt with no scrubs issues. I wish I could remember more because, like I said, no scrubs is really talking to me now on one level. That level being that my hair is just awful right now. 

On top of the problems of just having awful hair, these are added: 

I've just lost all that extra pregnancy hair and my hair is so thin and manky because of it. 

My hair is totally shoulder length and because of the natural curl my shoulders just push the hair up in an awful way making it look shorter and stupider than even it should. 

I want to grow my hair, indeed I am growing it, but keep thinking about getting a haircut just to add some shape and body but I've been burned too many times by did haircuts. 

So I keep wondering if I should stop washing my hair. On the plus side Newbie isn't spewing on me as often now so perhaps I could do it. But what about chlorine? Sand? What happens when that stuff gets in my hair? I wish I had a better memory. 

Some things I need to catch you up on (PM)

It's true sometimes there's kind of minor boring things you like to tell a person but it seems way to boring to email about. Problem for me is that I pretty much have no filter so I've probably told K all my boring stuff. But I'm sure I can cobble something together. 

1. For example, I haven't seen any Malfoys but I did see this guy whose name I always forget. 

It's Daniel Wyllie. I just saw him in my street. It was totally uneventful and I would have forgotten if LB and his sister hadn't been talking about minor celebrity sitings the very same night!

2. I bought green jeans and I love them! They are a sort of dull moss green from Alpha 60. Here, I'll show you. 

I've gotta tell ya I've always shied away from any jean that isn't black or blue but I love these bad boys so hard I want to buy them all over again. Is it just because they are new and fresh? Maybe! But it's also because it opens up a whole new palette. And I love it!! 

3. I hate my hair. But what else is new. 

Some things I need to catch you up on (AM)

Being overseas and away from all my people makes communication hard. I know it's 2014 and we have skype and email and all that great stuff which in many ways makes communicating very easy, and makes the world feel small. All that stuff is great. We can share all the important milestones no matter where in the world we are. But what about the unimportant milestones? The stuff that only warrants a very very small amount of attention, and would normally be conveyed during such mundane moments as when you're walking from the car to the place that you're going to hang out with your buddies? It's that stuff that's harder to share when you're not in the same space. 

Normally I would see J once a week or so and tell her about all the super important AND the super mundane things in my life. But somehow they don't seem appropriate to write in an email. A blog post on the other hand. That's a different story. 

So, here's some things I've been meaning to tell J. 

1. I saw Draco Malfoy's mother. 

Since I've been away I've had some exciting celebrity spotting moments, including Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams, fashion designer and friend of GOOP Stelly McCartney and everyone's favourite tenn bad-boy Spike from Press Gang. But then the other night I went to see a play (Medea) and who should be in it but none other than Draco Malfoy's mother. It was rad.

2. Last weekend I hung out with a Sami.

Remember how you really dig on Lapland and the Sami people? Well last weekend I hung out with a lady who is half Sami! She is one of Appleheart's buddies and she comes from a place in far north Sweden. Last week, she came for a visit. She is very cool. Her uncle is a proper Sami reindeer herdsman, but only part time because for heaps of the year the reindeer are just off hanging out in the wilderness and there's not much for a Sami to do. So I think he does web design or something when he's not live la vida Sami. It's so cool. And she is one of those people who's not fazed by anything. She is calm and composed like a Swedish Paul Roos. 

3. No scrubs update. I love my no scrubs lifestyle. It's so much easier than scrub life. But much like scrub life, there are good hair days and bad ones. I'm pretty happy with the good ones but the bad ones really make me question what I'm doing. 

Here's where we're I'm at today. I quite like it. I'm sure to hate it tomorrow but today we are quite happy together. 

No scrubs update (PM)

Mate! These are exciting times. You are at a turning point in your No Scrubs journey! Stand strong matey. Your hair looks great in those pictures. 

I can understand your desire to wash but just wait. I think the baking soda and vinegar thing may be worth trying down the track. You know if your hair was a fridge. Ha! Just jokes. You should try it but just consolidate the no scrubs I reckon. 

Me, I'm up at the snow right now. I don't know what the altitude and frigidity is doing to my hair. And frankly I don't want to know. 

No scrubs update (AM)

I'm a few weeks in to the No Scrubs experiment and shit is getting interesting.  Here is a reminder of what my hair looked like when last we spoke about it:

Frizzy. I think that's the word for it. 

Here's what's happening on my head right now...

Less frizz, right?! Right. A bit of curl, right?! Right. 

And in general, my hair feels a lot fuller and while it looks a lot more wild, it feels a lot more predictable and manageable. These are very good things. But I can't like to you Crabbies, I kind of miss washing my hair. I miss having it as an option if I want to look a bit nice. Not that it really worked that way in practice, but it felt like that's the way it worked and that perception was a powerful thing. 

At the moment, I spend half the time I designate to thinking about hair loving it and touching it. The other half I worry about how greasy it looks.  I've been told it doesn't look greasy at all, but it's on my mind. Literally! Ha. Not really. My mind is not on my scalp, that's crazy. 

I'm going to soldier on, of course. I'm considering trying 'washing' it in baking soda and conditioning it in apple cider vinegar, as the internet advocates for the No Scrubs set. But I wonder whether that will compromise the experiment. I don't know. I guess I'll wait and see. 

No scrubs (PM)

My hair today, I've been kinda busy and haven't washed it since Sunday, FYI.

Let's not go crazy, my hair did not quite look awesome for my year of no scrubs, but it was pretty good. It was a pretty good time in the life of my hair. And I fully support your move mate. You are nearly through the hardest part! And that's exciting! Just a few more days, a week tops and all those natural oils will be balanced and doing what they should do. Most likely. 

Ironically (or something) I actually wash my hair more than ever these days. If I had the patience to get through the initial hard weeks of a no scrubs campaign maybe I'd run one myself, but when a lady is constantly covered in baby spew and her own breast milk and has to limit her wardrobe to sensible boob-accessible outfits and has no social life to make her bother to look nice, it's the little things like clean hair that help. And my hair looks best these days after a wash. Oh sure it'd probably look good after three weeks of no washing but in these heady times of internet and smart phones who has time for that. Kudos, mate for this slow hair movement you've embraced.