In my glass: water
From my iPod: Rhythm of Love, by Plain White T's (from my Grooveshark "Happy" playlist)
From my bookshelf: Nothing. Since its Freshers, I thought it best not to start on any big books with third year looming large over me.
Outside: cool, but sunny
My mood: cheerful
Today's hairstyle: Celtic knot on wet hair
Afternoon all.
So back over on the LHC, we have a thread in the members-only Friendship Board titled "Rude Questions You've Always Wanted to ask...". Basically over there, we talk about topics which we would otherwise be hard-pressed to be able to talk about in normal society. We have a kind of unspoken agreement not to let an argument go too far, and that rude questions by definition usually elicit rude answers. But as odd as it may sound to have a thread in such a friendly forum especially dedicated to things seen as rude orto which people might take offence to, it has actually become a very valuable thread for some of us.
When I first entered the thread in early June (we were already around 2000 posts in on various issues, and the thread is still going strong with at least daily posts since) the current discussion was on the issue of illegal immigrants, and the racism felt by legal immigrants who are sometimes assumed by the community to be illegal. A difficult discussion to have in public, due to the hefty accusations or offence that could be taken by much of the community. Part of what was discussed was that racism was seen in some parts of the world, and by some people to be an inherent part of the illegal immigrant issues (for example, it would be common in their area to hear phrases like "go back to where you came from") and that made it difficult in trying to discuss the semantics of legal and illegal immigration. For example, some of us, me included, don't associate colour or race with illegal immigrants, probably because I grew up in an area where there were a fair number of completely legal immigrants from all sorts of places and all sorts of races, and that continues to be the case up here at University. The thing was that a lot of us held the belief that we hold little respect for those who break the law, and therefore illegal immigrants, but also that people are innocent until proven guilty, so the "go back to where you came from" statement simply doesn't make sense to us, when we automatically assume the person has every right to be there.
We also talked about ancestry, the difficulty many of us have with understanding the need to know their ancestry, or even the problems with using ancestry in an argument relevant to current issues and thedifference between that and what makes up a person right now. Now that caused a few fireworks, because some people take their geneaology very seriously, but many of us also place very little importance on individual relations.
One really interesting topic we had was on the subject of rudeness itself. The topic initially started with a question (from one of my fellow UK-ers, I think. Unfortunately the site seems to be really slow today for some reason,so don't take my word for it) on why people often don't smile back at her when she gives someone a friendly smile. This somewhat confused me too, being from a rural area of Scotland, where its fairly common to stop and chat to your naighbours on a walk or such like, and I too had experienced this, especially in places like Glasgow, or worse, London. What we eventually discovered after a fair bit of confusion and rude answers (since, yes, rude questions elicit rude answers. we don't take it to heart) was that there seems to be two types of politeness in the world - positive-aspect and negative-aspect. Myself and the initial poster of the question appear to be from area with positive-aspect politeness. What that means is that certain gestures, like waving, smiling to someone you pass, saying hi to someone you're next to for any length of time, saying "excuse me" as you squeeze past someone in the street, is considered "polite", kind, or the norm. In an area of negative-aspect politeness, the situation is quite different, and indeed the gestures mentioned previously would be seen as positively rude. Negative-aspect isn't a "bad" thing like the term may suggest, but rather it is just the opposite way of thinking to the positive-aspect areas where forward actions are made by a person towards another person in society. In a Negative-aspect society, politeness is keeping out of peoples way, not demanding attention from someone you don't know through speaking to them, or doing many of the gestures perhaps considered polite in a positive-aspect society. When we reached that conclusion, it was quite amazing to us that all this time, we had been misunderstanding cultural norms in the areas we had been visiting, especially since the negative-aspect way of thinking is evident in many large cities, where huge numbers of people live and work, such as London, or Glasgow, where I had previously experienced this sort of thing.
The thing is, these revelations are just a couple of the things that have become evident through people simply asking questions that would not otherwise be asked, and through people understanding that careful consideration and carefully worded replies are needed to solve such sensitive issues, as well as not taking rude come-backs to heart. It has been invaluable to me on the forum, especially for realising cultural differences between that I was brought up in, the various different parts of America, Canada, and a number of other countries as well, as well as confusion over language and differences in political correctness across the world. It kind of makes me sad that many of these revelations could likely never have been made if we were to bring up the subject in regular society. I also realise that in many other, perhaps less friendly forums this thread full of revelation would not still exist, alive and kicking as it is today. In fact, todays topic is again the topic of racism, and whether groups set up to help people from certain countries or races don't actually help to perpetuate further segregation.
Anyway, if anyone has anything to say about any of the above topics, feel free to contribute in the comments (just keep things civil). For now, I'm going to sort out my uni timetable for next week, spend some more time back over at the LHC, figure out when I will have time to do a full henna on my hair (I know my hair is quite red-ish anyway especially with the slight sun-bleaching on my ends, but I want MORE GINGER!! heehee), and then iron my outfit and head to Tai Chi tonight as final prep for our demonstration tomorrow.
Speak soon, folks
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Showing posts with label LHC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label LHC. Show all posts
Thursday, 26 September 2013
Wednesday, 30 January 2013
The things every girl needs for growing uber-long, healthy, happy hair!
Ok maybe not, but still!...
For those that don't know, the Large Hadron Collider is not the first thing some of us think of when someone mentions the LHC. The Long Hair Community is a web-based forum (http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/) where people who are growing their hair gather to share tips and support on a variety of things (not just hair) and gain friends all over the word (there are regular meets in places across europe, the UK, and various states of the US).
Since I joined the LHC, my knowledge of hair care, and the way I care for my hair has changed a lot. Not completely, mind you - the dryness of my scalp and hair meant I never really shampooed it more than once a week, and I prefer to have the ability to keep my hair out of my face, so I kept it long enough that I could throw it up into a pencil bun at a moments notice for chemistry classes and such at school. I got it trimmed twice a year at the salon, where they routinely cut off at least an inch more than I asked for. I also never got into the habit of heat-styling or blow-drying my hair, partly because I couldn't be bothered with the static from straightening, the frizz from curling, the extra slippiness on top of normal caused by all three that meant my hair being a pain to deal with, and the pure fact that I couldn't be bothered to spend an hour or more drying and styling my hair every time I washed it. The only time my hair got heat styled was on my twice-yearly visits to the salon, when they would blow dry it. Usually they would ask if I wanted it straightened, and I think I did once, but like I said, it wasn't exactly a regular thing. So basically, before LHC, my hair was, probably by most peoples standards, pretty healthy.
So, as it's slowly coming closer to my 2nd year anniversary at the LHC (which will be in March), I decided to make a list of the things I don't now how I ever lived without, and maybe do a little enabling in terms of hair accessories. (right now I'm wishing I could find a blogger layout that had working smilies - another thing I have got much too used to over at the LHC)
So first things first - the biggest thing I found that helped my hair was changing the products and the way in which I washed my hair. My scalp is so dry that I could literally go weeks without washing my hair, and it still wouldn't look greasy - I washed my hair because without it, my ends would get so, so dry, and breakage would ensue, and also because I went horse riding every weekend, and prefered to wash my hair to get out all the dust, and sand, and hay, and horse-hair before going back to school on monday. I used to just shampoo and condition with a regular shampoo and conditioner, full of SLS and silicones, as most are. Turns out that the build up of silicones was preventing any moisture from getting into my length and ends, and whilst the SLS was needed to clean off the silicones, it doesn't do a great job of it, and it just dries my ends out more. My hair hated it. So I used a clarifying shampoo to clean my hair of all the silicones and other gunk, effectively resetting my hair, then invested in a -cone free conditioner and an SLS-free shampoo. I made up an SMT (a homemade moisture treatment popular on the LHC, containing lovely things like aloe vera gel) with it and left it on for a good half-hour I could tell the difference after just one wash. I currently do what is known as a CWC, or condition-wash-condition, meaning that I condition the ends before and after shampooing, reducing the drying effect of the shampoo on the ends, whilst still getting the hair clean. I still use a clarfying shampoo and do a moisture treatment once in a while, depending on how my hair feels, or whether or not somebody manages to spill beer in it on a night out (a more common occurrence than you would think - theres a reason I often wear my hair up on a night out). Anyway, using the shampoo just down to the nape level, and the conditioner just from that point down, I have a balance of reasonably well moisturised, soft length and ends and a happy scalp that isn't irritated by the SLS my skin is apparently sensitive to - who knew?
Mind you, my type of washing doesn't work for everyone - there are condition-only, water-only, no-water, cone-free, SLS-free etc, etc, and then there are those who try all these, and go back to regular shampoo and conditioner. Everyone's hair and scalp are different.
The next major breakthrough was the magic of henna. Now, I know there is a lot of misinformation out there about henna, and that has caused many people, and almost every training hairdresser in the land to gape in horror at the mere suggestion. Before you go screaming at me about the horrors of henna, please just take the time to read up properly on the subject. The horror stories of melting hair and such often come from people using hair dyes advertised as henna, which often contain little or no henna at all. In fact in some parts of the world, the word henna is used to describe any hair dye, whether they contained real henna or not. Its the metallic salts in these hair dyes, and in some "hair" hennas that cause the adverse reactions, of which includes melting of the hair, when combined with regular chemical treatments. Body Art Quality henna (the type that artists make patterns on the hands with, and gives an orange stain on the palms of the hand) is perfectly safe to use on the hair. Henna contains lawsone, a dye molecule that gives a red stain, meaning that every real henna will only ever add an orange to red stain to the hair, depending on the origonal colour of the hair, the lawsone content of the henna, and the number of applications used. There is no such thing as black henna. Black henna often contains PPD, which can cause burns on the skin. That said, a black colour can be obtained by a two-step dye process with henna and another plant indigo. Indigo, cassia, and amla are all plants that people may use with, or in the case of cassia, instead of henna, though I don't use any of them. Henna is permanent on most people, and it is almost impossible to remove in a lot of cases. That said, I have found it to be great for my hair - not only does it enhance the reddish tint to my dark brown hair, and turn it firey in the sunlight in a way I love, the colour doesn't fade, my hair is more resilient to damage, and it becomes more manageable to deal with. I do love my henna.
Oil! Ok, now there was a time when people would look at you like a lunatic if you told them you put oil in your hair. Now, thanks to the growing area in the hair industry of "hair oils", people are a little more accepting. For a very long time, after discovering oils on the LHC, I thought my hair didn't like oils. Most of the regular liquid oils left my hair feeling odd and nasty. Apparently argan oil is very good for hair, but its expensive, and I couldn't afford it. However, I recently tried coconut oil, and its made a great difference to the neverending dryness of my ends. I bought mine in a big jar from the chinese supermarket for around £1, and its pretty solid because of the cold weather here. Usually I use two pea-sized dollops or so, and rub it between my palms to melt it, before pressing it along the length of my hair from the shoulders down. I do that the night before a shower, braid it, then wash it out the next day, when my hair has soaked most of it up, and my hair has gone from greasy to almost normal again. It takes a bit of trial and error to work out which oil works for you though.
Another major breakthrough in hair care for a lot of LHC-ers was Nightbloomings Panacea Hair Salve. Nightblooming is an etsy seller, and she makes 3 different hair salves, amongst other hair care products. Here is the sample trio, which I am currently trying out to see which one my hair likes. Since my hair usually freaks with protein, I'm using the winter blend at the moment, which my hair seems to be loving. A tiny amount is applied in the same fashion as the coconut oil, on wet hair after washing, like a leave-in type conditioner.
Everyone should also have a good, snag-free brush that doesn't pull on hair, but then if your hair is curly, you would likely be better off with combs instead. My brush is one of the original Denman styling brushes.
Everyone should also have a decent regular and wide-tooth comb, free of seams if plastic. I have a lovely horn comb, but I'm due a replacement. I love the horn combs by Quecraft. I'm hoping to get one of the pheonix ones. :)
Then comes the fun part! Hair-toys!!!
Ok, so I'm a bit of a hair-toy addict. In fact there's even a forum thread for us all. I started putting my hair up with a pencil when I was at school, so the idea of hairsticks was an easy step for me. Since my hair has got longer, I've loved finding loads of different buns to use my hairsticks with. For clarification, a hair-toy is literally any hair accessory that can either completely hold up a style, decrate a style, or most often, both.
Heres my list of my must-have hair-toys:
For those that don't know, the Large Hadron Collider is not the first thing some of us think of when someone mentions the LHC. The Long Hair Community is a web-based forum (http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/) where people who are growing their hair gather to share tips and support on a variety of things (not just hair) and gain friends all over the word (there are regular meets in places across europe, the UK, and various states of the US).
Since I joined the LHC, my knowledge of hair care, and the way I care for my hair has changed a lot. Not completely, mind you - the dryness of my scalp and hair meant I never really shampooed it more than once a week, and I prefer to have the ability to keep my hair out of my face, so I kept it long enough that I could throw it up into a pencil bun at a moments notice for chemistry classes and such at school. I got it trimmed twice a year at the salon, where they routinely cut off at least an inch more than I asked for. I also never got into the habit of heat-styling or blow-drying my hair, partly because I couldn't be bothered with the static from straightening, the frizz from curling, the extra slippiness on top of normal caused by all three that meant my hair being a pain to deal with, and the pure fact that I couldn't be bothered to spend an hour or more drying and styling my hair every time I washed it. The only time my hair got heat styled was on my twice-yearly visits to the salon, when they would blow dry it. Usually they would ask if I wanted it straightened, and I think I did once, but like I said, it wasn't exactly a regular thing. So basically, before LHC, my hair was, probably by most peoples standards, pretty healthy.
So, as it's slowly coming closer to my 2nd year anniversary at the LHC (which will be in March), I decided to make a list of the things I don't now how I ever lived without, and maybe do a little enabling in terms of hair accessories. (right now I'm wishing I could find a blogger layout that had working smilies - another thing I have got much too used to over at the LHC)
So first things first - the biggest thing I found that helped my hair was changing the products and the way in which I washed my hair. My scalp is so dry that I could literally go weeks without washing my hair, and it still wouldn't look greasy - I washed my hair because without it, my ends would get so, so dry, and breakage would ensue, and also because I went horse riding every weekend, and prefered to wash my hair to get out all the dust, and sand, and hay, and horse-hair before going back to school on monday. I used to just shampoo and condition with a regular shampoo and conditioner, full of SLS and silicones, as most are. Turns out that the build up of silicones was preventing any moisture from getting into my length and ends, and whilst the SLS was needed to clean off the silicones, it doesn't do a great job of it, and it just dries my ends out more. My hair hated it. So I used a clarifying shampoo to clean my hair of all the silicones and other gunk, effectively resetting my hair, then invested in a -cone free conditioner and an SLS-free shampoo. I made up an SMT (a homemade moisture treatment popular on the LHC, containing lovely things like aloe vera gel) with it and left it on for a good half-hour I could tell the difference after just one wash. I currently do what is known as a CWC, or condition-wash-condition, meaning that I condition the ends before and after shampooing, reducing the drying effect of the shampoo on the ends, whilst still getting the hair clean. I still use a clarfying shampoo and do a moisture treatment once in a while, depending on how my hair feels, or whether or not somebody manages to spill beer in it on a night out (a more common occurrence than you would think - theres a reason I often wear my hair up on a night out). Anyway, using the shampoo just down to the nape level, and the conditioner just from that point down, I have a balance of reasonably well moisturised, soft length and ends and a happy scalp that isn't irritated by the SLS my skin is apparently sensitive to - who knew?
Mind you, my type of washing doesn't work for everyone - there are condition-only, water-only, no-water, cone-free, SLS-free etc, etc, and then there are those who try all these, and go back to regular shampoo and conditioner. Everyone's hair and scalp are different.
The next major breakthrough was the magic of henna. Now, I know there is a lot of misinformation out there about henna, and that has caused many people, and almost every training hairdresser in the land to gape in horror at the mere suggestion. Before you go screaming at me about the horrors of henna, please just take the time to read up properly on the subject. The horror stories of melting hair and such often come from people using hair dyes advertised as henna, which often contain little or no henna at all. In fact in some parts of the world, the word henna is used to describe any hair dye, whether they contained real henna or not. Its the metallic salts in these hair dyes, and in some "hair" hennas that cause the adverse reactions, of which includes melting of the hair, when combined with regular chemical treatments. Body Art Quality henna (the type that artists make patterns on the hands with, and gives an orange stain on the palms of the hand) is perfectly safe to use on the hair. Henna contains lawsone, a dye molecule that gives a red stain, meaning that every real henna will only ever add an orange to red stain to the hair, depending on the origonal colour of the hair, the lawsone content of the henna, and the number of applications used. There is no such thing as black henna. Black henna often contains PPD, which can cause burns on the skin. That said, a black colour can be obtained by a two-step dye process with henna and another plant indigo. Indigo, cassia, and amla are all plants that people may use with, or in the case of cassia, instead of henna, though I don't use any of them. Henna is permanent on most people, and it is almost impossible to remove in a lot of cases. That said, I have found it to be great for my hair - not only does it enhance the reddish tint to my dark brown hair, and turn it firey in the sunlight in a way I love, the colour doesn't fade, my hair is more resilient to damage, and it becomes more manageable to deal with. I do love my henna.
Oil! Ok, now there was a time when people would look at you like a lunatic if you told them you put oil in your hair. Now, thanks to the growing area in the hair industry of "hair oils", people are a little more accepting. For a very long time, after discovering oils on the LHC, I thought my hair didn't like oils. Most of the regular liquid oils left my hair feeling odd and nasty. Apparently argan oil is very good for hair, but its expensive, and I couldn't afford it. However, I recently tried coconut oil, and its made a great difference to the neverending dryness of my ends. I bought mine in a big jar from the chinese supermarket for around £1, and its pretty solid because of the cold weather here. Usually I use two pea-sized dollops or so, and rub it between my palms to melt it, before pressing it along the length of my hair from the shoulders down. I do that the night before a shower, braid it, then wash it out the next day, when my hair has soaked most of it up, and my hair has gone from greasy to almost normal again. It takes a bit of trial and error to work out which oil works for you though.
Another major breakthrough in hair care for a lot of LHC-ers was Nightbloomings Panacea Hair Salve. Nightblooming is an etsy seller, and she makes 3 different hair salves, amongst other hair care products. Here is the sample trio, which I am currently trying out to see which one my hair likes. Since my hair usually freaks with protein, I'm using the winter blend at the moment, which my hair seems to be loving. A tiny amount is applied in the same fashion as the coconut oil, on wet hair after washing, like a leave-in type conditioner.
Everyone should also have a good, snag-free brush that doesn't pull on hair, but then if your hair is curly, you would likely be better off with combs instead. My brush is one of the original Denman styling brushes.
Everyone should also have a decent regular and wide-tooth comb, free of seams if plastic. I have a lovely horn comb, but I'm due a replacement. I love the horn combs by Quecraft. I'm hoping to get one of the pheonix ones. :)
Then comes the fun part! Hair-toys!!!
Ok, so I'm a bit of a hair-toy addict. In fact there's even a forum thread for us all. I started putting my hair up with a pencil when I was at school, so the idea of hairsticks was an easy step for me. Since my hair has got longer, I've loved finding loads of different buns to use my hairsticks with. For clarification, a hair-toy is literally any hair accessory that can either completely hold up a style, decrate a style, or most often, both.
Heres my list of my must-have hair-toys:
- A ficcare - probably my most well-used hair-toy. Unfortunately, over-use and rather less than perfect care has battered mine a bit, so the metal has bent and the enamel on top is coming off in parts of my lotus jewel. They are expensive, but nothing holds like it. Just a shame they're not meant to be waterproof - my insistance to use it on wet hair might have something to do with the separation of the enamel.
- A glass hairstick - glass is waterproof, meaning you can use it with wet hair and not damage it. Emergent Glassworks has some lovely pieces. I got an octopus stick from him, shortened to a functional length of 5", as most of his are rather long for me, but he is very willing to alter them. It's a little top-heavy, but holds a pretzel bun brilliantly.
- A hairfork - I have a 60th Street 2-prong in a woody-coloured dymondwood (can't remember the name of the colour), and I'm saving up for a 3-prong wooden one, though which make, I am undecided. Dymondwood is meant to be waterproof too, but I wouldn't want to chance it with a regular wooden one - I like forks too much for that.
- A RavensCroft Moon - I was lucky enough to get a gorgeous purpleheart and ash 4" moon as one of my first hair toys. Shirl's moons are often snapped up pretty quick, so don't be surprised is she has nothing in stock. Her pieces are lovely, and well loved by a number of LHC-ers. Once you figure out a couple of ways to keep your hair up with them, I promise you'll love them. They are a little thick, though, so a four inch moon is about the right size for my almost-hip-length hair.
- A simple wooden hairstick plus a pretty one (or two or three or four...)
- My favourite shops are:
- Eaduard Hairsticks
- Aliarose
- Grahtoestudio
- Timberstone Turnings
- RavensLair
- Out Numbered Novelties
- ...Amongst others I'm sure I have yet to discover/have forgotten about.
Ok, enough hair talk. Oh - yesterdays bun was a nautilus, first with a pencil, then with Goody spin pins (UK-ers can buy them from Morrisons) for OTC, and today, its a braided bun, oiled for tomorrows wash.
Ok, now, enough hair talk. See you soon.
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