hair post

Yep, my hair is still there, and still growing.  Here’s a picture I took yesterday.  Please ignore the spots from the dirty mirror.

My hair is officially at “tailbone” length, or in other words, the top of my bottom.  That’s a good six inches or so past my natural waist, though you can’t really see where that is due to the type of clothes I’m wearing these days.

10-2-08

This is my hair one year ago.  It is about an inch past my natural waist.  So it looks like my hair has grown about five inches, which is average and normal for me.  I can’t remember if I’ve trimmed it in the past year or not.  I probably did at least once, probably an inch.

*sigh* it’ll be so nice to wear regular pants again.

Next goal is “classic” length, or in other words, the bottom of my bottom.  That’s about ten inches away or so away, so we’ll say two years from now.  For those who may find this interesting, classic length is generally about the same place that the golden section line would be on most people’s bodies.  So it is thought to be a pleasing ratio of hair to body height.  We’ll see when I get there.  I don’t plan on going longer than that, so I might cut it when I do get there.  Probably not short, though.  Just several inches, to get rid of some very old ends.

Many women cut their hair when they have a baby, because it helps them feel fresh and pretty again, and it seems like it would be easier to care for and would stay out of the way of spit up and little grabby hands.  I might trim quite a bit, depending on how much I shed (many women shed a ton after childbirth because of the physical stress of the event, and also because pregnancy often causes extra thick hair growth, which then falls out once pregnancy is over.)  If my ends look thin and icky I will trim them a couple inches.  But I’m planning on keeping my long hair.  A bun would be more out of the way of spit up than a short haircut.  And since I only wash my hair once a week (seriously! it starts getting slightly greasy on day five or so after washing!  I never thought this would happen to me) I won’t feel like I don’t have time to wash it, or something.  When I had short hair it looked greasy much faster.  These days, it takes about two minutes to do my hair every morning.  It’s kind of boring to always have it in a bun, but it is quick and functional and will be good for having little babies around.

What’s happening today

Regency maternity/nursing dress I'm working on. It has a drawstring neckline and waist.

This dress is made out of some kind of shiny polished cotton, with a darker blue silk dupioni for the trim.  And a silver gimp braid.  I want to do something really fancy around the skirt hem but I’m not sure exactly what yet.

kitty wanted me to take a picture of her too

Hair this morning

Lately I’ve tried washing my hair with a minimum of products.  Scrubbing the scalp with some cheap thin conditioner, rinsing with vinegar water, and then oiling with a coconut oil/shea butter blend.  I think I might just take out the conditioner part and see what happens.  Then my hair will be like a salad.  Water, vinegar, and oil.  haha.  Vinegar rinses are amazing, they make my hair feel just like I put conditioner in it.  Who would have thought?  Anyway this is a picture of my hair this morning after washing last night.  Keep in mind I haven’t combed it yet.  I like the lack of frizz that this routine produces.  My scalp hair is nice and clean too.  It’s funny how simple it is to wash and care for hair.  People make it into such a complicated and costly procedure.

By the way, we got on WIC and Medicaid so tomorrow I’m going to make an appointment with the birth center!

hair update

One year ago it was barely at my waist:

Five months later it hadn’t grown much, and was solidly at my waist:

Today it’s about four or five inches past my waist!  Right at my hip bones.  It feels so pretty lately.

Yay! My hair grows!

Good hair day, dirty mirror, blurry cause of no flash

Trivial Pursuits

Here’s my latest stitched creation. A cute little early ’60’s-inspired (it’s a little long-waisted, which makes it more modern. I kind of wish it weren’t though) dress  that’s shaped entirely out of tucks.  This dress is basically a sack with tucks taken in at the waist.  Very easy: no zippers, no sleeves, no tricky curves.  Please forgive my unimpressed smile.

And I finally figured out how to wrangle all my hair into a french twist again! It’s grown so much that it would not be harnessed with just one comb.  Note that there are now two.

And note that the hairdo totally looks like a fin.  Fin Head!

I still think it looks really elegant, though.

another hair post

The top line is (aprox) my waist, the bottom line is my hip bones.  Looks like my hair has grown about two inches since I hit waist around the beginning of July.  That means one inch per month, twice my average growth rate!  Hooray for summer growth spurts!  My hair grew really slowly last winter, I guess now it’s catching up.  I suppose it all evens out in the end.  Anyway, just a couple more inches to my next goal of hip-bone length.  Maybe I’ll be there by November or December.

Just another hair update

Is this blog a journal or a publication?  I guess so.

Sorry if this post is too journal-like for you all.

Hair progress:

One year ago: 25 inches

Today: 31 inches

A little frizzy cause I just washed it last night, but overall, I love my hair right now.

I measure from my hairline on my forehead, up over my head, to the ends of my hair, to make sure the starting point is always consistent.  The inches measurement isn’t actually how long my individual hairs might be, it’s just a number to see how fast it’s growing.

So that is 6 inches in one year not counting trims, or .5 inches per month.  I know, however, that my hair growth stalled at around 29 inches during the late winter/early spring.  It seems to grow mostly during summer and fall.  So the .5 is an average.

Next length goal: 37 inches, or “tailbone” length, or, “hair just barely too short to sit on” length.  ETA: July 2009.
After that goal: 44 inches, or “classic” length, or, “end of butt” length.  ETA: September, 2010.

Scarf + Braid

Yet another hairdo post. I said it was my geeky hobby, remember?

This is the perfect summer hairstyle. It gets my hair off my neck and back and keeps it from blowing around and tangling, but still feels comfy and not tight like some buns can get sometimes.

1. Take a long, thin scarf or ribbon and drape it over the top of your head.

2. Tie the ends together at the nape of your neck, under your hair.

3. Add a small amount of hair to each scarf end to make two strands; leave a third strand of only hair; make sure they are the same thickness.

4. Braid the three strands, and secure when you run out of hair.

Yay!

Front view:

I finally got new contact lenses today! I am sooo happy. I hate having that eyeglass frame around my vision, and the blurry areas outside the frame, and not being able to lie down with them on, and the sweaty areas where the nosepiece sits, and the broken frizzy hairs by my ears from sliding the glasses on and off.

Oh and that yellow shirt I got today at D.I. It is pure silk and feels like heaven. Pretty color, well made, with little square buttons.

Infinity Bun

I finally got this updo to work!

It’s called Infinity Bun, and you can also do it turned vertically and call it Figure 8 Bun.

I barely have enough hair to do it, hence the lopsided look.

It is made by making a normal coiled bun, but you have to have two complete coils sitting on top of each other. Then you take the top coil and flip it over so it sits next to the bottom coil. Then you wrap the extra hair -if you have any!- underneath at the base.

I like it because it is low, at the nape, without brushing against the collar annoyingly. Styles that sit low remind me of old-fashioned things like Little Women and Laura Ingalls Wilder, like this:

Also, you can do this style without brushing all of your hair back, still leaving your part visible, which some people like because it looks less tight and slick.

A BIG post about growing long hair

Growing out my hair is one of my geeky hobbies. Kind of like gardening or Civil War reenacting. You do it, you read stuff about it, you talk to other people who do it, it’s fun….

So in an effort to bore you all (not really, but I’m afraid I will) today I shall discuss my hair’s progress. Here is a picture of my hair in July of ‘07, seven-and-a-half months ago:

The coloring is a bit off, but as you can see, my hair length ended just a bit past my armpits.

Today I was having a fabulous hair day, so I decided it was time to take another picture:

As you can see in this picture, my hair is now skimming around my natural waist, a good three or four inches longer than the last picture. This picture is more close to my natural hair color, though I had to alter the photo to make it look that way, so the color of everything else is off.

Anyway, that is my hair progress. Yay! Let’s say it was 3.5 inches in 7 months, that is .5 inches per month, or about average. I had a tiny trim or two as well. My goal is to have “classic length” hair, which is a term someone thought up for hair that ends right where your butt meets your thighs. That is about ten inches away for me now, so it should take two years more or less. However, if my hair needs trimming it might take longer.

To bore you even further I will tell you how I care for my hair:

I wash it once or twice a week with olive oil soap (it’s cheap, and not as harsh as shampoo, though shampoo works ok on my hair, and also it’s very earth-friendly).
After washing it I rinse it with water, then I rinse it with apple cider vinegar (1T in 1 cup water). It stinks pretty bad, but fades quickly and is gone within an hour, to my nostrils. Vinegar helps remove any soap that did not get rinsed out. Using natural soap (made out of oil and lye) is much harder to rinse out with water, and it builds up very fast (on hair and on the bathtub!).

Then I use conditioner, just a cheap brand like Vo5 which does not have “silicones” or plastics in it. Silicones are what “repair” split ends, and they make your hair look shiny. However, they also weigh down your hair and can make it look dull as they build up over time. They only wash out with shampoo. So since I don’t use shampoo, I don’t use heavy conditioners. Also those conditioners make my hair straighter, which I don’t like. I am going for a Pre-Raphaelite maiden look, here.

Anyway, then I rinse the conditioner, squeeze the water out of my hair, and sometimes put a little coconut oil on the ends. Then I am done. I do not comb my hair or touch it until it is dry. This does not make it difficult to detangle in the morning. It’s about as tangled as after a night’s sleep with dry hair. Hair is very stretchy and fragile when wet, and so it is least damaging to comb only when dry. Sometime instead of doing all this, as I rinse the conditioner out in the shower, I will comb my hair with a very wide-toothed comb and then braid it. I like the results of this and think I might do it more regularly. I take showers in the evening, so having a wet braid or wet, tangled hair does not really matter, since I’m going to bed anyway.

Usually each morning I will detangle my hair with my wide-toothed wooden comb. Sometimes in the evening Samuel will brush my hair with my boar-bristle brush. This isn’t for detangling so much as for a scalp massage and to pick up lint and dirt that my hair acquires.

There you have it! That is what I do with my hair. Sometimes I do buns and various braided styles, especially as it gets closer to wash day. I admit my hair looks a bit greasy the day of, but I think many would be surprised how long my hair can go before looking that way. And it doesn’t stink, either. It depends on the hairtype, but most people can “train” their scalp to produce less oil by shampooing it less often. Shampoo dries the scalp out so much that the scalp goes crazy trying to re-oil it, and then you have greasy hair the next day. Anyway I will let you look that up on your own if you’re interested. I don’t want to get preachy here.

Why do I care so much about my hair? Well, long hair can get very old and delicate, and it has to be treated more gently and deliberately if it is going to look shiny and healthy. No blow dryers, curlers, straighteners, dye, bleach, styling products containing drying things like alcohol (which most do) and so on.

The End.