the color red

As I mentioned in my last post, I need to color my hair. However, just as I no longer shampoo my hair, I also don't use conventional commercial color in my hair. Nor do I go to a salon. I've done both those things in the past, but for several years now, I've exclusively used henna to color my hair.

Henna is a plant that stains your hair and skin a bright orangey red. It's been used, on hair and body (for non-permanent tattooing) since ancient times, and it's completely safe for your hair. However, you need to make sure that you're using the right stuff, because a lot of what's sold in beauty supply shops as henna is NOT actually henna. You need to make sure that the henna you're using is labeled as "body quality", i.e. the kind that's used in henna tattoos or Mehndi. A good source is HERE. 

What I use is LUSH henna blocks. It's body quality henna mixed with other stuff that is all good for your hair. The henna blocks come in four different shades (red, brown, maroon, and black) that will have different results depending on the natural shade of your hair, how much you use, if you mix the different blocks together, and so on. I play around a lot with the shades, personally. 

The great thing about good quality henna, and (IMO) Lush's henna in particular, is that it's GOOD for your hair. Henna gives a very lush, shiny color, and it also protects your hair. The additional ingredients in Lush's henna blocks (mostly cocoa butter, but read the ingredients, they're awesome), add to the shine and conditioning qualities. 

Here's how you do it:

- Take a couple of blocks (they come in packages of 6 blocks, you may need from 1 to 3 depending on length/thickness of hair) and break them up. I usually use a box grater, but you can smash them with a hammer or whatever you want. Some people don't break them at all but melt them. Whatever works. Put in a non-metal bowl.

- Pour very hot water (as hot as you'd use to make tea) over the henna. You need to eyeball this. You're looking for the consistency of yogurt, so what you can do is pour some over, let it sit a couple minutes, stir it (wooden or plastic spoon, no metal), then pour more in if needed. You can actually use tea if you want, or really hot coffee, or hot water with vinegar in it...you can add some honey and herbs, you can basically go crazy. But you want that yogurt or batter consistency. 

- Work it into your hair from back to front, paying special attention to the hairline. I would suggest a friend and some rubber gloves for this. I get my poor, long-suffering husband to do it (I've done it myself in the past, but it's a lot harder without someone who can see your whole head). You don't want to rub it into your scalp, but unlike conventional hair dye, it's not going to EAT your scalp. When you're done, you might want to run some face cream, Vaseline, or whatever around the edges of your hairline to stop drips and "save" your skin (I will note that I don't have any problems with the henna staining, but your mileage may vary). 

- If you want a more vibrant red color (for everything but the black), wrap your hair in plastic wrap. This also helps stop drips. 

- Top with a warm towel or turban, and let this stuff (aptly named "caca") sit on your head for AT LEAST three hours. In the meantime, indulge yourself. Take a bubble bath, do your nails, whatever. I like to make my henna days a spa day. If you invite a friend over, you can indulge together. Eat chocolate. Drink wine. Watch Pride and Prejudice. Mmmmm.

- Here's the part I do that's a bit different. At the end of three hours (or more, if you want to take more time, but three hours is sufficient), take a half cup (you can eyeball it) of real, full-fat mayonnaise (homemade is best, but Hellman's works) and warm it in the microwave for a few seconds. Unwrap your hair and rinse it in warm water. You don't have to get all the henna out, but try to get any major clumps. Towel dry (you will either want to wash this towel IMMEDIATELY or just accept that it's going to be stained). Then don your rubber gloves, glop the mayo onto your hair, and rub it in. Try not to think about what it looks like. Wrap your hair up in plastic wrap again, and leave it for an additional 20 minutes. This would be a great time to finish up your "spa day" with a nice face masque.

- Wash the henna out of your hair. You can use shampoo, no-poo, just water, whatever feels the best to you and will get the gloop out of your hair. The mayo will help lift out the henna but will also add oil, so it's up to you. 

- Even if you normally wash your hair every day, try not to wash it again for a couple of days after this, three days if you can manage it. Henna takes up to three days to fully "develop" its color, and it's best that you don't disturb it. You can always tie it up for a couple of days. Don't decide you love it or hate it in the meantime. Seriously. Let it do its thing. 

- Realize, a few days later, that your hair looks better than it ever has before. It's soft! It's shiny! The color is gorgeous! Annoying as this process is, you will never, ever want to go back to using conventional hair dye again.

Another take on how to use LUSH's henna blocks is HERE.

new year, no poo

What actually prompted me to (finally) start a health and beauty blog is a decision I made at the end of 2013: to start "no poo", i.e. cease using shampoo in my hair. I thought about this for several months before finally making the decision, but now that I've made it, I'm convinced it's one of the best decisions I've ever made, body-wise.

I've actually gone no-poo before, somewhere around 2005 (I don’t remember the exact time period). I abandoned the idea because it didn't seem to be working for me, but I think now (having read a lot more on the subject) that I was doing it wrong. I was probably using too much baking soda. Here's the basic no-poo plan:

- 1 tablespoon baking soda

- 1 cup water

Mix (the baking soda will of course dissolve) and massage into hair no more than 2-3 times a week. Leave on for a minute, then rinse. Follow (not necessarily every time) with about 4 tablespoons vinegar (I use apple cider vinegar) mixed with another cup of water. Leave this on for a minute as well, then rinse (preferably your last rinse should be with cold water, at least in part).

That's it. Just do this a couple of times a week and you will very likely find that you have beautiful, strong, glossy hair. No need for product (although you can use it if you want).

There are caveats and so forth. First of all, if you are washing your hair every day with shampoo containing sulfates, you may panic at the idea of washing your hair only twice a week, with something that doesn't foam up. It was a lot easier for me to make this decision because I was already washing my hair only about 3-4 times a week. If you have hard water, you may have to modify the solution. If you have dandruff (I have really bad seborrhea myself), you may need to tweak things. I'm not going to reinvent the wheel on this; instead I'm going to point you HERE and HERE for really great write-ups. I'm just going to wax enthusiastic on what this has done for me in two short weeks.

First of all, as I said, I had already cut way back on washing my hair. I'm 50 now and I just find that my hair is dryer than it used to be, so washing it every day was making that problem worse, no matter how much I conditioned. I did mull this over for quite a while, because I was using a curl activator in my hair (I have long, fine, wavy hair), and I wanted to wash it out every day, or at the most every two days, because it irritated my scalp after a while (EVERYTHING irritates my scalp). But late in December, I took a deep breath, figuring that since I was teleworking nobody was going to see me anyway, and I broke out the baking soda and vinegar.

A week later (after not having used it at all in the meantime), I put away my curl activator and other hair products. I don't need them. I love the waves in my hair, and my usual method of drying my hair has always been to apply product and scrunch, then air dry. I have a blow dryer (and a flatiron, curling iron, curlers, all that stuff) but I don't tend to use them much because I love the natural waves, even though they seem to be out of style. Since going no-poo, all I do is wrap my wet hair up in a towel for about a minute or two, then shake it out, run my fingers through it, scrunch, and I'm done. The curl activator is superfluous, and that's why I put it away. The other product I was using every day was an argan oil leave-in conditioner, but I don't need that anymore either; I'm not stripping out my hair's natural oils anymore, so I don't need to put anything back in.

After the first day, obviously my hair is going be slept on and such. I'm still working out how I handle this. While I was working from home over the holidays, I just squished my hair into a scrunchie-bun sort of deal on top of my head to sleep and then took it down and brushed it in the morning, but I don't know how that's going to work out in terms of actually looking good. I could just rinse it (in plain water - again, cold is best, at least to finish), but especially in the winter I'm afraid of weakening it by getting it wet too often. I could spritz it with water and put it in foam rollers or a sock bun, both of which will preserve/encourage curl and also keep it off my face at night, so I'll think about those things. However, I'm happy to report that my hair itself doesn't feel dirty in between no-poos; what actually prompts me wash it is that my scalp starts to itch more than I can really stand. If it weren't for that, I think I'd be washing it once a week or less.

I don't have any pictures to go along with this entry because I really, really need to color my hair right now (more on coloring my hair in the next entry) and I don't want to take a picture with all the grey in there. However, I'll take some in the next week or so and post them. I'm really happy with my decision to go no-poo, and now that I know I'm doing it right (because my hair feels great), I have no intentions to go back to shampooing.

je suis mimi!

I am 1/4 Canadian French. For some reason, I am inordinately proud of this.

When I was a little girl, we used to go to Montreal every summer. I begged my mother to teach me something to say in French in case...I uh...needed to say something in French. My mother doesn't speak French, but she taught me this phrase: "Je suis Mimi!" I am Mimi!

Of course, I later learned that "Je suis [name]" is not proper French, that instead you would say "Je m'apelle [name]" (literally, "I call myself [name]". But then! I learned that a lot of people, especially in Canada, do in fact say "Je suis [name]." So...here I am. Je suis Mimi.

I have a lot of blogs, as you may or may know if you've been trying to follow me around for any length of time. I have no idea if anybody actually reads or cares about any of them. But that's okay. This one is about health and beauty. It's 2014, and I want to be the best me I can be.

ALLONS-Y!