shevek: There is something about the air here. Y

Shevek (

shevek) wrote,
@ 2008-04-17 13:40:00

There is something about the air here. Yesterday I woke up curly. Today, I woke up with an AFRO! What do I DO with THIS?

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	valkyriekaren 2008-04-17 12:47 pm UTC (link)
	Oh no! High humidity? Buy a rasta hat and work the look? (Reply to this)(Thread)

	shevek 2008-04-17 01:38 pm UTC (link)
	With a collar shirt? I don't think it would fly, somehow. I've glued it down as best I can, but without much success. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	feanelwa 2008-04-17 12:49 pm UTC (link)
	I think you can oil it to make it more coherent, with almond oil, or something. (Reply to this)

	fjm 2008-04-17 12:52 pm UTC (link)
	No, not oil. Not under any circumstances. You want a silicon based "de-frizzer" or something that claims to keep out water John Frieda is the best. Also: frizzy hair is fragile hair. Avoid hair dryers and hair brushes. Put the anti-friz serum on your hands and run through with your fingers until de-knotted. Then use a wide toothed comb. Plus: learn to love the frizz. (Reply to this)(Thread)

	redcountess 2008-04-17 12:58 pm UTC (link)
	WSS, although John Frieda's Anti-Frizz just leaves my hair greasy. weegoddess recommended American Cream from Lush, which I bought yesterday but I haven't tried it yet. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	fjm 2008-04-17 01:16 pm UTC (link)
	I actually use either Boots (not available in the US) or the Aveda product which it occurs to me will be available at an Aveda salon. Lush. Scent pollution. Oh god. I have just had to ask a student to change her damn deodorant. I started wheezing seconds after she entered my office. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	shevek 2008-04-17 01:39 pm UTC (link)
	I discovered on my last trip that the FDA can be quite tight on hair products, so most of the brands here are US only and aren't recognisable to me. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	fjm 2008-04-17 01:48 pm UTC (link)
	Try looking for an Aveda hair salon. I saw one in Chicago at Christmas. But otherwise just drop into a hair salon and ask them for some kind of anti-frizz serum. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	shevek 2008-04-17 01:40 pm UTC (link)
	I can just about smell Lush again. I had a job in an office above one of their shops, and it's damaged me beyond repair. I couldn't smell it at all for years. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	fjm 2008-04-17 01:49 pm UTC (link)
	The Liverpool St Lush is next door to Starbucks, The coffee is undrinkable. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	jtavan 2008-04-18 07:14 am UTC (link)
	But that has nothing to do with Lush. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	fjm 2008-04-18 07:21 am UTC (link)
	[grin] but even the best coffee would not cope with over tones of soap. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	meihua 2008-04-17 01:40 pm UTC (link)
	Obey the weegoddess. She does amazing things with hair which looks like it should be truly untamable. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	shevek 2008-04-17 01:48 pm UTC (link)
	This is certainly true! (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

weegoddess
2008-04-18 12:27 am UTC (link)

Aw, you guys are gonna make me blush. ;-} ::smooch::

But honestly, what I do recommend (and I think I mentioned it to you) is a book called Curly Girl. It teaches with authority, and gives simple recipes on how to make one's own haircare products. I swear by it.

And if you don't have time to read it and want to know how I've adapted the principles to dealing with my own hair, just holler. I just wish I'd read that book 25 years ago.

Edited at 2008-04-18 12:38 am UTC

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	weegoddess 2008-04-18 12:20 am UTC (link)
	::hug:: I also recommend 'Retread' and that coconut one. But best to get free samples first. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	aster13 2008-04-17 01:04 pm UTC (link)
	Why not oil? (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	fjm 2008-04-17 01:39 pm UTC (link)
	Because it just makes the hair oily, Oil works really well on asian hair, but it just sits on frizzy hair. Frizzy hair is often very oily already, but rather porous. If you want to get rid of the frizz the trick is to seal it, which the oil doesn't do (despite expectations). (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

aster13
2008-04-17 04:53 pm UTC (link)

Hmm
I do Indian Head Massage, and i find that oil is really very helpful for dry, frizzy hair.

Yes, in large quantities, of course it will make the hair oily, but ime frizzy hair is actually often DRY hair, and really benefits from the additional conditioning.

I entirely agree that frizzy hair is porous (being about the scales of the cuticle being rough and standing up, rather than lying smooth - this allows moisture to depart from/enter the hair shaft more easily), but as such it is often lacking in that moisture that keeps the hair soft and flexible. Again, i agree that the oil doesn't seal the hair shaft, but it will help to nourish the layers within. For the best results, i would suggest that a treatment with warm oil left on for a goodly period, then washed out thoroughly, followed by using a silicone based product to help smooth the cuticle and prevent the "velcro effect" of the sticky-uppy scales enmeshing and tangling with one another.
Most hair colourants which include bleach have to lift the cuticle to allow the colour to penetrate to the core of the hair shaft, but will then leave the hair dry and lifeless (or more prone to being so). Any hair types which are curly will tend to have rougher surfaces, and therefore be more prone to loosing moisture and becoming frizzy.

I don't agree that oil "sits" on hair - excess oil will, and it will do so somewhat on hair with a smooth cuticle as it is harder for it to penetrate. A small amount of light oil (such as fractionated coconut, apricot kernel or perhaps rosehip would be beneficial in nourishing the hair on a frequent basis.

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fjm
2008-04-17 06:49 pm UTC (link)

Frizzy hair is *not* dry hair, because that assumes that "proper" hair is something else. Sorry, I feel strongly about this because it took me years to learn to love my hair.

Frizzy hair can look lovely if one stops washing out all the natural oil (my hair is now washed only every 10 days) and accepts that it isn't meant to look smooth and silk.

Hair is dead. It can't be "nourished". It can be cosmetically treated. Note that you add the silicone anyway. From my experience its the silicon doing the smoothing because it seals the hair, not the oil.

I don't have a problem by the way with choosing to smooth one's hair, but I really don't like the natural hair being somehow equated with wrongness [although I do not mean to imply that this is where you are coming from.]

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aster13
2008-04-17 07:04 pm UTC (link)

Nooo, hair can be dry, or oily, and fine, or thick, and curly, or straight - none of these are "proper" or improper, they're just different.

Hair which isn't dry will tend to look better, because it's more flexible and generally feels softer.

I'm certainly not suggesting that frizzy hair can't look lovely, or that you shouldn't love your hair.

Of course hair is dead. But it can contain a greater or lesser amount of oils or moisture. Some hair will never look smooth and silky because that is not in it's makeup. That's life.

Some people reckon they've had excellent results with the "no poo" method -i've never tried it myself, so i'm open to it working. Curly hair will tend to be dryer at the ends as it is harder for the oils to work their way down the hair shaft than it is for straight hair.

Ok, so perhaps "nourished" wasn't a particularly accurate word for me to have used, but the hair shaft (as i say) can contain more or less oils and water. Little oil and little water will make for hair that feels/is brittle, dry, and stiff.

Erm, i'm not sure when i equated that smooth hair is wrong? I think that straightening hair which is naturally curly tends to lead to hair which is in dreadful condition (by which i mean, is dry, and doesn't look as nice - for a given value of nice)

Some of the nicest hair i've ever seen has been curly hair.

I mentioned the silicone, partly to acknowledge to you that it can be useful, following your mention of it. It can be useful to smooth the plates of the cuticle down.

(Do you know about the biology/physiology of the hair? You don't say as much [although perhaps you do]- and i do! I've studied it! I'm not just making this up!)

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fjm
2008-04-17 07:19 pm UTC (link)

Erm, i'm not sure when i equated that smooth hair is wrong?

The moment you used the term "dry", but as I said in square brackets, I understood that this is not what you meant.

I have studied the biology of hair. I had no choice, having had mine labelled "dry, unmanagable, and impossible" by pretty much every hair dresser until I was in my late twenties, I had to learn what was going on from scratch.

I stick by my stance that "dry" is a value judgement that implies there is something called "normal" (a la the shampoo bottle labels).

My hair is incredibly flexible. It can be curled into ringlets, it can be straightened. It is also very, very soft. There is also masses of it. It is very porous. It always looks frizzy unless heated to death. When treated with oils and encouraged to be straight or "silky" it snaps very easily.

When you describe silky hair you describe the hair of certain ethnic groups. So when you write "Hair which isn't dry will tend to look better" whose better? A better which says that a certain type of hair, which only people in those ethnic groups possess naturally ipso facto "looks better".

I so wish all the above was hypothetical, but those kinds of value judgements made my teenage years a misery--I was constantly being told my hair looked dry, a mess, etc, etc. And the further I went down the road of conforming to "better" hair, the deader it looked and the more hair dressers praised it.

Three things happened: I came across a book on African-American "natural" hair care, I moved to London which is not ethnically homogenous (as York, where I was before, is), and a Jamaican friend of mine took me to task over the state of my hair and showed me how to get the natural oil into it.

I now have waist length ginger hair that glows with different colours. It ripples rather than curls. It is frizzy. It is incredibly soft. I use silicon to seal it because otherwise it forms dreads. I have, however, once or twice contemplated letting it do just that, as they looked rather interesting when I let it happen.

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friend_of_tofu
2008-04-17 08:20 pm UTC (link)

When you describe silky hair you describe the hair of certain ethnic groups. So when you write "Hair which isn't dry will tend to look better" whose better? A better which says that a certain type of hair, which only people in those ethnic groups possess naturally ipso facto "looks better".

Thank you for making this observation! The unconscious racial biases about less-overt characteristics are something infuriatingly ingrained into our culture, and the general tendency to elide them bugs the hell out of me.

Just nice to know I'm not the only person who gets bugged by it.

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	fjm 2008-04-17 09:03 pm UTC (link)
	Do you know the story "Soap and Water" by the Jewish American immigrant Anzia Yezierska? You can find it here (the second story) http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/gilded/people/text6/yezierska.pdf She points out that it's also a class issue. The story was published in 1920. Depressing hey? (Reply to this)(Parent)

	fjm 2008-04-17 02:04 pm UTC (link)
	ps. If you don't want to end up with dreads, make sure you braid your hair at night or if it's short, wrap it. Dublin air turned my hair into waist length rope. [In contrast, in Chicago I lost all curl and all bounce. I hated it.] (Reply to this)

	yady 2008-04-17 03:16 pm UTC (link)
	I don't suppose you have any of that conditioner you stole from me left? You need to get some of that when you visit here again! (Reply to this)(Thread)

	shevek 2008-04-17 03:17 pm UTC (link)
	Yes, in England, but not here. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	ladykalessia 2008-04-17 03:46 pm UTC (link)
	What do I DO with THIS? Take pictures, to save teh lulz for posterity. (And for those of us who won't get to see it in person. :) ) (Reply to this)(Thread)

	shevek 2008-04-17 03:55 pm UTC (link)
	It's actually OK, it makes me look a lot more alive, but it's distinctly non-corporate. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	thekumquat 2008-04-17 05:39 pm UTC (link)
	PHOTOS!!! (Reply to this)

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