This is just a short note, since 'life' has been pretty much inconsequential (aka, still 'lost', still needing a job, etc.). Anyway:
Happy Solstice!
It's summer solstice, here, and I might be odd but I am looking forward to shorter days. *blush* Less sun will be a good thing, although it's also just now starting to really warm up, and it'll be quite hot for the next two and a half months!
Now, looks like I might have to drive cross-country (literally, just a couple hours drive from either coast) and back within the next month. Nothing certain yet, just enough that I CAN'T APPLY TO ANY JOBS. Grr. Sorry for yelling, but this is getting so annoying. I get yelled at for not being able to find a job (online, b/c of my light sensitivity) and just as I was about to send out more stuff, I get hit with having to put it all on hold. Completely. And guess what? Still getting yelled at for not finding a job. Sick of this.
And no, still no further in finding any kind of 'path' or anything. I haven't even done the daily tarot card draws this last month. :(
Add to the above that I think my sun sensitivity is bumping itself up another notch (in that I need to find something else to use on my face for when I have to drive somewhere...or break down and do some research into UV tinting for my car...or better, both!).
But, getting some type of job is still the #1 thing, and since the sun thing isn't really 'that' important as it's not like I do stuff with friends (don't have any!), so, yeah, it's pretty far down on the 'list'.
Thought I might post some things I've learned (many through experience, even) that are good 'natural' things to use on one's hair, most of which are pretty easy.
I did include one unnatural product that is very gentle for what it does.
Need to clarify? (or add softness/shine) These can also make your scalp 'happier', although I notice more effects on my hair.
- Vinegar rinse (apple cider if you have darker hair (can give slight red highlights), white if you have lighter hair). Anywhere from a teaspoon to a quart up to about 1/4 of a cup. Start with less! Rinse or don't rinse. (If you use a high concentration of vinegar, I'd suggest rinsing.)
- Citric acid rinse! Especially if your hair is like mine and dislikes vinegar. Dissolve 1/2 teaspoon to 2 teaspoons citric acid in at least a quart of water, use as a rinse. Even if you have dry hair, this words well. If your hair feels hairsprayed (btw, a bit of citric acid in water makes a pretty good hairspray!) you either need to rinse afterwards or use less citric acid in the rinse.
- Lemon juice rinse. Similar to the citric acid rinse, but can be drying and I wouldn't recommend doing this one on a regular basis. Citric acid works much better/safer for the hair.
How about getting your scalp clean?
- If you want to get your scalp nice 'n clean: Mix brown sugar (MUST be brown, not white!) with conditioner, apply to scalp, gently rub, rinse out--the more conditioner the better, as it makes it easier to rinse).
- Coconut oil applied to scalp (20 minutes or so), then washed out. Oil dissolves oil.
Shampoo/Conditioner additives:
- Aloe Vera! You can mix this 1:1 with both your shampoo and conditioner to make them more moisturising (also makes your hair shinier!)
- Oil (but be very very careful with this one, we're talking a couple of *small* drops).
- Honey. Mix with conditioner, or mix with aloe vera and conditioner. If you want to do this, read the 'caution' at the end.
- Tea Tree Oil, helps with itching, acne, and most scalp troubles. Couple drops in your shampoo.
Colour enhancing:
- Chamomile: As a rinse (have to keep doing it, both several rinses to get it started, then often after) can give blonde highlights to light brown/dark blonde hair. If your hair is closer to a true blonde/light blonde, this may actually *darken* your hair, so be careful. I know this as chamomile does nothing to the bulk of my hair (dark blonde) and darkens the lighter bits (whitish-light ash blonde. This did not do anything permanent to my hair. I don't know if adding sunlight would actually lighten, as I can't test it.
- For darkening, I believe a sage rinse is good, although haven't actually tried it.
- If for some reason you want lemon yellow hair, try Turmeric. Not natural looking, and if you have dark hair it'll only show up under sunlight! I did a test of this on dyed black hair.
- Lemon juice: Don't do it unless you have short hair and plan to keep short hair. Even then, it is very very drying. Seriously, just dye it or do a slight bleaching--much gentler.
- Honey. This can lighten hair. It is not 'instant', and any lightening can cause damage. If you want to try it and have med-dark blonde hair or brown hair: 1 part honey to 2-3 parts conditioner. Do NOT microwave this mix. Apply to damp hair if possible. Leave on 1-4 hours (cover with plastic bag/cap). Rinse really really well. Remember: Not instantaneous...you'll need to do this several times. I do not know what this will do on lighter blonde hair. From my experience, I'd say it might give a slightly more golden tone--but nothing compared to the chamomile.
Lightening/fading DYE (only darker dye):
- If the dye is very very fresh, slap a ton of extra virgin olive oil on your head and let it sit for 4+ hours (6+ or overnight even better), wash out, repeat. The fresher the dye, the more this will 'do'. And it's a treatment, too!
- Try the honey/conditioner from the previous section if EVOO doesn't do anything, remembering to NOT microwave the mix. This may also work a little on henna...or it may not. It is gradual and you may have to do this multiple times to notice a difference. This is actually fading my 2.5 year old dye on the ends of my hair. It's gradual and takes a while, but probably gentler than bleach (although, again, not instantaneous in that you'll have to repeat).
- NOT at all natural, but Colorfix will take out a lot of dye with very little damage (do not use the third bottle). If the dye you used was a direct dye (henna or, for example, Feria black...) it won't take it all out, but will 'help' with a few applications (I got to red with 3 applications of colorfix on old dyed black--I got about a level and a half lighter with 3 one-hour applications of bleach (stops lightening after 3)). Colorfix does stink though, and I mean really stinks (and I've only used it on *small* samples).
Dry/colour-treated ends/hair (mostly apply to longer hair):
- Oil the ends (EVOO (but it's heavy), jojoba, coconut, grapeseed (or rapeseed, depending on country), emu, sweet almond. If you have trouble with this (crunchy hair), try putting on damp hair if you tried dry (or dry if you tried damp), or maybe using a mister with a few drops of oil. If your hair still doesn't like it, don't worry, some people's hair dislikes all oils. And, even if your hair dislikes it as a leave it, you can soak your hair with it, let it sit for about 20 minutes pre-washing, then wash/condition!
- Mister solutions! Add a bit of aloe vera or conditioner to water, mist. Can also add various EOs.
- Mixing honey, aloe vera and conditioner (no-cone conditioner, Suave and VO5 are good to use for this) and leaving it on for 20 min to an hour. Microwave if you are concerned about lightening/fading, or use molasses instead of honey (only if you have darker hair, though!).
- This one is JUST for below shoulder length hair: Put conditioner on your ends FIRST, then wash just your scalp with your shampoo, rinse both out, reapply conditioner to the ends as usual. The first round of conditioner is there to prevent the ends from being overly cleaned/dried out/striped by the shampoo.
Cautions!!
- Be careful of allergies. Some people are allergic to coconut oil, aloe vera, etc. If you are allergic to something or react, don't use it! If you're prone to allergies, you might try a kind of patch test (particularly with herbs) to see how you react.
- Oils can fade dye! So, if you don't want your dye to fade a bit, you might want to avoid using oils....
- Tea Tree Oil is an essential oil. You don't need much of these! You can also use it on facial acne, but AVOID your eye area and lips. If you get a little too close to your lips, you can see how powerful EOs are (you'll taste it on the INSIDE of your mouth).
- Honey can be very very moisturising. It can also lighten hair/fade dye. Good news: Microwaving kills the lightening effects, so if you want the moisture but not the lightening, just zap it a few seconds. Not too long, though, as honey gets VERY hot. :)
And, I guess:
- Best 'natural' (as in detergent free) shampoo/conditioners I've used: Burt's Bees. They work in our very hard water without leaving a residue like many 'natural' shampoos.
Wow, that ended up a lot longer than intended. Sorry about that!
For those that do, happy Ostara (or whatever celebration you hold around the Spring equinox)!
Now for a bit of rantishness, I guess, although it's more just fact....
A bit of a side-effect of not doing anything means I've never celebrated...anything. Part of this is that I'm just not interested in Wicca (or celebrating the Sabbats), but I also don't have anything to celebrate since I have no direction. Okay, that didn't make sense, but even just celebrating the spring equinox holds no meaning. For one, don't really believe it's about celebrating the equinox itself...and since I don't have anything remotely specific to relate with it (without having to randomly 'pick' something/a specific path (sorry, would never be able to pick something/make something up, as either I think of *nothing* or I think of *too much*)), well...
All it really does is remind me that I'm STILL lacking anything/have absolutely no purpose in this area. Which reminds me that I, in general, am useless. AKA, might as well not exist. lol
But, yeah, just emphasises that I'm not getting anywhere, and it's been like that for a few years now, but worse since trying to really fix that, as it's just making it clearer that it's not working. :(
Course, for right now, it doesn't help that I really don't like spring much! Why? It means starting to get to the part of the year where I'm passing out from too much heat if I'm not careful. And long-sleeves (jacket in moleskin, regular fabric doesn't do it)/jeans works well in the colder months (20-40*F and lower), but not at all well when it's 95-110*F and sunny. Even 75...which it was just a couple days ago, is pushing it. Last summer was horrid (been getting hotter, it seems), and from what I can tell it looks like this summer will be, too...
First off: I did take a better look at my new tarot deck, but so far mainly seeing what all the cards look like. :P
Other on-topic/related: Still just sitting, cuz there's no where to go... Er, that probably doesn't make much since, but I can't even think up questions to ask to fix anything. And I've tried. But the only question is 'what to do?' really...cuz it comes back to being unable to pick anything with even a remote sense of certainty. And that just means I don't do anything, longer. Bored.
Actually, some of that goes back to the first paragraph, as I'm not sure how best to approach a new tarot deck, even.... :(
And...out of stuff to write (fanfic, although it's pretty sparse here, too lol). :( Completely. Finished two fanfics in the last couple weeks, the second of which I kinda got a title for and will be going 'up' probably today or tomorrow. I want rid of it. But, yeah, out of stuff to write, which is odd. So, for now I've gotten talked into writing a (rather complicated) scene for a book a friend is working on. Or, well, one to start with, as I there's another section I believe I'm going to get talked into writing.
And, grr, mum needs to get high-speed internet, so I can WORK. We still aren't quite in the service area for clearwire (they skipped over this section, for some reason, and are even doing smaller areas...I guess because we're in a far more established section?). It's just annoying, because A) we can't get DSL, and B) cable is an option but it's pricey (and we have satellite tv, so it has to be installed, too). We'll end up getting cable (and have both a modem (since NOVEMBER) and a wireless router (since EARLY JANUARY) but WHEN? Sorry, I'm just getting tired of waiting. For everything. I need it to get a job. Can't remember if I said this here yet or not, but I'm getting rather annoyed, and next time mum comments that I don't have a job, all I'll need left is cable internet--which she knows I need and hasn't been working toward getting. I can't get it on my own, as I don't own the house and she wants to be home when it's hooked up, which means the only 'option' is on Tuesdays.... *Off to wait some more, I guess.*
