hair chalked hair...

I'm fortunate enough to have been blessed with beautiful red hair. I love the colour of my hair, I'm not so precious about the styling and cutting of it though and most of the time just take a scissors to it myself rather than going to the salon to get it done. I know most people love sitting back and having someone style and cut their beautiful tresses but I'm more of a quick chop will sort it out kinda gal, I've even had Billy cut my hair for me recently into a nice think long bob.

Being a country girl and spending most of the time from when I was 10 to 18 with my hair stuck under a horse riding helmet also means I never really got into dying my hair. I much preferred to spend all my money on new jodhpurs or riding boots and looking back I'm pretty thankful I never took this costly habit up, however I sometimes am pretty envious of my friends chopping and changing hair colour with the seasons.

I did once use a semi-permanent sachet of dye on my hair while at a sleep over with the girls. I think we were supposed to leave them in for 20-30 mins but we were too busy watching Leonardo Di Caprio in Titanic to notice the time slip by and my hair did go a pretty luminous orange for a wash or two. Another time I had the girls try to dye chunks of my hair black with permanent dye. It seemed like a great idea at the time but to my disappointment the dye just washed straight out. I gave up trying to colour my hair after this. Never could stomach the idea of having my hair bleached so I looked for new methods to change my do.

I dabbled in coloured hair extensions a couple of times and quite liked my royal blue highlights. My friend Rose got a neon pink one too but hers was short lived once it had encountered the hair straightener.

Recently I have discovered feather hair extensions and and I have to say that I'm pretty taken with these. Yes maybe a little bird like but who cares. They look awesome. So many colours and so cheap on ebay too. It's for this reason that I have amassed a collection of over fifty different feathers. If you get the real feathers they can also be curled and straightened and treated just like your own hair so pretty low mantainence for someone like me. Once they start to grow out you can just remove them and place them back in closer to the roots. Easy Peasy.

My latest discovery is hair pastels. I bought some off ebay, advertised as "hair pastels" but when they arrived they were just your average run of the mill artist pastels but they work just as well and were a fraction of the cost for a much greater variety of colours.

While I'm still working in the city I can't go too wild but at Christmas we are going to New Zealand for a month so I plan to have rainbow hair mixed with feathers for the duration. Embrace my inner hippy. The pastels are so easy to apply and will wash out too although I believe they may stay in lighter coloured hair for a little longer but hey you're only young once and even if your not young, what's stopping you.

hair mask heaven...

No matter what time of the year it is our hair is always fighting a battle of some kind, it's either being blown about by the wind, beaten by the rain, or searing in the sunshine. Our tresses are being tortured and we need to give them a little TLC.

I have red hair and from season to season it lightens or darkens depending on how much sunshine it is being exposed to. It's generally not to dry or too greasy and I am quite lucky with the fact that I usually get away with only washing it once maybe twice a week. I apply some serum once washed and a day or so before I wash it again I use some dry shampoo to freshen it up and give it a bit of volume but other then that it is left alone. I shampoo and condition when washing my hair but sometimes I just dont get that fresh clean feeling I'm looking for.

I decided to have a look for some home made remedies and this is what I found:

The first little step I came across is not a hair mask but a really simple step to getting really fresh clean hair. Baking soda as we know is well known for its cleaning properties from glistening kitchens to soap scum free sinks, so it must be great at getting through the build up and residue left from all the styling products we use too. Add two tablespoons of baking soda to three cups of water and use to rinse your hair after shampooing. Then condition as normal for silky smooth fresh hair. Alternatively pour a generous helping of baking soda into your hand and add your shampoo and work well into your hair before rinsing and conditioning. It's such a simple step and by doing this once a week you really will notice the difference.

As I have been travelling quite a bit over the last year and have been lucky enough to spend most of my time in some very warm countries, my hair has definitely dried out a little more then I would like. I haven't really been giving it enough attention and it spent a lot of the time just knotted on top of my head to keep it all out of the way. Now that I'm faced with another summer coming up I want to get my hair into the best condition possible. I found this really simple yet effective hair mask to moisturise and strengthen hair whilst giving it an amazing shine too. There's only two ingredients so for a cheap yet effective hair mask I don't think it gets much better than this.

You need enough natural yogurt to cover your hair. Mix two tablespoons of honey into this. Massage this into your scalp and hair and leave to sit for 15-30 mins. Then rinse off and wash and condition as normal. The natural yogurt provides essential nutrients whilst being full of protein which is super important for healthy hair. The honey is great for moisturising so these two combined create a great hair mask. Apply this mask every few weeks to keep your hair in tip top condition. Dont worry if you make too much of this mask as you can always enjoy the leftovers as a healthy treat poured over some fruit. yummy.

These worked so well I'm now on the hunt for a few more so every hair complaint will have a mask to suit.