It's been a while, I know. I've learned a lot since my last post.
First was sugaring. I did it with my sister, the owner of the legs you saw in the illustrated sugaring post. The process was something like this. We put two cups of sugar, 1/4th cup of water, and 1/4 cup of lemon juice in a small pot, mixed it up, and heated it up. Once it melts, it will start boiling. You have to let it boil for a while, stirring it to keep it from burning. The bubbles from boiling will be thick and white, so to check the color of the sugar, take the pot off heat occasionally. It'll start out clear. Stop when it's a dark amber color.
We poured the molten sugar into a heated up mason jar. It took a long time to cool and we didn't wait long enough. Take a butter knife and dip it into the goo. You should get a fairly solid bridge of stretched sugar that once lowered back to the surface of the sugar retains its shape for a good five or ten seconds. Play around to find out what works for you. The first time we did it, the goo wasn't cool/hard enough, and it did a mediocre job. We left it to cool for a while longer and it was far more effective.
The process is similar to waxing (I suppose, although I've never waxed in my life). I used a butter knife and spread the goo on a strip of my leg in the direction of hair growth. Make it thin and even. Put a similarly sized strip of cloth (thin cotton or muslin) on the goo-patch, rub it to make sure it's properly adhered, wait about ten seconds, and then pull it swiftly opposite the direction of hair growth. Try to keep the force you use to pull parallel to your skin. It can sting a bit, but any visible irritation I had afterward was gone by the next day.
One nice thing about sugaring is that you can wash the sugar and hair off the cloth with warm water and it's not bad for the septic system. Also, you can leave the sugar in the jar for as long as you want and quickly reheat it in the microwave whenever you want to sugar again. (I did it for a minute and it was way more melted than it needed to be. Do it in five or ten second zaps.)
The first time I sugared my legs, I had let the hair grow for about a month. (It was probably between 1.5 and 2" long.) I have thick body hair, so the results were pretty phenomenal. There were some stragglers left, the thicker of which I pulled out with tweezers. Similar results with my armpits. And while the results last longer than shaving, unlike shaving, the hair grows back unevenly, with longer stragglers, faster growing hairs, etc., so I'd have to wait a really long time for sugaring to be effective again. But it's a good way to clear the field if you're going for a seasonal BANG sort of hairlessness. I'm going to be shaving with my double-edged razor until things even out again.
On to the hair. As I mentioned before, the hard, well water situation at home was giving me trouble with my hair. It got pretty greasy and dandruffy, and since baking soda and vinegar didn't work as well as I hoped, I went for a thorough brushing, a corn-starch application and massage, more brushing, and a thorough rinsing. It worked really well, surprisingly, and I've gone four or five days without washing my hair without it getting noticeably gross. So, if you're in a hard water situation, try some corn starch, scritching, massaging, brushing, shaking, and rinsing.
I found raw, organic Bragg's apple cider vinegar at our local fancy-pants grocer, and it's taste is much better than the distilled stuff I got in a jug at the ghetto-ass grocer I go to during the school year. It's doing wonders for my bowel movements and I'm sleeping much more soundly than I was without it. I've been drinking it twice a day, morning and night, for about a week. It's been effective in aiding digestion. Maybe a little too effective. So I'm going to cut down to once a day and see how that goes.
So, there we go. Summer is a lazy time, and I'm glad I can get away with not bathing regularly without as much trouble as I used to encounter.
Showing posts with label hair removal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hair removal. Show all posts
June 9, 2009
April 26, 2009
Sugaring Victim & Solid Routine
Guest contribution by my sister, who experimented with sugaring and sent pictures and descriptions of the process and results.
This is the goop, cooling in a pot.
This is the goop, looking goopy on my sister's hand.
She applied it to her leg using her fingers, which she does not recommend. Instead, use a tongue depressor to apply the goo against the grain.
Initially, she used a no-cloth method where you just pull the crap off your legs, but resorted to cloth after disastrous results (which are pictured below).
As you can see, the right leg looks like it's been a victim of domestic abuse. Pulling the goo off by hand was apparently difficult and bruised like crazy. On the left leg, using cloth to remove the goo and hair (against the grain) was easier and had better results.
I'm looking forward to trying this. We're planning to make a party of it.
In my own progress, I think I've reached a point that requires less experimentation in terms of hair and face care. I'm down to weekly baking soda washes and apple cider vinegar rinses with daily or every-other-daily water only washes. (I say weekly, but it's just determined by when my hair gets unmanageable by non-washing means.) If the problem is just grease and I don't have time for a full-fledged shower, I put some corn starch in my hair, brush it in, remove as much as possible by shaking it out or rubbing it with a dry washcloth and then just rinse out the powdery remains in a quick head shower. When dandruff is particularly noticeable, I saturate my scalp with undiluted apple cider vinegar and let it sit for ten to twenty minutes before getting in the shower and doing the normal diluted baking soda and diluted apple cider vinegar routine. I also cut my hair really short, which makes the whole thing a lot easier.
Face care has been somewhat simplified. On a daily basis, I scrub and exfoliate with a baking soda paste and follow that with a shea butter face massage. When I have some free time, I do a honey mask after the baking soda scrub for twenty minutes, if possible, which helps with acne and such. I read that massaging pure shea butter into your skin can help to reduce pore definition, and I think it's working to some extent. I take a quarter-sized lump of shea butter, melt it down in my palms, rub it onto my face, and then massage it around in little circles. Usually, I do about two of these applications to get everything evenly moisturized. You'd think that putting oily buttery things on your face would make it more oily, but I'm starting to think that the opposite is true. Kind of like with hair sebum, face sebum won't overproduce unless it's being stripped away.
I also got unbelievably sunburnt this weekend and have been putting apple cider vinegar on it after reading that this helps. I'm convinced that apple cider vinegar can be used for every ailment.
Oil pulling might be doing something, but I'm really not sure. I'm continuing out of curiosity, but mostly because I have nothing else to do with this bottle of sesame oil.
This is the goop, cooling in a pot.
This is the goop, looking goopy on my sister's hand.
She applied it to her leg using her fingers, which she does not recommend. Instead, use a tongue depressor to apply the goo against the grain.
Initially, she used a no-cloth method where you just pull the crap off your legs, but resorted to cloth after disastrous results (which are pictured below).
As you can see, the right leg looks like it's been a victim of domestic abuse. Pulling the goo off by hand was apparently difficult and bruised like crazy. On the left leg, using cloth to remove the goo and hair (against the grain) was easier and had better results.
I'm looking forward to trying this. We're planning to make a party of it.
In my own progress, I think I've reached a point that requires less experimentation in terms of hair and face care. I'm down to weekly baking soda washes and apple cider vinegar rinses with daily or every-other-daily water only washes. (I say weekly, but it's just determined by when my hair gets unmanageable by non-washing means.) If the problem is just grease and I don't have time for a full-fledged shower, I put some corn starch in my hair, brush it in, remove as much as possible by shaking it out or rubbing it with a dry washcloth and then just rinse out the powdery remains in a quick head shower. When dandruff is particularly noticeable, I saturate my scalp with undiluted apple cider vinegar and let it sit for ten to twenty minutes before getting in the shower and doing the normal diluted baking soda and diluted apple cider vinegar routine. I also cut my hair really short, which makes the whole thing a lot easier.
Face care has been somewhat simplified. On a daily basis, I scrub and exfoliate with a baking soda paste and follow that with a shea butter face massage. When I have some free time, I do a honey mask after the baking soda scrub for twenty minutes, if possible, which helps with acne and such. I read that massaging pure shea butter into your skin can help to reduce pore definition, and I think it's working to some extent. I take a quarter-sized lump of shea butter, melt it down in my palms, rub it onto my face, and then massage it around in little circles. Usually, I do about two of these applications to get everything evenly moisturized. You'd think that putting oily buttery things on your face would make it more oily, but I'm starting to think that the opposite is true. Kind of like with hair sebum, face sebum won't overproduce unless it's being stripped away.
I also got unbelievably sunburnt this weekend and have been putting apple cider vinegar on it after reading that this helps. I'm convinced that apple cider vinegar can be used for every ailment.
Oil pulling might be doing something, but I'm really not sure. I'm continuing out of curiosity, but mostly because I have nothing else to do with this bottle of sesame oil.
April 9, 2009
Hair Removal with Thread and Dexterity, etc.
If sugaring is the alternative to waxing, then threading is the alternative to tweezing. Threading was mentioned repeatedly in my search for alternative hair removal methods, but I never thought to look at how it was done because the general consensus was that "the ancient art of threading is difficult to learn." But this week, in my Instructables Weekend Builder, there was this article: How to thread eyebrows. With a little practice, it's not that difficult and seems less time consuming and tedious than tweezing. If you've got a foot of thread lying around, give it a try!
I washed my hair on Thursday morning last week with baking soda and apple cider vinegar. Over the following weekend, I didn't even do water-only washes. By monday, it was starting to get greasy, but with brushing and a few water washes, itchiness is completely under control. Dandruff is starting to be noticeable, so I'm trying a method my mother recommended: pressing a piece of gauze into your brush before brushing. It seems to attract a lot of excess bits of things and also makes your brush easier to clean afterward.
Something else I tried this week was corn starch to cut down on greasiness. When I put it in initially, starting from the back of my head and brushing it through, my hair felt very not-greasy but it had a theater-old-person, grey and powdery look to it. I could have probably brushed it out (with a brush first, followed by a dry washcloth) but decided to wash my hair instead. That restored some of the greasy feeling but I think it's better than it would have been without the corn starch treatment. (If you have corn starch, you should also use it to make oobleck.)
The last thing on my initial list of life changes has finally been put into effect. That routine is oil pulling, which is not as terrible as it sounds. It involves putting a tablespoon of oil in your mouth (sesame or sunflower oil is recommended) and swishing it around, drawing it through your teeth, chomping, swishing some more for twenty minutes or so. There are all sorts of theories as to why this works as a detox—the oil bonds to phlegm, bacteria, viruses and doing this in your mouth clears your entry-orifice, receptors on your tongue that are connected to different body parts, etc.—but apparently it does cure and prevent a wide spectrum of ailments. It also makes your teeth whiter and stronger, prevents dark circles around the eyes... the list of potential health benefits is long. I figure it probably won't do any harm and we'll see if it helps anything. This, like nasal irrigation, is a remedy of Indian origin; Ayurveda or some such.
I bought a bottle of unrefined sesame oil at my local organic food store. The sites I read recommend untoasted, unrefined, cold-pressed sesame or sunflower oil for best results. Right after waking up, before eating or drinking anything, put a tablespoon of oil in your mouth and swish it around for twenty minutes. I decided to start waking up a little earlier and reading the news and checking email while doing this. Don't swallow the oil, because apparently it get increasingly bacterial and nasty as you swish. Either practice responding to the swallowing reflex without actually swallowing (probably something you do naturally when brushing your teeth) or spit out the oil and finish the routine with a new tablespoon. At the end of twenty minutes, spit the oil out into the toilet (it should be white), rinse your mouth well with water, and drink two or three cups of water. (I brush my teeth afterward and do my morning apple cider vinegar drink, followed by an extra cup of water.)
I've been really phlegmy since starting this yesterday, but according to practitioners of oil pulling, the first few days may see symptoms of illness worsening as the detox starts. I am getting rid of a lot of phlegm, which strikes me as a good thing. The first time, not gagging was a bit of a struggle and I felt pretty gross afterward, but apparently that's expected the first time. Doing it again this morning was a lot more pleasant and I don't feel nearly as weird as I did after the first time.
Here's the EarthClinic page on oil pulling with instructions and user feedback. Please do some outside research before starting this. I'll report back with results if and when they show.
I washed my hair on Thursday morning last week with baking soda and apple cider vinegar. Over the following weekend, I didn't even do water-only washes. By monday, it was starting to get greasy, but with brushing and a few water washes, itchiness is completely under control. Dandruff is starting to be noticeable, so I'm trying a method my mother recommended: pressing a piece of gauze into your brush before brushing. It seems to attract a lot of excess bits of things and also makes your brush easier to clean afterward.
Something else I tried this week was corn starch to cut down on greasiness. When I put it in initially, starting from the back of my head and brushing it through, my hair felt very not-greasy but it had a theater-old-person, grey and powdery look to it. I could have probably brushed it out (with a brush first, followed by a dry washcloth) but decided to wash my hair instead. That restored some of the greasy feeling but I think it's better than it would have been without the corn starch treatment. (If you have corn starch, you should also use it to make oobleck.)
The last thing on my initial list of life changes has finally been put into effect. That routine is oil pulling, which is not as terrible as it sounds. It involves putting a tablespoon of oil in your mouth (sesame or sunflower oil is recommended) and swishing it around, drawing it through your teeth, chomping, swishing some more for twenty minutes or so. There are all sorts of theories as to why this works as a detox—the oil bonds to phlegm, bacteria, viruses and doing this in your mouth clears your entry-orifice, receptors on your tongue that are connected to different body parts, etc.—but apparently it does cure and prevent a wide spectrum of ailments. It also makes your teeth whiter and stronger, prevents dark circles around the eyes... the list of potential health benefits is long. I figure it probably won't do any harm and we'll see if it helps anything. This, like nasal irrigation, is a remedy of Indian origin; Ayurveda or some such.
I bought a bottle of unrefined sesame oil at my local organic food store. The sites I read recommend untoasted, unrefined, cold-pressed sesame or sunflower oil for best results. Right after waking up, before eating or drinking anything, put a tablespoon of oil in your mouth and swish it around for twenty minutes. I decided to start waking up a little earlier and reading the news and checking email while doing this. Don't swallow the oil, because apparently it get increasingly bacterial and nasty as you swish. Either practice responding to the swallowing reflex without actually swallowing (probably something you do naturally when brushing your teeth) or spit out the oil and finish the routine with a new tablespoon. At the end of twenty minutes, spit the oil out into the toilet (it should be white), rinse your mouth well with water, and drink two or three cups of water. (I brush my teeth afterward and do my morning apple cider vinegar drink, followed by an extra cup of water.)
I've been really phlegmy since starting this yesterday, but according to practitioners of oil pulling, the first few days may see symptoms of illness worsening as the detox starts. I am getting rid of a lot of phlegm, which strikes me as a good thing. The first time, not gagging was a bit of a struggle and I felt pretty gross afterward, but apparently that's expected the first time. Doing it again this morning was a lot more pleasant and I don't feel nearly as weird as I did after the first time.
Here's the EarthClinic page on oil pulling with instructions and user feedback. Please do some outside research before starting this. I'll report back with results if and when they show.
March 24, 2009
Whether you decide to keep shaving or not...
Unlike the earth-child you'd think would be responsible for a blog like this, I take time and money to keep unwanted body hair in check. Since I don't wear shorts or sleeveless shirts frequently and don't have a luvah to impress, I don't shave as regularly as some, but it's still a grooming routine that seems unnecessarily expensive and wasteful. I've been using a Venus razor since middle school and have always wondered why the replaceable razor heads are so damned pricey. If it was just about money, finding a cheaper disposable alternative wouldn't be hard. But disposables are wasteful, whether you're throwing away the razor head or the entire razor every time the blades get dull.
One of my new year's resolutions was to eliminate plastic disposables from my life, so I've been thinking about buying a safety razor for a while. Safety razors, which replaced the straight razor of Sweeny Todd fame, will give you a much closer shave than disposables and are cheaper long-term. (You may be as interested as I was to know that King C. Gilette's innovation of the disposable razor inspired a fascinating business model. Also, if you're having trouble visualizing what a safety razor looks like, here's the one I just ordered and a Google image search.) Like a menstrual cup, the initial investment is more expensive (anywhere from $20 up), but considering the price I'm paying for Venus razor heads, it will pay for itself after a while and, with proper care, can last a lifetime. The only thing that you throw away with a safety razor is the dulled, double-edge razor, which I imagine you can sharpen if you want to get the most out of it. It might even be recyclable in some places.
Recently, an even cheaper, less wasteful alternative called sugaring has caught my attention. The principle is similar to waxing and the results last just as long, but you can make the "wax" with household ingredients: sugar, lemon juice, and water. Cheap, water soluble, and safe to put down the drain or in a compost pit. Unlike wax, the sugar mixture doesn't stick to your skin and will hurt less and cause minimal damage to your epidermis. It's recommended that your hair be at least 1/2" for this method to be effective, which means that you'll need to suffer through a brief werewolf period, but it's cheap and you can do it easily with access to a stovetop. I don't have 1/2" leg hair, a stovetop, sugar, or lemon juice, but once I get those things, I will definitely give sugaring a try. Shaving has always caused issues with my skin, so it'll be fun to compare the results.
If you have the necessary ingredients and are ready to try, do a Google search for "sugaring" to find loads of websites with recipes and instructions and let me know how it goes.
One of my new year's resolutions was to eliminate plastic disposables from my life, so I've been thinking about buying a safety razor for a while. Safety razors, which replaced the straight razor of Sweeny Todd fame, will give you a much closer shave than disposables and are cheaper long-term. (You may be as interested as I was to know that King C. Gilette's innovation of the disposable razor inspired a fascinating business model. Also, if you're having trouble visualizing what a safety razor looks like, here's the one I just ordered and a Google image search.) Like a menstrual cup, the initial investment is more expensive (anywhere from $20 up), but considering the price I'm paying for Venus razor heads, it will pay for itself after a while and, with proper care, can last a lifetime. The only thing that you throw away with a safety razor is the dulled, double-edge razor, which I imagine you can sharpen if you want to get the most out of it. It might even be recyclable in some places.
Recently, an even cheaper, less wasteful alternative called sugaring has caught my attention. The principle is similar to waxing and the results last just as long, but you can make the "wax" with household ingredients: sugar, lemon juice, and water. Cheap, water soluble, and safe to put down the drain or in a compost pit. Unlike wax, the sugar mixture doesn't stick to your skin and will hurt less and cause minimal damage to your epidermis. It's recommended that your hair be at least 1/2" for this method to be effective, which means that you'll need to suffer through a brief werewolf period, but it's cheap and you can do it easily with access to a stovetop. I don't have 1/2" leg hair, a stovetop, sugar, or lemon juice, but once I get those things, I will definitely give sugaring a try. Shaving has always caused issues with my skin, so it'll be fun to compare the results.
If you have the necessary ingredients and are ready to try, do a Google search for "sugaring" to find loads of websites with recipes and instructions and let me know how it goes.
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