Tuesday, December 2, 2014

December Update

It's December already, can you believe it?!?  What a year this has been.  Here's a quick recap before I go into the December "grey hair" update. :)

The last time I dyed my hair with Hendigo was March 15, 2014.  That's 262 days ago, or roughly 8.6 months.

Here I was back in May 2014 with two months new growth.
Two months later, I was getting impatient with the slow growing roots, it was hot and my thin scraggly hair was getting on my nerves!  I went to work on August 1st looking like this:
And went home looking like this:

Hello pixie cut. :)  Now the intention wasn't to always have wicked short hair.  I liked my hair long and I miss it.  I miss the fullness that it used to have too, which it seemed to have lost over the past few years.

So with all my past pixies, I get it cut once and then just let it grow until I can't stand it anymore.
September 2014

October 2014
November must have been a busy month, 'cause I seem to have failed to take a photo update.....but here I am as of today, December 2nd.
 



It's too long to do that spikey thing in the back now, so I mostly just let it go or tie up the bangs in a clip when they get obnoxious.  Here's the interesting part.......I think I found out why my hair was losing it's fullness.  Long story, kinda personal, but might be worth sharing with my fellow women.

For the past 4 years, my hair has been shedding.  Not a normal shedding, but a rapid shed.  So much so that the growth could not keep up with it.  I would run my fingers through my hair and get strand after strand of hairs with tapered ends, hairs not more than 4" long, sometimes shorter.  This was really distressing for me.  I knew that it meant my hair was not going through a normal growth cycle and that I likely would never be able to grow long hair, which I had loved so much in the past.
My lovely hair in 2007
The shed was accompanied by terrible tingling and burning of the scalp.  I had resigned myself to thinning, shedding hair that must be kept short by necessity, or otherwise look hideous.  It was a very scary and depressing place to be!  But, as with all in life, you just deal. 

Here's where things get a little personal, but I'll share a modest amount in the hopes that this information might help another woman who may be experiencing the same thing.

Since getting married in 2003, I'd been on the birth control pill.  My husband and I knew we didn't want kids so that seemed like a great way to make sure an accidental mini-us didn't happen.  I supposed as you age, your body changes and at 26 you're a whole different person than you are at 37 (holy shit, I'm 37! :o).  Through a series of minor events my interest was piqued into researching what these hormonal replacement pills do to your body.  My skin was looking old, thin, dry with dark patches on my face (melasma), my hair was in TE (telogen effluvium) and had been for several years, meaning it was chronic, my personality was dry, dead, snappy.  I felt like I was in PMS 24/7/365.  Combine that with the risk of blood clots/stroke/cancer and I had had enough of these little pills.  On September 13, 2014, I quit the BC Pills for good.  In short, it was the BEST decision I have ever made.  I feel like ME again.  My skin looks smooth and elastic, dark spots are fading away.  I'm fortunate in that my body was able to pick up hormone production immediately and am quite standard when it comes to that sort of thing.  But you know what the most awesome, incredible thing is???  Two months after stopping those pills, my hair shedding reduced to normal levels!  My scalp feels right again!  It no longer hurts to touch my head or brush my hair.  And my hair, it's growing faster!  I firmly believe that the pill was the reason my hair had been failing so badly for the past 4-5 years.  Oh, I have such great hopes that my hair will come back!  It will be silver now, but I want it long again! 

My take away for all the women out there who may be reading this is please, if you are experiencing odd symptoms and are on hormonal BC, don't discount the BC as the probable cause!  It was messing with me, big time.  I've been off it 80 days now, and feel FANTASTIC! 

So, not only will this blog be about how my hair is turning grey, it will also be about getting my length back!  Hmmm, wonder how long that will take???  Peace out!


Wednesday, October 22, 2014

September and October updates

Catching up a bit from the August 1 Pixie cut. :)  Here's where I was a month later, on September 2nd.  Pretty slow growing!

Add 27 days to that and it started to get quite shaggy.  Funny how hair grows more during some months than others. :)
 

I was wearing headbands all the time 'cause I just couldn't deal with the whispy scraggly top hairs.  So, on 10/12, I trimmed it up a bit.  Leaving the bangs for now, but most of the dye is gone from the rest of my hair. :)




I kinda like the messy punked out look. :)  Easy to wear too.  The only products I use are some organic shampoo and conditioner followed by a mix of Eqyys Megatek (yes, the horse stuff) and Cowboy Magic detangler.  A small dollup of Megatek and a smidge of the Cowboy Magic mixed together and worked through the hair gives perfect texture when dry.  Love the stuff.  I hate regular mousses, wax and hair sprays too, so it's great that leave-in conditioner does the trick. :)

Friday, August 1, 2014

Days since last Pixie cut? Zero!

It's August folks and guess what I said I was going to do in August?  Get another pixie!

So, on a whim (not really) I went to a salon on my lunch break and went from this:
 
To this:
 

Such fun!  Such freedom!  No more pulling, no more headbands (unless I want to), no more barrettes.  Ahhh.  The gray is really mottled looking on the sides and in the back.  The stylist seemed to think another 12 - 16 weeks should do the trick and get rid of the rest of the color.

I want the bangs longer, but that's how short they were, so we'll just have to wait a bit and then the cut will be exactly how I want it.  Hooray!

So happy.  Just wish I wore a little makeup to work today!  Wasn't expecting to get it cut. :)
 


Monday, July 21, 2014

Reverse "Skunk Stripe"

Lol, I couldn't resist.  I put my hair up this way today and had to take a picture. 

Days since last color:  128
Days since last pixie cut: 308

Days until I don't look ridiculous anymore: ????  :P



On a side note:  Gawd that henna gets red as it fades.  When dyed fresh, the indigo balances it out to a nice dark burgundy, but indigo is not color fast.  Goodbye indigo, hello blazing red.  The day I can cut off the last bit of that red I'm gonna have a party.

Wednesday, July 16, 2014

4 Months dye free and we have a piggy tail

It's been 4 months since I dyed my hair and 10 months since my last pixie cut.  I can finally put my hair back in a piggy tail (with the help of a headband and some barrettes).  Having short hair thoughts again, but I'm *so close* to just being able to swig it back in a ponytail and fuggetaboutit.  Which is really where I want to be......I think. :)
Chillin' in the office. :P
 


Woah, silver streaks.

Piggy tail....with help.

I just added cod liver oil and biotin to my daily multivitamin, along with some protien powder that I mix with water and drink for breakfast.  I'm a chronic breakfast skipper and while that's great if you're IF'ing (intermittent fasting) and catch up on nutrients later in the day, I often don't.  I only eat meat one meal a day, really and that's not enough protien, I know it.  Hair, skin and nails suffer so I'm seeing if the supps will help. :)  Will be a couple months before I'll be able to tell if there's a difference.

Monday, June 16, 2014

Henna's a B*tch

Lol.  M'kay, I know I said I'd check back in around August, but I got some ideas in my head over the weekend, tried some things, and wanted to share the results (or lack thereof!)

I really, really don't want to cut my hair super short again (but probably will), and I had heard that a certain treatment with Vitamin C breaks the molecular bonds (as if that's possible!) that Henna dye has with your hair, thus lightening it.  I also heard that "Blue Shampoo/Conditioner" cancels out yellow/orange tones in your hair and that you can make your own with food coloring and conditioner.

Oh my. 

Okay, so lets start with the color of my hair, unwashed, first thing in the morning.  Yeah, first thing as in 4:30am-the-dog-woke-me-up first thing.  Here you go:
 So, I want to see if this Vitamin C mix would actually lift any of this god-awful orangey color out of my hair.  (or at least lighten the root area a bit for a softer line of demarcation).

What you're supposed to do is crush Vitamin C tabs (30) and mix with clarifying shampoo.  (I use Juice Organics Brightening Shampoo)  Apply to damp hair, cover with plastic and let sit for an hour.  If you try this, don't use the flavored chewables.  I had sticky orange sugar flavor running down my face/neck for an hour.  Not cool. :P

The hour was up and I rinsed, blowdried, and was left with............
......very clean hair. 

Maybe, just maybe a smidge lighter than it was before, but not that noticable.  You're supposed to be able to do this repeatedly (which I might) to pull some of the (g*damned) henna out of your hair.  It did not dry my hair out and left it soft and shiny.  (lighter, is debatable)

Now, the colorful part.  I mixed some blue and a smidge of red gel food coloring in some cheap Suave conditioner with the intent of letting it sit on my hair and cancel out some of the orangey-yellow brassiness going on.  (wishful thinking sunshine!)
 
After conditioning my hair with this mixture for 10 minutes, I rinsed it out and.........

Not much changed.  :P  Lol.  Maybe it's just a hair less bright in the brass department, but not much.  The virgin hair at the roots really looked silvery and oh so cool after the blue conditioner, but the rest of the length really didn't have much of a change in tone.

The Suave conditioner had 'cones in it, (my Juice Organics Conditioner doesn't) so I'm not used to the way it makes my hair feel.  Slick and tangle free, but too slick.  Good luck with a piggy tail slick.  Smells nice though.  Reminds me of back in the day when 'cones first came out and Pantene was all the rage.

Anyway, so that's my little early morning adventure.  Back to the long-slow-distance work of growing out the colored length.  Later!



Monday, June 9, 2014

As slow as.......

Watching grass grow?  Paint dry?  Molassess?  I'm pretty sure waiting for hair to grow out has all of the common cliches for slowness beat by a long shot. :P

I feel like someone at an AA meeting.  "Hi, my name is Sarah and I'm going grey.  It's been 86 days since I last dyed my hair."  Lol.  It's a good thing I REALLY don't want to do this hair color thing anymore.  Otherwise, I'd be so tempted to just Henna! 
 
Only this little bit of growth in a whole 86 days?!?  This is going to take for-ev-er.  
 



But think about it.  September 2013 was the last time I had a pixie cut.  My hair was this short 9 months ago:

 

I've trimmed the back and the bangs to shape it as it grows out, but otherwise it has not been cut since.  Hopefully, another nine months and most of the color will be grown out enough to trim.  That brings us to when......next March? Oy.  I really don't want to get another Pixie cut.....Think I can resist the temptation?  Will check back in around August!











Friday, May 23, 2014

Ground Zero


 Here I am today with the remains of an 8 month old Pixie Cut.  I've trimmed the bangs regularly, but the rest of it has been growing out from *wicked* short since last September (2013)

Don't get me wrong, I really like this color.  The 50/50 Henna/Indigo mix goes great on my hair. 

What I AM tired of, is looking like this after two months.

Skunk Stripe!
My hair at the roots is like four different colors.  I am SO busy, no time for natural hair dye!  So here we are at ground zero.  Exaclty 69 days since I last dyed my hair with Henna/Indigo.  I'm wondering if I will be able to stick it out......or if I'll let it grow for another two months and then get another pixie cut?  Hmmmm...

Time Changes

2007
This was me.  I was 30 years old, with an abundance of lovely brown hair.  The red highlights you see are from Henna/Indigo dye that I used to cover my few greys, but aside from that, this is a good representation of the color of my youth. 

In the last seven years,  my hair became less abundant and much, much more grey.

I continued to color, more frequently, with Henna/Indigo, occasionally slipping into the world of box dyes, only to return to Henna with slightly fried-and-still-red hair.  Henna might be limited on an epic scale in the color department, but it does not harm your hair, and the finer my hair became, the less it tolerated the harsh chemicals. 

ANY color is better than showing your grey, right?

That's what I thought for the longest time.  I was saddened at the loss of my lovely brown and hateful towards the changes that come with aging.  Depressed.  Angry.  Tired.

I am over it.  As of today, I vow never to dye my hair again.  I've created this blog to chronicle the changes in my hair as it transforms from a badly-needing-a-dye-job skunk striped mess to what I hope will be a graceful and lovely salt and pepper grey.  What shade of grey am I now?  Over the next few months, we're going to find out!