HAIR, LEBKUCHEN, AND THAT SINKING FEELING

A few New Year bits and pieces

Hair

Yesterday I did my second Rhassoul clay wash. I had prepared my hair the night before by oiling it well as instructed, and wrapping it up first in a shower cap and then my sleep cap. Everything went very well during the wash and I made a lot less mess with the clay than I did last time!

However… as my hair was drying, I realised that it was thick with almost waxy oil and very difficult to hand-detangle. I had probably applied far too much castor oil the night before, and the clay wash had not removed it. I wrapped it up again overnight with a shower cap and my sleep cap in the hope that my hair would absorb most of it, but this morning it still felt really sticky and horrible.

I decided the only thing to do was to wash it again, this time with some Argan oil shampoo and conditioner that I’ve had for ages. I gave it two applications of the shampoo and rinsed it really well, and then applied plenty of conditioner before a final cool rinse, a towel wrap and leaving to dry naturally.

Even while it was still damp, it felt tons better than yesterday. Once dry, I knew that the problem was resolved. My hair now feels clean and soft and pliable again!

What I am going to do in future is swap out the really thick and sticky castor oil for the much lighter jojoba oil for the pre-wash preparation. I shall reserve the heavy castor oil just as one of the ingredients for the growth-promoting scalp oil and leave it at that.

Inversion Method

Yesterday evening I did the first session of this month’s Inversion Method, where you massage your scalp for four minutes with your head down lower than your heart, promoting blood flow to the scalp. I used a small quantity of the scalp oil for this.

Before doing it, I measured my hair once more, after having trimmed it the day before, to give me a new baseline. It is now back to 23 inches from the tip of my earlobe to the end of my hair.

Measurements for last month showed that it grew 1.5 inches in December, which is the average amount of growth for a month. It did grow a whole inch during my first Inversion Method week, but the rate then slowed down and I only gained another half inch. This was probably because I wasn’t using the scalp oil as much as I should – I was afraid of it making my hair too greasy. I think the best method with it is to apply it very sparingly, but more often than once a week.

Ongoing

This whole process is a learning curve, and I will obviously have to iron out any problems as I go. Everyone’s hair is different, and mine is still pretty thin and fine, although I have noticed some definite new growth. I probably need to go more easily on the heavy oil application if I am going to avoid yesterday’s problems!

I have every confidence that this process is going to work – and that it has indeed started to work – to promote thicker, healthier hair with a faster growth-rate.

Slow drain in the bathroom and the wonders of lo-tech

For ages, the water has been very slow to drain out of my bathroom washbasin. A few weeks ago my hubby had a look at the pipe outside, and the drain, which he said were both clear. The problem seemed to come and go, and every now and then, it would affect the drain in the shower. These are connected, so running water down one sometimes makes a gurgling sound in the other.

We seemed to have mislaid our sink plunger, so today my hubby bought a new one. Such a simple piece of kit – just a bell-shaped rubber end on a wooden handle. A few plunges with this as I ran water into the basin, and bingo! I couldn’t believe how much revolting slimy hairy gunk came up, and after three goes, the water was running more freely than I could remember it ever did! Sometimes the simplest remedies are the best!!

I said to my hubby how careful I always am not to allow hair to get in the drains – being so long, it doesn’t take too many strands to cause problems! I have a really good drain cover for the shower and always use this, and clean it afterwards. However hard you try to avoid the problem, though, some always seems to get through and I couldn’t believe how much there was that the sink plunger removed!

So – a good start to the new year – nice clean hair again with the prospect of lots of good healthy growth, and freely flowing water! Can’t be bad.

Is my diet going to pot?

My hubby is a really, really bad influence… For Christmas, in addition to all the other goodies he gave me, he presented me with some packs of Lebkuchen from Lidl. They only stock these fabulous Bavarian cookies at Christmas time. They are a cross between a cake and a biscuit, and are flavoured with cinnamon and other spices, and I absolutely adore them.

Many years ago a German friend sent us a whole box, and this was my introduction to them. The box was a standard brown cardboard box but it had been printed with very pretty designs of Nuremberg, the birthplace not only of lebkuchen, but also of Albrecht Durer, some of whose drawings also featured on the box. Inside was lots of shredded paper, embedded in which were little packets of different varieties of these treats. My absolute favourites are dominosteine, little cubes with layers of the lebkuchen mixture and and red fruit jelly and coated with chocolate  – unfortunately our local Lidl doesn’t do these! However, the “Herzen” (hearts) are a close approximation, with a more cake-like consistency under the chocolate coating, and a core of the fruit jelly.

One of the little packs in our original gift contained large chocolate-covered heart-shaped ones, and was in the shape of a little gingerbread house with windows that opened like on an Advent calendar, with a little girl with blonde plaits looking out of one, and a cat in another… I kept this cardboard house for many years until it got crushed during a house move.

Anyway, my hubby gave me several packets of the Lidl lebkuchen, and today he went shopping again and raided the shelves in Lidl, coming home armed with about eight more packs of them! They are highly tempting and I told him it was no good – at this rate I was going to put on all that weight again, that I worked so hard to lose!! He said that Lidl “had hardly any left on the shelves” and I think after his efforts today they probably haven’t got any left at all!

He also bought me some of their spiced biscuits, which I also love.

If I ration myself strictly, all these delicious treats should last me till Easter. Well, here’s hoping, anyway…