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1:16am July 27, 2015

Was trying to get more hair pictures now that my hair is fully dried (and super shiny), but Fey had other ideas, still does (she’s blocking my view of the screen even now).

Argh, I tried to tag this #elderly cats and somehow got #elderly citizens.  It seems like tumblr is autocorrecting a lot of my tags in messed up ways lately.

3:49am November 12, 2014
My hair may look fairly straight-to-wavy on the outside in places, but underneath it’s wavy-to-curly. That’s why it poofs out so much given the slightest static electricity or humidity, yet outwardly retains this appearance as if its not that curly/wavy.

My hair may look fairly straight-to-wavy on the outside in places, but underneath it’s wavy-to-curly. That’s why it poofs out so much given the slightest static electricity or humidity, yet outwardly retains this appearance as if its not that curly/wavy.

12:15am March 30, 2014

This is a better lit set of pictures of my hair, fully dried, after a coconut oil treatment. This is how wavy my hair is naturally, before I mess it up by brushing it, or letting it get too dry, or things like that. I wish it was this wavy and soft and shiny all the time.

7:38pm January 23, 2014
This is my underlayer after another spray of the homemade moisturizer.  Very happy hair.  And my hair is so soft and easy to brush now between the moisturizer and the boar bristle brush.  I really think it needed more oil, between my natural oils and the oils I mixed in with the water to spray on. (And now my cat is making it impossible to type, by sitting in front of my face.)

This is my underlayer after another spray of the homemade moisturizer.  Very happy hair.  And my hair is so soft and easy to brush now between the moisturizer and the boar bristle brush.  I really think it needed more oil, between my natural oils and the oils I mixed in with the water to spray on.

(And now my cat is making it impossible to type, by sitting in front of my face.)

3:18pm January 22, 2014
Some of the wavier underlayer of my hair (on the left of the photo), normally quite dry, after the homemade moisturizing spray.  It didn’t just moisturize it, it also made the waves look much better.

Some of the wavier underlayer of my hair (on the left of the photo), normally quite dry, after the homemade moisturizing spray.  It didn’t just moisturize it, it also made the waves look much better.

9:30am January 14, 2014

When your hair doesn’t want to just do one thing.

The front portion of my hair (which looks mostly straight (with waves near the scalp) when unhealthy, slightly wavy when healthy) holds onto oil so well that even washing it with coconut milk means I have to use actual shampoo to get some of the oil out, and even then it won’t get all the way out.

Further back, and wavier, that effect lessens.

Further UNDERNEATH, and wavier or even curly, is perpetually dry no matter what I do to it.

Left side is fluffier than the right side by a considerable amount.

Needs to be combed or brushed frequently to detangle it, but that straightens it (at least for several hours) more than I’d like.

And literally ranges from 1c to 3a in different parts of the same hair.  (Although the 1c is questionable, it seems to become 2a when taken care of well..)

It’s like there’s no way humanly possible to take care of all the different parts of my hair at the same time, because whatever I do for one part is bad for another part.

3:27am January 10, 2014

This is after coconut milk and then a mild shampoo. It’s gotten very soft and silky again, which my hair never is on its own. I was planning just to use the coconut milk, but it wouldn’t come out with water alone, and I’ve learned conditioner won’t wash things like this out of my hair, so I had to use the shampoo as well. The second picture is the wavy parts of my hair after it dried but before brushing.

It’s very soft but I don’t think I like the look of it as much as I liked it after the olive oil. I also need to experiment with coconut oil.

5:31am January 4, 2014

Well my first trial of The Wet Brush was a success. And despite the trouble it gave me, that olive oil has made my hair shiny ever since I used it a week or two ago. (My hair is coarse and normally dull.)

The Wet Brush doesn’t have to be used wet, I used it dry since I don’t wash my hair often at all and never shower. I’d planned to get a different brush, but all the reviews I read warned people away from it and many told them to use this brush instead, so I got this one. It has bristles that are one stiffness most of the time, and loosen considerably when they encounter resistance like a tangle. I was concerned because the last brush I tried that had little balls at the end, got stuck in my hair and had to be cut out. But actually it worked very well.

It does still hurt if you pull too hard when you hit a tangle. But it doesn’t hurt as much. And it hurts considerably less if you brush gently – very considerably less than a normal hairbrush brushing gently, too.

Unlike my previous brush, this one (I got one that said it was for thick hair, I don’t know if they all are for thick hair or only some) reaches all or most of the way through my hair when I brush it. And when I was done, my hair was much smoother and shinier than usual.

I think it might have had a bit of a straightening effect on some of my waves. But I’m not sure. It could have just brushed some of my straighter hair to the front. I don’t know.

I heard a lot of static, but that’s normal even running my hands through my hair at this time of year, it’s like a constant pop-pop-pop. Even my cat has hair sticking up in weird places from static right now.

Anyway I like this brush a lot better than the random brush someone got me at the store. I’m normally very wary of brushes, but now that I’m able to take better care of my hair, and I’m detangling several times a day, it seems to be useful.

YMMV of course, I don’t know what other hair types are like with this brush.

6:47pm August 29, 2013
Did my monthly/bimonthly hair combing out today. It’s getting long. And dark. Still varying amounts of wavy or curly in different places.

Did my monthly/bimonthly hair combing out today. It’s getting long. And dark. Still varying amounts of wavy or curly in different places.

10:34pm March 12, 2013
My hair right about now – wavy-curly. It seems to range from straight to wavy to curly to even slightly kinky in a few places. Both based on location and on random other factors that I’m not aware of. Some of it changes day to day. Just like the color seemingly changes from black to brown in different enviroments. Hair is weird.

My hair right about now – wavy-curly. It seems to range from straight to wavy to curly to even slightly kinky in a few places. Both based on location and on random other factors that I’m not aware of. Some of it changes day to day. Just like the color seemingly changes from black to brown in different enviroments. Hair is weird.

2:56pm December 7, 2012

[This post is in the disability tag because a huge reason for the problems with my hair is being in bed constantly. Images show me, one with my hair loose, one with my hair braided into two braids. My skin is pale and my hair is very dark. And I have a small amount of facial hair on my chin. And large, clear plastic glasses. Small nose. Small mouth.]

So I’ve been growing my hair. The first picture is how long it is loose. The second picture is two braids. it goes a little past my shoulders now.

The point of the braids is that my hair gets incredibly tangled. It may look straight on the outside front part. But it actually has this continuum from straight to wavy to curly throughout different parts. The curly parts usually result in this weird state I get into where the surface, especially in the front, may look well taken care of, but everything beneath the surface, especially towards the back, is one giant mat.

I finally got rid of the mat recently after spending literally about six to nine hours just lying there detangling my hair. And I realized that with thick hair of lots of varying textures, I’m going to have that happen over and over again if I don’t do something. I thought of all kinds of things, but I finally came up with braids. I wasn’t sure whether I was going to end up with one, two, three, or five, but I ended up with two being the easiest to take care of and maintain. All I have to do is unbraid it every day, comb it out with a wide-toothed wooden comb, and then braid it again, and I have hair that I can keep in bed with me without too much in the way of tangles. It starts getting frizzy pretty fast, but if I redo the whole thing once or twice a day, it ends up working out pretty well.

I have to say I’m really relieved about this. I had thought I might have to go to a hairdresser (who would then advise me to cut the mat out and keep my hair short) or something, but this is something that either I can do, or caregivers can do, with minimal trouble. I usually do it while I’m on the toilet in the morning because there’s a mirror there and it’s one of the only times I sit up all day. I’ve been doing this for weeks now, I think, and it works. It completely works. I do wish I could sometimes wear it without the braids while I’m in bed, but that just seems to invite all those little hairs to start tangling into each other.

Wow. I’m always amazed when I can write an entire post about hair. But I actually like my hair these days. And I’m glad I found a solution to being in bed all the time and having thick hair that loves to tangle at the drop of a hat. Because people have, after seeing the rat’s nest from hell, been advising me to chop all my hair off, and I don’t want to. I’ve spent too much of my life doing that, largely because it’s so difficult to keep it from turning into one giant rat’s nest. But what I’m doing lets me keep my hair. Yay. Now my only hair problem is that it keeps falling out, apparently because of the physical stress my body has been under, particularly from that long period without proper nutrition. But it’s so thick that no matter how much falls out there always seems to be more.

8:55pm November 18, 2012
My solution to the tangle problem. Got the tangles out and braided the hell out of it. Couldn’t do the single braid in the back that I wanted. Because hair would fall out in all directions. So I did pigtail braids. Which I will have to keep doing until and unless I find anything better. It holds up in well to bring bedridden too, and can be easily redone without too much effort or causing more tangles. Tangles really annoy me. When I got the big rat’s nest out of my hair my hair became quite a lot longer in places (and I discovered grey hairs, and outright curly hairs, in the mix). And fluffier. o_O I don’t want to ever do that much work on my hair again. So, braids.

My solution to the tangle problem. Got the tangles out and braided the hell out of it. Couldn’t do the single braid in the back that I wanted. Because hair would fall out in all directions. So I did pigtail braids. Which I will have to keep doing until and unless I find anything better. It holds up in well to bring bedridden too, and can be easily redone without too much effort or causing more tangles.

Tangles really annoy me. When I got the big rat’s nest out of my hair my hair became quite a lot longer in places (and I discovered grey hairs, and outright curly hairs, in the mix). And fluffier. o_O I don’t want to ever do that much work on my hair again. So, braids.

10:34am February 10, 2012

I’m shedding. A lot.

This is the longest my hair has been since I was a teenager. And I’m getting some insight into why under the surface my hair was always a huge matted mess.

The shape of my hairs is extremely varied.

At one end there’s these hairs with very gentle waves shaped like elongated integral signs.

Then you get ones that have very deep curvy waves.

And then there’s ones that are outright curly, usually corkscrew-shaped, with different extents of the curliness.

But that’s not all. There’s also lots of hairs that start out as one thing and end up as another. And there’s lots of shapes I can’t even describe, they’re so irregular.

A lot of the curly and irregular ones are beneath the least-wavy surface hairs, and towards the back, where the worst mats always were.

So apparently my tangle problem came from having incredibly curly hair under the surface and in the back. That goes well with the pattern of the tangles – sometimes I could end up with a perfectly brushed surface and nightmarish tangles underneath. And then if someone did detangle them they’d find at the core, either hairs that had somehow tied themselves in knots, or two hairs that had twisted together and knotted.

Something that’s actively annoying my sense of symmetry is that my left side has deeper waves and more curls than the right.

Caring for this is going to get way too interesting. But I’m really sick of shaving my head and I have always liked it long, so meh.

(And no, this has nothing to do with gender and never has. Hair just hasn’t got that kind of significance to me. People have often tried to force various gender identities onto me by virtue of hairstyle. They’ve always – always – been completely wrong. Same with clothing. These are just not gendered things to me. I’m very bad at absorbing gender information of any kind.)