April 2017 Favourites

The fourth month has passed so here is the good ish:

Silicone Make Up Applicator:

I am not calling it a sponge because it's not. I love this thing. The only advise I have is don't use too much BB/ CC/ Foundation because it will take forever to blend. I bought mine on Takealot. (Search Silicone Sponge *eye roll* in Health & Beauty)

Renew Perfect Colour in Passion Pink (NOT SO light pink)

That stuff is so bright.

After 5 washes it started to look almost like on the box. I got a super lot of compliments then EVEN from high end hair studio stylist to people who work the tills.

Saved fashion:

I washed and without thinking through a non-tumbledryable dress into the dryer and is was suddenly so short. After consulting the internet and several Pinterest pins, I put some hair conditioner in a bucket with warm water, then added the dress. It soaked for about an hour. I put it on spin cycle and hung it to dry. BOOM saved my dress.

Stepped away from posting on Social Media:

I didn't take a hard break but there is pressure as I like to always like to show the good side. Many people mistake that for my life EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. They think all I do is drink coffee, paint my nails and serve looks. (I had people in my real life mock me over my Insta feed. You do the awkward laugh but all I wanted to say in STFU) I was just free to do stuff and even have A LOT of make up free days.

Pioneer Woman's Coconut Curry Shrimp:

Or as we call they in ZA Prawns. I modified the recipe for Meatless Monday by using Fry's Battered Prawn Style Pieces instead of shrimp.

Here and here for Sriracha. I bought mine at Fruit and Veg Foodlover's Market in the Asian section (where you buy the sushi rice you never use :o)

Sleepo:

I use this app for relaxing before bed, colouring in and even when I need to concentrate. You can make your own mix of ocean, rain, city and the wide outdoors sounds. It also has 3 white noise sounds.

Freeze bread:

What the what?! Yes I started hoarding bread. Then it started to go bad so I started freezing it. I have an assortment of loafs, rolls and sandwich bread. For a full sandwich loaf, I just defrost over night and its fine. I toast it if I just want a few slices. For a full loaf of rolls, preheat your oven to 180ºC, then bake it for 8 minutes. As fresh as new.

That's my that!

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D.I.Y. Bath Caddy

Ah yes and welcome back to the blog. Well today for you, I've got a post on something I wanted but don't have the money to need.

Now I have a Lush problem. A strong one.

Unicorn

Aesthetics

I post them to Instagram then search the hash tags I added and there are these people who use like 5 bath bombs in one tub. You've got too much money my friend but I digress. There are these people who know how to take a proper bath. I know it's probably staged but the romance of it had caught me.

Then when I went to a family braai and besides wanting to steel their oven and prawn sculpture:

they had these cute stainless steel bath caddy.

So started the search. Takealot.com had BUT when I had money it was out of stock. Then I saw again at Checkers in the home section and almost R400 it just that bit too much for a want. Walking past that to the section with the shelves and got inspiration. I thought why not but a shelf for a quarter of the price, cut and treat it and BOOM. If that happened, this post would be done BUT I did have a few things that I already have to make a cool bath caddy:

é Notice: The last time I did wood work I was 11/12 years old. It was part of Art and the male teacher did not care to teach girls properly because apparently girls don't need to know basic skills of wood work just like boys didn't need to know how to cook. School is sexist that way.

Wood (I had a pallet. Here and here are links from Takealot if you want to buy online)

Crowbar/ Pry bar / zombie smasher to take apart the pallet

Saw

Hammer

Nails

Note book

Tape measure

Pen or pencil to make notes and mark wood

The rest not pictured is:

Sanding paper (I had a Mouse I used)

Wood glue

Vinegar

Vegetable oil

Clean paint brush

First off I drew what I wanted and measured up the bath tub. I measured the width and the width of the edges of the tub:

Here I realised I should have taken wood work and technical drawing instead of art in High school

Then I took apart the pallet. Charlie had to be chased away a few times. As I'm taking apart the pallet I remove the nails. I don't feel like going to the vet or getting a tetanus shot. Too real for a cheap D.I.Y. today.

Charlie looking to go on a trip to the Vet

é Notice: I broke 2 planks while prying the pallet. Pallets aren't made with top notch wood and many stand out in the weather so be prepared for breaks and rotten wood.

Half way through I decided to deviate from my sketch and add a third slat (is that a term?) because I wanted the shelf a bit wider. I marked the wood with the measurements of how wide I wanted the caddy and started sawing:

I asked my ancestors why I was having trouble sawing and the answer I got is that I should let the saw do the work.

I used the off cuts of the pieces for the cross members.

I took out the Mouse and started sanding the slats. I used the 180 grit. I could go in with a finer grit but I didn't.

Now comes a more complicated part. Mark where you want the cross members. They keep the boards together and stops the caddy from freely moving around side to side. I glued it at the width of the edge of the bath at 6 cm. Then when it was dry I flipped it around and knocked nails through the top. I picked the the nail by sizing it so it goes through the cross member but not through the other side. Screws are apparently easier BUT I had nails

I didn't want to go to Builders to get a treatment for the wood. The one closest to me has staff who acted badly because of my hair (at the moment it is pink). (The security guard stared so hard at me he didn't even pay attention to what he was doing, then the ladies at the till points started screaming as they laughed at me which made me feel uncomfortable so I can only assume they don't want my money) So Home, DIY & Stuff had this easy solution. One part of vinegar to 3 parts cooking oil.

DONE!!!

rustic but I won't deduct points for that

I didn't fill the bath to stage because I took a shower the previous day. I also am too broke to buy new bath bombs, bubble bars or bath melts. So for this month we can just pretend. Also please note my Yankee Candle is also finished.😩😢😞

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10 Commandments for Coloured Hair Care

I have had every kind of coloured hair. Box, Salon, Powdered fruit drink. Pink, red, brown, black, ombré, opal, platinum, two tone blond and brown, two tone purple and blue and galaxy. Many people wonder how I still have hair on my head.

Me, for now.

My recent hair experiment lead me to type up this blog. I am a mixture of Jeffree Star and Kandee Johnson.

Here are my 10 commandments for keeping hair on fleek:

Thou shall take pre and post hair colour care.

Don't wash your hair 24 hours before bleaching and 48 hours after colouring. What? You heard me. Not washing before colouring makes sure that the hair gets less damaged. It's protected by it's oils. Not washing afterwards make sure the hair colour bonds to the hair. Yes even though it's dried and you already carried on with your life, there is still sciencey things happening. Even if you just bleached your hair you must wait.

É note: If you are planing to get fashion colour hair. Be prepared to spend a while in a salon/ bathroom. My galaxy hair took me 5 hours by myself and the Barbie inspired hair took me 2.5 hours in the salon. It may take longer as my hair was already like a Level 7/ 8 on the bleach scale.

5 hours of questioning every decision I've ever made

2 and a half hours of thinking of the final scene of Barbie in Rock 'n Royals

Thou shall cleanse hair sparingly. . .

I had to “train” to get my hair to need a wash twice a week. Mondays and Thursdays. See I can even tell you the days. The more you wash the more the colour fades. Over washing also causes damage to hair. For days I just want to shower, I bought a more robust showercap from Dischem. Other days dry shampoo is your friend.

é Note: If you are going the lighter or full on blonde route, purple shampoo is a must. It tones out yellow and lessens brassiness. I also suggest to only use it after the second/ third wash because depending how pigmented it is it can tint your hair purple. Not ideal.

. . . and with grace

Here is where you have to read labels. Not all shampoos are the same. Sulphites causes colours to wash out faster. I use Tresemmé Naturals. It has a low SLS (Sodium Lauryl Sulfate) content. It's a basic foaming agent you get in anything that bubbles. Toothpaste, Floor wash, face wash, dish soap, if it makes bubbles, it's in it. (Queue those Facebook posts and e-mails with factoids telling us how bad it is.)

Then when you wash, ONLY wash your scalp and condition ends. You don’t need to shampoo your whole head. As you rise it rinses over the length of your hair, which cleans it. Also the condition only the ends and the length.

Thou shall not do excessive mechanical or heat damage.

Don't rub your hair dry with a towel. I squeeze out most of the water and just wrap my head in a towel. Let the towel do the work by sucking up the moisture. (Also make sure to use a towel that you wouldn't care to get stained. Though it would be a conversation starter if your guests ask you why the towels are tie dyed pink.)

If you have long hair I think that the Invisibobble type hair bands are the best. I don't get as many tangles or breakage with them as with normal or rubber bands.

I also stopped using a hair brush and opted for a wide tooth comb. I'm less likely to rip out my hair with it. It's also the best for combing out wet hair.

I also stared embracing heat free styling. I let my hair mostly air dry. If I have to, I make sure to spray it with heat protection before styling it. Here is an educational film by Guy Tang.

I also switched up my cotton pillow case for a satin one. Here is mine from MrP Home. I also found them to be better for my skin. They also don't make those weird sleep marks on your face.

Thou shall maketh time for conditioning . . .

Once a week I super deep condition my hair. Bleaching is damaging and if it's not treated it will feel like hay.

B*tch stole my look!

I switch up between natural and commercial. Sometimes I smear on some coconut oil. This I leave on from a half an hour to unlimited. When I clean house I leave it on for 8 hours. I also like castor oil.

Commercial stuff I like Garnier's Honey Treasures mask. Or just normal conditioner. I leave it is for 30 minutes and my hair feels great. Also try Palmer's Coconut mask. That stuff changes chemically damaged hair like a boss.

. . . And useth finishing oils

It was a trend so most oils were phased out. Luckily in ZA most women have ethnic hair and ethnic hair love the moisture oil gives.

I usually use oil after I washed my hair. It makes the drying process faster and makes my type A1 hair more manageable. Sometimes, especially more in winter, my ends feel gross and dry so I just work in some oil on the ends of my hair.

Thou shall nourish thyself for hair in future

Now not all of us get those free blue gummy sweets for our Instagram. #Spon #ad. But there are things you can buy for a fraction of the price. If you have a good Multi-vite you are already good to go but because I know I put my hair through a special kind of torture: Bleach

I like Vital's Hair, Skin and Nails gel capsules. They are literally available every where. Dischem, Clicks, Checkers, PnP and even on Takealot.com . If you want to take the vegan route try Natura'sCombin Assist tissue salts Hair and nails. They are also available every where online at Faithful to Nature.

Looks may be easy to come, yet decide on how thy display

I started a hash tag to group all my hair selfies. #Kyknoudiehare. It was two old ladies who obviously didn't think I could understand Afrikaans: Look at the hair. Like I'm not a person. I had people physically stop and stare at me with their mouths open. (For me weird hair feels like normal hair as my Instagram feed normalizes this for me. I follow A LOT of fashion coloured hair women. When I see other unicorns, mermaids, mermicorns I always compliment them.)

Because my hair to so bright, I tend to lean more towards more “natural” coloured neutral make up. I'm not really going for pastel Goth, club kid, Harajuku, cos-player look that is normally associated with fashion colours. Fashion hair with other excessive colours (make-up and clothes) can quickly look like a costume. Even my eye brows are still their normal colour.

If you are not doing the fashion colours and you do a change like from brown to red/ blond or blond to dark you still need to change make-up. When I dyed my hair dark brown after being blonde for seven years I felt like I looked weird until I got a darker brow pencil and got darker lip stick.

Love they hair as is discolours or fades . . .

And it will fade. But not all colours fade equally. Blue and green become muddy but purple and pink become a cool pastel colour but then the roots come out. * eye roll *

Here I usually enlist the help of Platinum/ purple shampoo. Recently, since I coloured my hair with it, I would mix some of Renew's Perfect Colour with it's in-box conditioner with a few drops of the colouring. That is then tones out some of the weirdness.

. . . and know the one that will who will assist when if fails

Let's say it's been 10 weeks, by then your hair is going to be looking pretty real. You need someone to make you come right. I tend to mess with my hair on my own because I understand the basics of hair and hair type science but we can't all be our own Guy Tang.

Come though for us Guy

Now and then it's best to get in a chair of a professional. Look for someone who suits your needs. I had the worst experience at a more high end salon where I spent a lot of money and just got treated like someone they wanted out of their seat for the next one. The next time I went I got second rate service from the stylist because she double booked me with a bride so I got stuck with a junior stylist who couldn't stop complaining about how the other juniors should be helping her.

At the moment I'm at a more old school stylist wit a two chair salon where we judge people who think they can colour their hair blonde in one sitting with a home kit. We also laugh at people who mess up their hair at home and she has to fix it.

If you aren't confident colouring at home, buy the colour and most stylist will assist you with application. They are trained and have the knowledge and the right tools for the application.

That is my commandments for healthy coloured hair. Amen to healthy hair.

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