the No-Poo-Doo

I have finally, after a couple of tries, converted to the No-Poo-Doo. What's that? It's about ditching the shampoo habit. Believe it or not, expensive shampoos are not really necessary, like many other "beauty" products and may even harm your health and your hair. Even the so-called "natural" ones seem to always have a bunch of chemical-ly ingredients. The hard part is that I have very fine hair, and have been in the habit of washing it daily with shampoo for years. The problem with that is all those washings strip the natural coating of oils away that the body uses to naturally coat the hair; causing the scalp to frantically produce an overabundance of oil to compensate, thus creating a vicious cycle. It can take a bit of time to convince the scalp to trust that I will not throw those harsh chemicals at it anymore, and that it's safe to restore a natural balance to the scalp. The scalp, which has been used to this cycle of overabundant, quickly produced oils followed by stripping by detergent, can become a bit crusty in the transition period; so it can take some time to convert, in my case, several months. I was determined to follow through this time..... I really want to minimize my chemical footprint; both for my own health, and for the environment, as well as spending less money on unnecessary products.  I'd read several blogger experiences, and the most popular way to do this (because you do actually clean your hair, ha!) is to use baking soda diluted with a little water, followed by a rinse of a little apple cider vinegar in water. This cleans the excess oil out of your hair without stripping it. I personally didn't like the feel of my hair with the acv; my hair is very fine and it felt lifeless, so I opt for a rinse of blackberry leaf infusion (tea) instead, which is lighter and smells good, too. I found this option in Mother Earth News 's newsletter.

I use about 4 tbsp. of baking soda (fine hair = don't need much) and mix enough warm shower water into the jar to form a fairly thick paste that will pour out onto my hair; leave it in my hair while I soap other parts of my body with a nice Ayurvedic soap we found that also happens to be cheap and smells good. After a few minutes I rinse the baking soda solution out and use the blackberry infusion. I let the blackberry leaf tea cool before I use it, because the cool rinse helps close the cuticle of the hair back down and smooths out the hair.

Now, to start out, it was tough. I would go an extra day between washings and kept trying to extend that, till I got to about 3 or 4 days between washings, and if my hair was greasy I put it up in a ponytail or braids so it wouldn't bother me. Once I got to that point, I started watering down my shampoo, and when I finished off the bottle, I switched to the baking soda and blackberry. Sometimes if I have been outside (pollen) or out in a bar or sweaty, or I'm hormonal (you girls know how that goes), I will just do a rinse with the blackberry infusion.

I'm quite happy to be shampoo free. There are a number of products I don't feel are necessary or healthy, that we've been told we need to buy all the time, which I've been slowly giving up. The first was deodorant. About 6 years ago, I had an experience of looking in the mirror and realizing my underarms had turned a weird yellow green color. It kinda freaked me out. So I stopped using deodorant. Unfortunately, it took some time to find something natural that worked on my northern European funk (thanks, ancestors) so, my apologies to everyone for those in-between years. But I'd rather stink than have cancer. I also recently gave up expensive natural toothpaste when I found that just a touch of baking soda on my brush works just as well. Yes, I am having a love affair with baking soda. It works! It's cheap! It's non-toxic! Please don't let me find out it causes cancer or damages the environment.

Me, after about 2 months on the No-Poo-Doo

I did have to get used to a different texture to my hair, there is a feeling of oil to the hair, but it's different feeling than the greasy feeling I used to get using shampoo. My hair has more body and it also seems to fall out ALOT less. (it's normal to have some hair fallout each day, I think, but it used to be ridiculous). 

Pretty Bit of the Day

Pretty Bit of the Day....

found abstraction of the day

Found Abstraction of the Day

July's Pay-It-Forward

To read my original post about the Pay-It-Forward concept, read here.

This month I am featuring An-Magrith Erlandsen and her Tarot of the Pomegranate.

She has been working on this deck of Tarot cards since 1998, starting with the Major Arcana, which have been completed this year! The artwork is fantastic and rich with her years of study of the Tarot. Her web-site is a great source of information if you're interested in learning more about the Tarot. Each month she pulls a card of the month with a detailed reading of the card's meaning and how it's related to the particular month that it was pulled for . Each of her paintings is a 5 foot fine Art oil painting. Along with the deck of cards, she also does performances, mainly in Seattle, combining the Tarot with dance. She has just released a booklet on the Major Arcana for Kindle, with an image of each painting along with it's meaning and symbolisms. You can also find her on Facebook.

Upcycled T-Shirts and the Golden Mean

I recently made myself a new skirt from two thrift store t-shirts. I've always loved recycling textiles into new items and designing my own clothes; although I am completely self-taught and the learning curve has been quite steep. Let's just say that some of my creations have been, um, different. I love the shape of a mermaid skirt, as I'm a curvy kind of gal; I've also experimented a few time with gores, for the shape and the dramatic look. For this skirt, I had in mind using the Golden mean, as many famous artists, such as Da Vinci and Dali seemed to worship it. To oversimplify, the Golden Mean uses ratios in measurement, where smaller sections of a composition are roughly 1/2 to 1/3 the size of the greater section. I say roughly, because although I understand math concepts fairly well, anytime I am involved in actual measuring, it's a crap shoot. Also, when constructing an actual garment, I wanted the overall look to work, but slight modifications to the ratios are necessary to make it fit. The idea of the Golden Mean is to have a relationship between the parts of the garment to the whole, and create a harmonious and interesting visual effect. So...... with that noble idea in mind, I took my measurements, and decided on a length. The ratios came in mainly in the color blocks and the gores.

As with any good recipe; when designing a garment, one should start with all the pieces and their measurements. Don't forget the seam allowances. 

Next, I began cutting the pieces out of the t-shirts. I found extra large mens' shirts with interesting designs and the colors I wanted at the thrift store for about $3 each. I used two shirts for this design.

Cutting out the gores in two matching pieces, front and back.....

Cutting out the gore inserts from second t-shirt. You can barely see my homemade cutting mat behind it, made from the side of a cardboard box. I can't really afford the professional ones, and I also didn't like the warning that they're made from cancer causing substances, but I can't use a rotary cutter on the cardboard, so I'm still  looking for a better solution to that issue.

Adding the contrasting side panels, gores figured in along the seams....

Since t-shirt material really doesn't unravel, I didn't bother with a hem; I was just really careful about the bottom edges lining up and I used the bottom edges of the shirts for the bottom of the skirt. The waistband, which I forgot to photograph, was a simple folded band with a tie on the front to allow for size adjustment; I suppose elastic could be inserted, but I felt comfortable with the fit as it was. 

The finished skirt!