Oils are your friends

Oils are amazing. They can be your best friend (and worst enemy, but more on this later) in helping dried out hair resume its healthy shine on a tight budget. They can also help one's dry skin as well, saving tons of cash by buying skin care products... like Priori, Dermalogica and yes, even my favorite and humble cheapo, Aveeno.

The trick is to know WHAT oils to use, when to use them and *how* to use them. There's no point in having found an amazing oil only to realize one has committed a disservice by over using it. Everything in excess is bad.

Example:

I discovered sometime this spring that my hair quite enjoys Coconut oil. The high protein content and the fact that it is one of those oils that seep into the cuticle, therefore strengthening the hair from the inside-out is a perfect fit to my dilemma (bleached out chunks of hair commonly dyed purple. Bleached hair have been stripped of color and with color most of the cortex is sapped out.) The delicious smell a plus and the fact that I can cook with it, even more amazing. [ I am a classically trained chef after all.]

The problem is, it is one of the heavier oils out there. When used in excess, the hair cannot handle it and becomes gunky. i.e. it becomes stretchy, snaps and has the textural feeling of dry hay.

Too many coconut oil deep conditions also causes an icky film over the hair, weighing it down. It wasn't long before I discovered the draw backs and cut back on the oiling. All was good in the world.

That is, until the fall came again, the moisture in the air (I do live in PNW) began to do its evil mess. So out came the tub of coconut oil, I began to reapply. Things were great for about two weeks and cue the terrible gunky mess.

What was the problem this time? I was only doing this twice a month?

What was the culprit? My conditioner and shampoo had protein in it, as did my deep conditioning oil.

The cure?

No, I didn't whip out the scissors and chop of all the mess. Heck no! not when I just reached my goal! I just had to clarify my hair and start all over again. That meant a) CO wash as much as I can. b) switch out shampoos more frequently when I do CWC and definitely use something other than a protein heavy shampoo when doing a deep condition (DC).

I did try other oils and found decent alternatives, but Coconut is the best when it rains all day.

Its also best to know the properties of the oil you're working with too. Its pointless to have a filler oil in one's hair when the conditioner of choice is meant to draw moisture from the environment back into the hair, just like its pointless to use a sealing oil with a similarly mentioned conditioner. (Yup, did that too. Couldn't figure out why Coconut does not work well with Lavender Conditioner... or Olive oil with same Lavender condish.)

Its all trial an error, really. I'm also ranting and need to sleep... after I add the tendon into the stew going in the crock pot. Yum.

Dark Cat Beads review

Because I spazzed out and forgot to do this earlier, here you go.

Its not the greatest review. It took me three tries and a lot of fiddling with the program. I'm thinking I may end up redoing it anyway.