Shampoo and Conditioner from Lush

 Next week we'll get back to regular cosmetics reviews, but since I can't build up a good dance-sweat to stress test face makeup and this new nail product I have needs to be subjected to a week of wear to determine its durability, we're going to talk about shampoo and conditioner!

So even though I have long, gorgeous hair that I really love, I've always been a bit of a cheapskate when it comes to shampoo and conditioner. I usually use some $3/bottle stuff from Trader Joe's. Every now and then I go through a stage of using bar shampoo (as in, it's in the form of a bar like soap, not I get it at the pub), but since we have hard water here I have to do a vinegar rinse and that is not. fun. Anyway, I went to Lush to have the professionals do my henna (so much easier!) and they of course talked up some of their hair products and I decided, well, why not, my hair is worth it, I'll buy some fancy, expensive products and see how I like them.

Well, I love them! The Jasmine and Henna Fluff-Eaze is a pre-wash conditioner that is ideal for brown or red hair. It also smells amazing! Because my hair isn't actually very fluffy or frizzy, just kind of dry on the ends, I only use it every week to ten days. It has a creamy texture like mayo or yogurt, and it's easy to apply it just as far up as you want it, then leave it in for 20 minutes while doing dance practice or browsing Pinterest.

Cynthia Sylvia Stout is a shampoo made with beer. BEER. I was pretty skeptical about the scent but it was supposed to be ideal for my hair type and color, so I decided to buy the smallest bottle. It also has balsamic vinegar and lemon in it, so my husband says it sounds like a salad dressing (kind of looks like one, too). Although it has a beery smell straight from the bottle, it rinses out and leaves my hair with a fresh lemon-herbal scent that I find very clean and appealing. And the results of these two products?

I used them both the day before this photo was taken. What do you think? Clean, vibrant, shiny hair! It's also VERY soft and fragrant, but of course you can't tell that from the photo. I'm very happy with the results and I have a feeling I'll have to go buy a bigger bottle of the shampoo soon.

I can definitely recommend these products for anyone with hair similar to mine (long, red, and wavy, with a oily scalp and dry ends). They're especially nice for if you want to wear your hair down for a performance. I probably wouldn't use the conditioner any time I was going to tease my hair or do something else where I wouldn't want it to be too silky and thus slippery. Both of these products are also recommended for women with curly hair, but obviously I can't speak for that personally.

Caca Rouge Henna from Lush

I make no secret of the fact that I henna my hair. I'm not gonna pretend that I'm a natural redhead, even though I was born to be one (literally, I was a ginger baby). I've blogged about it in the past, including this post full of tips.

In the past I've used powdered henna that I ordered on-line, and it was great but shipping was expensive. When I saw that LUSH Cosmetics had these Henna Hair Dyes at their local store, I decided to give them a try. In addition to being able to buy them locally, they had a couple of other things going for them: instead of having to mix it with water and lemon juice and then sit over night, you just pour boiling water over it, let sit for a few minutes, and mix. Another time-saving bonus was that they say to only leave it on for two hours, not three to four like the powder. Plus it has cocoa butter and other stuff that's supposed to be good for your hair. Sounds great!

Here I am pre-henna. Yikes, you can really see my roots! No way I can go to Tribal Fest looking like this!

So I started mixing up the henna. It took a lot more water than I expected, which meant more time and more stirring. Ultimately I think I didn't add quite enough water, because chunks of henna kept falling off my head all over the place. Good thing I put newspaper down this time, but even so I made a huge mess of my bathroom and myself.

See! There's even henna in my cleavage. Oh, the indignity! Please feel free to point and laugh at how ridiculous I look in a saran wrap turban, too. By the way, you have to keep this henna warm while you use it, so my head was feeling a little toasty.

Because of how much henna I lost on the floor (and my neck, and my shirt, and the counter) I was concerned as to whether I got enough on my head, and whether it would really color my hair that well. Also, when it came time to shower, I found that this product is much grittier than what I have used before and it made a huge, huge mess in my shower.

I thought I had managed to rinse most of it out, but after my hair dried, it looked like this. UGH! I think it's because of the cocoa butter. It took about 3-4 more shampooings to get my hair back to normal, but when I did it looked like this:

Oh yeah, that color! And the butter made my hair really soft and pretty and healthy, once I finally rinsed it all out. I suspect that this product would be really great for people who have dry hair. Mine tends a little more towards the greasy end of the spectrum, so I think it was a little too moisturizing for me. If you have similar hair to me, you may want to use a non-moisturizing shampoo to rinse your hair out. In fact, I was almost desperate enough to use some Dawn dish soap, since it's designed to cut grease!

LUSH will apparently apply the henna for you in-store, and I think next time I'll go that route. I'm happy enough with the results that I want to see how they do it and get some tips on how to do it better myself next time (plus I don't want to mop henna off of my floor again).

Things they don't tell you about henna...

Remember this? This is from right after I hennaed my hair the first time. I was so in love with that red color, and I still am!

The last time I was touching up my roots, I was thinking about all the things I've learned about dying my hair with henna that weren't covered in the information provided by the seller, and I thought maybe I should blog about it. Here you go:

1. I think the seller actually said this, but I will restate it just in case. It is a LOT easier to henna your hair with help, especially if you have long hair. I tend to miss spots when I do it myself.

2. Wear something that you don't mind staining. Sometimes little blobs fall out of your hair and land on your clothes.

3. No matter how carefully you apply Vaseline around your hairline, you will still manage to get some henna stains on your face. I like to use an exfoliating facial scrub to make those stains go away faster. I also like to make sure to touch up my roots a few days before a gig or photo shoot so the stains are gone by then.

4. You will get henna everywhere! On the counter, on the floor, even the wall. If you're worried about the surface staining, put down some paper or a tarp or something. Otherwise keep paper towels or wipes nearby and clean up before it can dry.

5. Henna stains nails, too! You will probably manage to get some on and under your nails during the rinsing process, so just plan on giving yourself a manicure after all is said and done.

6. I like to bring a comb into the shower to help work the mud out of my hair. Actually, I don't know if it helps but it gives me something to do.

7. Seriously, if you have long hair it will take forever to rinse that stuff out. Plan on spending about 45 minutes in the shower. You might want to bring some music or a podcast.

8. If there's any soap scum in your tub, it will now be henna colored. Don't clean your tub before you rinse the henna out, because you'll definitely need to clean it after.

9. Now that you're a fabulous redhead, you'll want to color your brows accordingly. I'm afraid of putting mud on my eyebrows, so I just color them in with a nice red-brown eyeshadow.

10. Again, if you have long hair, all that henna-mud is pretty heavy for the several hours that you need to let it sit. Plan on spending your waiting time doing something pretty relaxing, like reading a book or watching movies. If you move around too much, your Saran Wrap turban might come undone and then the edges will dry and you'll get itchy henna mud patches behind your ears.

This may make henna sound annoying, and to be sure it is a bit of a pain to do and maintain. But on the other hand, you get a vibrant, natural-looking red hair color that is permanent and doesn't harm your hair, so I think it's worth the hassle.

Vendor Spotlight: Mermaiden Creations

  

Since the holidays are just around the corner, I thought I might start featuring some of my favorite vendors, just in case you need to buy a gift for a dancer in your life!

You may have noticed that I really like to do a big ol' tribal hair garden around my bun! For extra variety, I like to add a beautiful chiffon rose by Mermaiden Creations into the mix. Although at the rate I'm buying them, I'll soon have enough to go all the way around, without any cheap fake flowers mixed in.

 

 This absinthe green is my favorite. I'm wearing it in that picture above, and I also wear it any time I wear my peridot green 25 yard skirt, because they're pretty much the same color. This shade stands out well against my red hair, but I think it would look good against any natural hair color and a lot of unnatural ones, too.

 Mermie also makes fascinators out of her roses. I am not-so-secretly hoping someone will buy this elegant one for me for the holidays, but you can feel free to buy it for a dancer in your life instead, because I am not going to die from lack of peacock feathers, believe me!

She also makes jewelry! I am partial to these earrings because I picked the spiked beads out, I saw them at the gem show and they said "MERMAIDEN!" in a surprisingly loud voice for something with no vocal cords. But the silver beads are cool, too! They are over 50 years old! I love sellers who source unusual supplies, it really makes their work stand out. These earrings would be so beautiful with a fusion or even ATS costume.

You should also check out her great Roman glass jewelry, and her new stacking rings which would even make a great gift for non-dancers!

Roses and Rain

Day 201 of practice.

It is so hard to get a good picture of the back/side of one's own head! I love my chiffon roses by Mermaiden, and I keep meaning to do a post about them. Actually I have a whole series of posts that I want to do on the various beautiful things I wear in my hair.

Anyway, tonight I went to class at The Dance Loft like a good girl. The above photo is how I wore my hair. What a mistake! It was really hot in there and all the fans were on and my hair was blowing all over the place. A monsoon blew in while we were dancing and dumped a decent amount of rain on the neighborhood, so it was actually wonderfully cool outside when I left the studio.

Other than the heat and the noisy fans, class was fun! We reviewed moves and worked on our performance, which has been pushed back to October due to never-ending schedule conflicts.

Last night's costume

A friend was asking about last night's costume, so here are a few pictures! I kept it simple, because I was doing veil and also because it was hot. Just black and burnt orange pants, and a black halter top with black and copper lace overlay. Jewelry is a necklace, earrings, and bindi, and I put my hair in a bun and mostly circled it with a variety of flowers.

Anaya Tribal Student Recital

 I apologize for the poor quality of this picture... My camera was clearly more interested in the back of Sam's head than in the fact that Kristen and I were dancing. This was us, mid body wave. What a difference almost 6 months of daily practice makes. Our last recital was in December and I was really worried because we had to do some slow in the chorus. But there I am happily leading slow!

We had a really small group this time around. Just Kristen, Jen, No-El, Amanda and I. Usually our recital groups are huge, so while I missed having more friends around, it was also nice that each person got to lead more than one move and spend less time in the chorus.

 My costume! I was definitely happy to be able to wear some of my more recent costume acquisitions. I wish my henna showed up better, though. By the way, in case you were wondering how white I really am... Look at the glare on my arm. This was taken without flash.

And because I'm totally obsessed with my hair and put as much thought into what to wear up there was on the entire rest of my body, here's a picture of the back of my head. Three tribal hairsticks (from the gem show!), an awesome skully clip from Kyla, and barely visible, a flower and feather clip from The Gypsy's Kiss. Plus a big ol' bun... yeah, that's all natural. No extensions!

Good Wednesday

Day 159 of practice.

Today was a pretty good day. During the afternoon I ran a quick dress rehearsal for my solo, to make sure I could do floorwork in what I wanted to wear. I also discovered that I should wear my hair up, because if I wear it down it gets tangled in my crazy hair clip.

Speaking of hairclips, I got some in the mail which I will review next week!

Tonight I went to Fonda's class, where we did some fun drills and went back over a couple moves and then practiced dancing in formations. It was a good time.

I skipped class!

Day 40 of practice.

I skipped class at The Dance Loft tonight. My usual teacher Fonda was out, and was going to have a substitute. The substitute is a lady named Brandye, another friend of mine, who I've seen dance and think highly of. But then Brandye got sick and called in a substitute substitute, someone who I'm pretty sure I don't know, and my natural shyness kicked in. Shyness and laziness combined, I suppose.

Instead, I watched some of Serpentine, Rachel Brice's new DVD. I want to start doing some of the drills, but tonight the gaming group is meeting at our house, and I didn't want to be messing around with new drills, and thus making a fool of myself, while people might be tromping through my living room. Friday seems like a good day to dive into them!

Of course I practiced too! In addition to my breakfast shimmies and undulations, I did some Anaya Tribal fast and slow, some veil practice, and some solo practice. For my solo, I let me hair down and tried some playful hair-tosses and other hair play. Lots of fun! Some day I'll feel comfortable enough with it to actually throw it into a performance -- just not when the weather is this dry. Can you say "static"?