How I amp up my conditioner for extra shiny hair!

~ Emmie ~ 3 Comments

New Year, it means, “new hair”, right?  There is nothing more attractive for hair than shine.  My hair when I was younger, had the most amazing sheen.  It was because I didn’t chemically process it.  However, now a days, everyone does something to their hair, whether it is a perm, or a colour, it affects it’s shine.  So how do I put in a bit of newness and shine to processed hair?  I boost up my everyday conditioner with a few natural ingredients!

A while ago, the dullness really bothered me.  I tried adding leave-in hair products to help increase shine.  The drawback was was that it weighed my hair down, and coated each strand with build up making the problem worse.  Then I tried natural oils like grapeseed oil, as a finishing touch to dry styled hair, but that made my hair too greasy.  That’s when I gave up with after shower shine products and focused on deep conditioning, which I now believe is key.

First of all, start off with a good everyday conditioner.  Then add into the picture: a conditioning hair mask, olive oil, and honey.   Regular conditioner acts as a base.  The conditioning hair mask adds extra softness, the honey attracts moisture and help the hair absorb it, and olive oil gives extra gloss. Mix all four ingredients in a dish, and then get in the shower.  Shampoo well, then spread your hybrid mixture of conditioners into your stressed out strands.  Leave in for 5 minutes.  Rinse well. 

And the results are perfect.  My hair is adequately hydrated, and without build up, the natural oils in my hair can evenly coat each strand to boost shine.  So here is my simple recipe that I mix in a small bowl, each time before showering, so that it is ready to use as soon as I am done my shampooing:

1 part hair conditioner

1 part hair conditioning mask

1/2 part olive oil

1/2 part honey

Mix and blend every ingredient together until uniform in colour and texture.  This stuff will smell amazing as most conditioners already smell great but add in the honey and olive oil and you almost want to eat it!  It is now ready to use.

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Doesn’t look the greatest, but it works!
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Mix well, and you too, can have this one phase result!
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Shiny, and babelicious, no?

After showering, I towel dry hair, and then allow my hair to air dry half way, then finish with low blow dryer heat for 5 mins.  My results when I do this is weightless clean shine, with no need for extra leave-in products!  My hair is super soft, and it has a natural shiny halo to it on the crown of the head or anywhere else it catches the light.  For me it’s like having virgin hair again, while not having virgin styled hair!

Reasons to not have a hair stylist…

~ Emmie ~ Leave a comment

I was reading an article online recently about 14 reasons to splurge on a fancy salon, and well, here is my counter-argument to that piece…reasons not to go to a salon.  Most hair stylists would probably hate me if they knew me. I haven’t been to a salon in over a year and I don’t plan on going anytime soon.  I don’t depend on them to keep me with the trends, I do all my own hair styling, even cutting.  I stopped going when I noticed quality chemical treatment and colour products are available to the average person, and dared to ask to question if I could do without the salon industry. I started colouring myself with those home dye kits at the pharmacy and then eventually graduated to professional colours/rinses from the barber supply.  I took a bit of a risk to learn the ins and outs of basic haircare and chemical processing, and once I learned them, the risk element diminished, leaving even less reason to go to a pricey salon. I’ve heard people insist about how “magical” professional hands are to hair and how they are just a must.  Not true.  Sure, if you can afford $150 for a colour job then go for it…it is easier to sit in a chair and let someone else do it.  But for around $10 worth of professional products you can do the legwork yourself and save a whole lot of money.  Then use that for new clothes, stuff for your kids, and good food. Sorry hair stylists, but I’ve put a target on your business  in this entry.

looks like it cost something to breath the air in here!
looks like it costs something to breath the air in here!

A lot of people argue that stylists are needed, because and average person is inexperienced and can mistakes.  That is totally true.  I mean, I won’t lie and say I’ve never messed up my hair.  But the difference is that I can own up to it, and hair will grow back and I learn from it.  Hairdresser have made mistakes with my hair before, and I still had to smile and tip politely at the end.  Not fun. Depending solely on hairdressers for hair functioning is also problematic, because in my experience, they often do not understand or listen to the customer, and they don’t seem to really care about how you turn out.  Nobody can care more about how you turn out than yourself. There are the pricey hairdressers that might listen, but a lot of women can’t justify spending this much on just hair, especially in this time and age where money is so hard to come by.  And I don’t want to go to a hairdresser’s college just to get a decent affordable cut from a student stylist.  You’re giving your hair to someone who is going to learn from cutting it…and your own payback is a slight discount.  Not good enough.  We deserve more than that…

My last dependency on hairdressers ended when I started watching how-to videos online with simple instructions on hair cutting and layering.  I learned these and performed them on myself, made evaluations…all in all, it was something at I could do reasonable well.  Also, my hair is long, so long cuts are easier to maintain in my opinion, they are free flowing in general, so fancy cuts are not needed.  So…now I realize that my need for hairdressers is pretty much obsolete.  And it’s nice to be free.  I don’t have to save up my piggy bank to get something so essential as a proper ‘do.

Rapunzel did her own hair. That turned out well, didn't it?
Rapunzel did her own hair. That turned out well, didn’t it?

Nobody talks about avoiding hair salons, because I think there’s a lot of business at stake, and there is so much riding on keeping women hooked.  My current hair-do is something I created to maintain myself, and I’ve gotten many compliments on it.  It’s a medium long hair length with wispy layers, and a straight cut medium length bang, coloured with a punchy pinkish red colour rinse put in after pre-lighting by toning with 40 volume peroxide, no bleach.  And I do it on my own, after a few trials and errors, but the end result is what I wanted.  And that was worth the work.

Maybe when/if I become a bride, on my wedding day, I’ll treat myself to a pampering blowout from a good hairdresser, because I admit that they do do beautiful blow outs and shaping after a shampooing.  They obviously know how to make an updo.  But until then, they are a luxury that even if I could afford, I have decided is not worth it.

Is Bath and Body Works racist?

~ Emmie ~ 1 Comment
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This is me in front of the offending store. Boo!

Okay, so this entry is as political as I’ll get.  I don’t usually like playing the “race card“. It’s too done. Being the first generation of my family to be born here in Toronto, one of the most multi cultural places in the world, I haven’t really ever felt racism. I mean there were awkward times during my high school years where I didn’t fit in with the main cliques, partly do to the fact that I was a small, withdrawn Asian girl that didn’t play sports…but other than that, I’ve lived without any major discomfort due to my Chinese background.

This doesn’t mean that I’m not sensitive to it.  I am well aware of some Asian stereotypes, and I still do fight them today.  But most recently I had a brief stint working as a seasonal sales staff at Bath and Body Works.  And it was one of the worst employment experiences I’ve ever had.  I wanted to work in the cosmetics industry because it is my interest, so I went in for an interview, even though I had my reservations to work for such a big box company.  It was a group interview involving me, a busty redhead from the UK and a BBW manager that shall remain nameless.  So as I battled it out with the Brit, answering questions for this position, I realized that with my superior knowledge of the make-up industry and my retail sales experience in general, I kind of blew her out of the water.  But at the end of the interview, we both got the position.  That’s fine or is it?  It turns out that that there were only so many hours that could be doled out, so it would mean that me and the Brit would be splitting the little shifts that there was.  I worked 3 hours a week during the brief stint, barely worth getting out of bed for.

Luckily, two weeks and miserably into the position at BBW, I got a call from another make-up company ready to take me on!  I went for the interview, and it was immediate click.  They knew I knew my stuff.  And I knew I wanted to be with them.  No jumping over hurdles, battling it out with a red head, fighting over three hours shifts.  I could relax and know I got the position, because I was qualified.  I decided however to finish one more day at BBW before letting them know I was quitting.  Big mistake.  On this day, they didn’t let me talk to customers, I was put on bag duty, which is double bagging bags.  😦 Then I was sent to the back room to cut box trays.  I know this was prep for Black Friday, but I couldn’t help but feel that they didn’t appreciate me, and I finally noticed that all the front line staff that day were white.  When I looked at the next weeks’ schedule, I had only 1 on-call shift, while the new hire UK girl had gotten 2 shifts.  It had nothing to do with me being a new hire then.  What else could it have been other than race?  Hmm, I can’t prove it, but I sure felt it.  To make matters worse, they gave me a shotty knife to cut the boxes with and I ended up straining my two fore fingers, and they ended up turning numb!  For one week my fingers were numb and were not the same and even as I’m typing now, my index finger is still weird.  BBW, I truly hate thou.  The next day, I phoned in my resignation, and danced for joy, having a way better job to fall back on!  I will write more about my new job in another entry soon!

As a side note, despite what BBW did to me, don’t shop there anyways.  They could be possibly racist, but also, their products suck.  They all smell the same, and are loaded with synthetic chemicals that are junky.  You heard it from me first!

Check out the following video.  It shows that racism in the retail workplace does totally exist.