Blogging in the Shower

March 23, 2009

So, I was brain-writing this post while in the shower a while ago. As with everything, there's a bit of a back-story:

I have long hair. It's also way curly. Like, so curly that it wraps around itself and ties itself into knots even if I'm just sitting still on a stool (go ahead, picture that). Except for the sound effects and the antisocial behaviour, we're talking Medusa here.

Believe me, I know my way around product.

Well, I've been busy lately and I haven't paid much attention to my hair except to keep it clean(ish) and tightly bound. So I thought it was time to give myself a serious treatment.

I started with a tube of Hot Oil treatment - you know, the kind that you put in a cup of water to heat, then massage it into your hair? Uh, yeah. Long hair. Little tube. Get real.

I knew it was time to break out the big guns, so I went shopping for heavy-duty-make-it-shine-and-bounce-like-on-the-commercials product. Once I finally narrowed down the choices (getting rid of $pendy stuff that was just charging for the NAME, avoiding so-called moisturizers that had alcohol as an ingredient, etc.), I decided on a cholesterol treatment. I opened up the jar (yes jar, not tube!) and took a sniff. Smelled like oil and lanolin. Looked like mayonnaise.

Click! Went the lightbulb (I would have preferred that it went "Ding!" but I only ask for a reasonable suspension of disbelief on this blog) - I've read many do-it-yourself-and-be-all-natural recipes for mayonnaise hair treatments. And, you know? A whole jar of mayo costs about 25% of what the cholesterol treatment was going for....

Forward to the Google search, where I finally decided on the DIY Hair Treatment here.

Step one: Ask Mr. W. to bring home some inexpensive but real mayo next time he's out. Explain that, no, the Best Foods in the refrigerator wasn't what I wanted. Finally give in (after he's good and confused and a bit irritated) and explain that I'm going to slather it on my hair. Oh. Okay. He took it much better than I expected.

When I finally got the time and inclination to start the treatment, I had the foresight to put on a shirt that buttons up the front (rather than a pullover; eeewww). I also decided at the last minute that I didn't need to be shoving my hand into the jar of mayo, so I scooped about a cup of it into a cereal bowl.

Find gloves. Get plastic wrap out of the drawer and push in the tabs at the ends of the box - this is NOT the time for the whole roll of wrap to hop out of the box and roll across the floor, you know?

Put a towel down on the floor because this has the potential to get gloopy. Put two more towels into the dryer and get them ta'heatin. Commence to slathering hair with mayo.

Um? Eeewww. (Thank god for the gloves, that's for sure!) This is room-temperature mayo I'm using. It's heating up in the little bathroom and when it gets massaged into my hair. The smell is... not wonderful. Oil, eggs, vinegar.... Makes me remember why you shouldn't put mayo on the sandwiches for the late-afternoon picnic...

Oh! And? Does anybody remember what happens to mayo (other than the smell) when it heats up? It melts. Liquefies. Drips. Long hair, flinging, massaging, dripping. (There might be a haiku in there somewhere)

Now it's time for the plastic wrap. I had the foresight (yes, I was congratulating myself on the amount of foresight I'd been having during this adventure) to remove the gloves. I tore off a piece and started to wrap it around my head and it didn't quite go all the way around. No problem, I'll tear off another piece. But by then my fingers had barely grazed the mayo'ed hair and they were pretty oily/greasy. Not as easy to get a big ol' piece of plastic wrap off the roll. I finally did, and after wrestling with it (you know how that goes, right?), got it wrapped around my head.

Where it promptly slid off onto my shoulder.

Plan B. Get a plastic grocery bag and tie it up around my hair. Great plan, except for the whole slippery-fingers-hard-to-make-a-knot-in-the-bag thing. Walk around the house with a bag on my head, looking for a binder clip or a paper clip or something. No dice. Go back into the bathroom, root around in the trash can for one of the discarded gloves to loop through and tie the handles of the grocery bag together over my forehead. Make sure that there's a big ol' bubble of air in the gloves that gets pushed into one finger so it's sticking out like unicorn horn.

Go grab a towel from the dryer, wrap it as best I can around my grocery bag crown and go make lunch. (Tuna... with mayo from the OTHER jar, btw)

After 10 minutes or so, switch out towels for a new warm one. Wonder if it's just the bag and the towel that's making my hearing 'feel' funny or if I actually have a glob of mayonnaise inside my ear. Gross out, shudder a bit and find a distraction... When I've finished the chapter in my book, it's time to wash this stuff out of my hair.

Turn on the shower so that it's pretty hot, grab a towel to dry my newly-conditioned hair (are you keeping track? I'm up to 4 towels by now). Take off the grocery bag crown... and drip melted mayo all over the bathroom floor. Sheesh.

Once in the shower, the rinsing part goes pretty well. Except that I'm draining OIL onto my shower floor. By the time I even get to putting shampoo on my hair, I'm moving like a penguin, trying to keep as much contact between feet and floor as possible. This is NOT the time to do that stand-up-and-shave-your-legs thing in the shower!

After finishing the shower - in penguin mode - stepping out onto the towel was a bit scary. Fortunately my shower curtain rod is actually screwed into the walls (instead of suction-cupped or whatever most are), so I at least had the illusion of safety as I grasped the rod on the way out of the shower.

Note to self: Get up right now and go spray the shower floor with 409 or whatever grease-buster I have. Getting into the shower will be no more safe than getting out was. And try to resist the urge to go make a BLT.

My advice to anyone thinking of doing this? Wash your hair in the sink. Have a sense of humor.

Labels: babble

permalink 6 Comments:

At 3/23/2009 5:35 AM,  Joyce Babbled Back:  

But did it work??? For the first time in my life I'm glad I have straight hair. My hair is also long but I don't have the problems you do with tangling. Thank goodness. Lol. Maybe we need a picture.

At 3/23/2009 6:51 AM,  Darcie Babbled Back:  

lol Just how long will it take me to look a jar of mayo in the...*eyes*...before I don't giggle about your story?!?

At 3/23/2009 11:09 AM,  Cathi Babbled Back:  

Brilliant -- you had me laughing out loud! I'm also curious -- did it work?

At 3/23/2009 11:25 AM,  Fiber Babble Babbled Back:  

Not so well that I'm in a hurry to do it again. I guess I'll just continue on my quest to find the perfect product. Or give up and hope that Big Hair comes back into style...

And I couldn't shake the craving for a BLT for DAYS...

At 3/23/2009 8:16 PM,  Bobbie Bentneedle Babbled Back:  

T, thanx for the chuckles. I was suddenly reminded of some dumb magazine article I read as a teen, which suggested using gelatin for setting lotion. To me, gelatin meant J-E-L-L-O... And yes, it WAS strawberry flavored... Set on permanent wave rods (that was another suggestion to get frizzy hair into beautiful waves - must've been one of the straight haired maidens who suggested it)... To make a long story longer, this was Saturday night, and all the prep was for Sunday morning church - and when I got the rods out of my cellophane-feeling, strawberry smelling hair and touched it with a brush, it wasn't pretty. As a matter of fact, I think God sympathized with me at home that Sunday, before blow dryers and hot combs! I think Momma and Daddy laughed about that for years afterwards... So, gal, I feel your pain!!!! Personally, I use the anti-frizz products that have - I think - silicone in them. Makes it really hard to hold onto the brush after rubbing it in with your hands, which is always exciting when the dog grabs the escaping brush and wants to play "keep away!" :0}

At 3/24/2009 11:49 PM,  Anonymous Babbled Back:  

ROLFLMAOPIMP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

you've outdone me this time my dear .. i'm not sure anything I've ever done comes close ..

I surrender my crown to you

**ZNERK snort ahem .. giggles .. ROFLMAO!!!!!!!!!!

OMG - a BLT

oh? Mr. W and Reg could likely be brothers .. altho he's still at the stage where he's just curious enough to want to know a bit more than 'the standard statement"

**wipes tears from face

ROFLMAO again ..

hugs
g

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