Month 4: The Hair Saga

My eternal nemesis in the appearance department has always been my hair. Including the first two years of my life, when I was completely bald. You'd think after finally sprouting follicles, I'd be grateful enough to treat them to all the curlers and products known to womankind. But no.

It has been three years since I ditched commercial shampoos and conditioners. I wouldn’t call it neglect—it’s more like when you're a kid getting your first pet. You nod while your parents explain that you must walk, feed, and care for this thing, but deep down you believe that nature will just take its course. I mean, it's an animal. Dogs survived for millennia in the wild without fancy treats and obedience schools, right?

So that was my logic with hair. I'd try a few natural methods, put in minimal work, and everything would be fine—like it was back in ancient times when there wasn’t a Sephora on every corner. What I forgot: ancient people didn't have processed foods, pollution, or central heating. It's like expecting a Shih Tzu to survive in the wilderness just because you’ve heard of wolves. When nature took its course, my hair looked like a mangy chihuahua with a mean underbite.

Now I only use a few very basic methods to keep it presentable.

Cleaning my brush by pulling fabric though the teeth. You can see the oils and dirt that come out!

1.     I comb my hair with a clean wooden comb to remove and distribute oils. A comb is much easier to clean mechanically with a rag than a brush, which is good because I have to clean my comb every single time I use it. The wooden material has many benefits; it is environmentally friendly, doesn't conduct static electricity well (reducing frizzy hair), and is generally less likely to irritate the scalp.

2.     I have regular baths (one to two times a week) where I pour a full pot of hibiscus tea into the water. Bathing in what looks like red Kool-Aid raises questions. Fortunately, the only witness is the bathroom spider, and frankly, he's seen worse. Hibiscus also has a multitude of benefits; it is acidic, which helps exfoliate skin, clean the scalp, and close the hair shaft (which is what makes hair smoother and shinier). It hydrates skin and hair and is full of antioxidants which neutralize free radicals to slow aging, hair greying, and work as a general anti-inflammatory to reduce irritated or itchy skin. Make sure to have a quick rinse after soaking—it helps your hair and reduces the instances of police interrogation.

3.     Recently, I've added a leave-in serum product called Bio-Pilixin to my routine because I want my hair to grow approximately as long as Rapunzel’s. I was wary of something that a normal person would use but, after an obsessive study in every ingredient, everything seemed sensible and natural. The seller also seems sufficiently evil-scientist-y: Scandinavian Bio Labs.

These are the few things I do to my hair. And my hair is annoyingly healthy. But it isn't stylish. And even though I feel like I've finally cracked the method to avoiding a greasy look—which took about as long as learning a foreign language—it really was time that I started doing something a little more proactive.

Boiling flaxseed

So, I boiled some flaxseed and made flaxseed gel. The recipe is something like two tablespoons of whole flaxseeds to one cup of water. Flaxseed gel looks and feels a lot like a raw egg white, so straining out seeds through a cheesecloth requires some strength of hand. It is applied like regular gel and then brushed out a little once it has dried, and I was very impressed by how well it worked.

Straining the flaxseed gel with a cheese cloth

Styling

The first styling attempt: bangs. I have about an eighty percent success rate, which sounds promising until you realize that one out of five times, I look like I cut my own hair with safety scissors while riding a mechanical bull. I wouldn't choose surgery with an eighty percent success rate, but then, I never went to medical school. So, if a doctor looked me in the eye and said, 'You really need a second appendix,' I'd probably think, 'Well, spare parts are always handy.'

The next thing I tried was to put the flaxseed gel everywhere, comb it, and comb it again after drying. 10/10. It managed the cowlick in the center back of my head, which generally looks like a topographical map of the Grand Canyon, required almost no effort, and probably put my hair into the realm of a typical woman who sat down with her products for five minutes.

But things couldn’t always be so easy, and I had to try something more to feel like I was adhering to the spirit of the resolution.

Tried hair rollers. Hair turned out straighter.

I tried curling all my hair using rollers. I definitely don’t know how to do that. Somehow my hair became straighter.

I tried some 'hair up' styles, but I don't use elastic hair bands. I gave them up rather unceremoniously—at least four years ago. Or maybe two. Definitely one. For the past however-long, I’ve used clips, needles, pins, and a scraggly, knitted string to elevate my look.

Tried Frieren-inspired pig tails.

The problem is, this severely limited my options. I started this habit either out of a lazy unwillingness to purchase new elastics, or some sort of sanctimonious “elastics are polluting the world” kick. Which it was, I can’t say. What I can say, however, is the Leenie who knitted that scraggly hair string all those years ago didn’t have the foresight to knit two of them. So, when I decided to try Frieren's pigtails, I only had one scraggly rag—and everyone knows pigs have two tails. Which apparently, was a lesson I missed in school.

I assumed that some common string would be simple enough. It was not. I couldn’t do it by myself at all. And come to think of it, scraggly ol’ faithful wasn’t that easy to use either. The ability to get a tight hairstyle was largely beyond me, and the internet failed me. When I searched for ways to effectively replace elastics with string or ribbon, I found tutorials on medieval taping, loose tie-ups, add-ons to elastics, and things that remind me of a bachelorette rasta weekend. I would need to use my own brain to solve this one.

The problem is this: I have two hands. One has to hold the hair in the way I want. So, I really just have one hand. I need something to cinch down on the hair tight enough that even if I need to do more tying and looping, the hair will stay where I originally put it.

Turns out that a taut-line hitch is surprisingly good for hair ribbons.

Pig buns.

By using a taut-line hitch with a long tail, it is possible to tighten down the band, wrap it a few times, and then use both the working end and the standing part to finish the tie with a bow. This worked especially well for what I call "pig buns".

Flaxseed gel and a taut-line hitch became my hair victories—one of which sounds gross and the other masculine, but somehow make me feel wonderfully feminine.