October garden. I've ripped out so many summer things: tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, a big container of cosmos. The strawberries are still bearing a little bit --- I go in and eat them right out of the bed, and they're marvelously sweet, but there aren't enough of them to do anything with other than that.
Only 64 days left in 2022; 64 more days of this so-called "no-buy year." I was going to meditate on that whole thing yesterday, but I've meditated on it so much that I just don't have that many thoughts left. I have bought things. I'd given myself permission on the front end to buy certain things, but I've bought other things as well. It hasn't been a total fast. But I'm still tired of it. I think it's been life-changing, and I'm glad I've done it, but I'm kind of ready for it to go away.
Yesterday I did do something about the sub-optimal haircut I'd gotten the day before. The layers were bothering me, not lying right. The lengths either side were still a little wonky. The whole shape felt off.
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| Post-DIY Haircut, the Wet Look |
It was still bugging me, and I guess I was feeling obsessive. I washed it again --- I have some seriously clean hair this week --- used conditioner and left it in, per this video. I didn't have the Crea Clip tool she uses in the video, but I have done unicorn cuts before and been reasonably happy with the outcome. I've also done pigtail cuts, like this one demonstrated by "Manes by Mel" (a great resource for this kind of thing).
****Disclaimer***** I am not a hairdresser, and this is not a professional or recommended method, just a description of my own DIY.
Anyway, with my hair soaking wet and full of conditioner, standing upright in front of the bathroom mirror, I first detangled my hair with a wide-toothed comb, then used a wet brush over and over to get it as perfectly smooth as I could.
Parting it in the middle, dividing it into two even halves, I brought it forward, still wet-brushing for smoothness, into a single ponytail "beard" under my chin. I secured the "beard" with a ponytail holder, smashed it flat, so that I could see the bottom line (uneven, thank you Great Clips stylist), and trimmed the edge until it was even. Doing it with the hair pulled forward like that gives you a tapered line --- maybe not a sharp V, but definitely a U. I wanted to be sure the very ends were even (relatively; again, I'm not a pro) and that I had a tapered perimeter with its point in the middle. Using my chin as a measure was a way to get the line right. I've never actually seen anyone else do this, and there may be reasons why it's not a good idea, but it seems to work for me.
I took out that ponytail holder, then bent over and, with the wide-tooth comb and the wet brush, again detangled and smoothed my hair so that it hung in a straight sheet down from my head. Brushing to keep it as perfectly smooth as possible, I gathered it into a ponytail --- a.k.a. a unicorn horn --- at the peak of my forehead, using my nose as the centering point (in other words, making sure my unicorn horn was right above my nose, in a straight line). Again I smoothed and flattened the ponytail so that I'd have a line to cut across with my shears. I used a plastic hairdresser's clip to make a straight line across that flattened ponytail, and cut it --- I was kind of gutsy and cut about an inch and a half, if I remember correctly.
Then I stood up straight, brushed it all (still wet and conditioned) forward on either side of my face so that I could check to make sure the ends were even and straight. Having done that, I rinsed and combed my hair as usual and let it air dry.
The shot above is the wet look, right after this process.
Here's how it looked when it dried, parted and combed over the way I usually wear it when it's down:
I wish I'd taken a photo of the "before," but here the layers are lying a lot less choppily. The top layer was really shelf-like before. Now they just fall in a nice taper.
Here's a shot with both sides:
One side of my hair is always straighter than the other, and the fact that the under-layers are straighter than the top exacerbates this. Oh well. It is what it is. That side is always going to look a little off, because it doesn't spring up as much. But trust me when I say that in the "before" version, it was REALLY longer, like she forgot to cut it. The line in the back was a slant from left to right, not a U or a V.
I like this shorter length, actually. I might work my way up to shoulder-length eventually. I also went ahead and bought a Crea Clip, because I think that that will make things easier than the whole ponytail method.
So, there you go. That's my DIY wavy haircut method. I don't really recommend anything I do specifically --- I would point anyone wishing to cut her own hair to people like Swavycurly Courtney and Manes by Mel, featured in the videos linked above. I like Courtney because her hair is more like mine --- wavier rather than curlier.
Anyway.
Wearing today, for a drive and amble (not actually hiking) in the mountains:
Wool& Sierra, thrifted striped bamboo tights, thrifted alpaca cardigan, Xero Tari boots. I'm going to take my wool pullover in my backpack, as well as a puffer jacket and scarf, because it's bound to be colder in the high country.
I'm comfortable and warm now, and can potentially be even warmer as needed.
Here's the Day 2 hair, after being slept on:
A lot of the more defined curl has fallen out, as you can see, but that's okay. I don't embrace any extraordinary measures to keep my hair styled overnight. In any event, I'm going to be out in the rain and wind today, so I'm not going to any effort to keep my hair together. I still like the shape and the way it falls quite a lot --- better than after the Great Clips cut on Thursday. I might need to tweak the ends over the next few days, if I see any really troublesome pieces hanging out, but all in all, I think I did an okay job.
I've got an Invisibobble on my wrist, so I can do a ponytail when I feel the need. No bad hair days here!
Off we go to the mountains with the dog!