Runaway October

They have a ten­dency to give “treats”.

This is what hap­pens when you give a 15 month old a Yummy Earth organic lol­lipop.

Some­where buried in that mouth is his lol­lipop. It’s a good thing I’m not a ger­mo­phobe as this may have pushed me over the edge.

He sure looks happy though!

(In case your won­der­ing that’s my lit­tle brother Cody and he just hap­pens to be wear­ing one of the awe­some Sur­vival Bracelets I make.)

While I was work­ing I could eas­ily spend all day cruis­ing the inter­net, with lim­ited acces­si­bil­ity because of fire­walls and IP block­ers. I spent most of my time perus­ing par­ent­ing forums. My favorite was Mothering.com, which is where I came across the crazy notion that sham­poo was mak­ing my curly hair unruly. They called it No ‘Poo, I called it nuts. While doing some research I came to real­ize that typ­i­cal sham­poo was chock full of chem­i­cals, most that I couldn’t pro­nounce and didn’t want to rub on my head. 

There are a cou­ple of premises behind No ‘Poo. A few are:

• Sham­poo is a deter­gent and lit­er­ally strips your hair of mois­ture, oil and shine, mak­ing it prone to dam­age and break­age.
  
• Curly hair is espe­cially prone to sham­poo dam­age because it is more porous and frag­ile.
  
• Because hair is fre­quently stripped of its nat­ural oils, your scalp goes into hyper­drive. This is why some peo­ple describe their hair as an oil slick.
  

Start with three main ingre­di­ents — Bak­ing Soda, Apple Cider Vine­gar and a good con­di­tioner. When pur­chas­ing a con­di­tioner, read the ingre­di­ents.

• Try to find some­thing that does not have any ‘cones’ — Dime­thicone, Sil­i­cone, etc. These will coat your hair and you’ll end up with a greasy mess.
  
• Avoid min­eral oil, a nasty byprod­uct of gaso­line dis­till­ing. Your body id unable to absorb it, so it will also cre­ate a greasy mess. It also blocks the scalp from releas­ing built up tox­ins and oil. Acne any­one?
  
• Also avoid Sodium Lau­ryl Sul­fate (SLS) and Sodium Lau­reth Sul­fate (SLFS). Known skin irri­tants, SLS and SLFS are com­monly added to sham­poo and other deter­gents as a foam­ing aget. They are cur­rently being ques­tioned regard­ing can­cer and toxic build up in tis­sues.
  
• If you use a gel, use a clear one. You may find that oils work well for you now, such as coconut oil, jojoba oil, apri­cot oil, extra vir­gin olive oil. Some peo­ple like to use alcohol-free Aloe Vera gel.
  

When Declan was born, I was a shower and sham­poo every day kind of girl. I used lots of extras to keep my hair in check. I tried No ‘Poo for about a week before I couldn’t han­dle it. My roots were detox­ing and super greasy and my ends were dry, split and straw like. I had to go in pub­lic like that for 40+ hours a weeks. Eek.

Now that I stay home with the boys, I don’t get out as often and sham­poo­ing has come down to 2 or 3 times a weeks, to save time in the shower. I’m hop­ing that my hair wont have to detox nearly as much this time, and if it does, oh well. I can always wear a hat to the gro­cery store.

I’ll be photo doc­u­ment­ing my jour­ney and post­ing more info as I go. Next Up — No ‘Poo routines.

Here are some No ‘Poo sources:

What is No ‘Poo?

Info: Sham­poo Free

The No ‘Poo Method

The No Sham­poo Alter­na­tive — No Poo

Of Course I Washed My Hair Last Year (I’m Almost Certain)

How to Ditch Shampoo

All about the No ‘Poo Routine

Break the Sham­poo Habit

Treat­ing Your Hair Like a Bath­room Sink

Conditioner-Only Hair Washing

Wise Woman Forum — The No Sham­poo Thread

Moth­er­ing Dot Com­mune — Going No Shampoo

Have you ever con­sid­ered chang­ing up your beauty rou­tine in such a dra­matic way? If so, how or why not?

Have any of you tried No ‘Poo?

It seems alot of peo­ple are really get­ting into the spirit of the giv­ing sea­son early this year. There are some really spec­tac­u­lar con­tests and give­aways going on right now.

First off there is this lovely beauty:

Just head on over to Pig­tails and Snail’s Quilt Give­away and leave a com­ment. There are more chances to win listed also.

The sec­ond give­away is over at Indie Fixx. She’s giv­ing away more than $750 worth of hand­made good­ness. I totally love the bag by Faite Designs in the sec­ond prize pack­age shown below. Be sure to tell her I sent you!

The third give­away going on cur­rently is The Sew Sweet Give­away hosted by Fabric.com.

Here’s the Scoop:

Who says sweet things are only for kids?!  Enter the Fabric.com “Sew” Sweet Give­away for your own grown-up treat pack­age cus­tom tai­lored for a sewing fanatic.  We have 2 grand prize pack­ages that were designed with apparel design­ers and quil­ters in mind.  Both prizes come with a selec­tion of items spe­cific to your sewing “fla­vor” as well as a $300 gift cer­tifi­cate to Fabric.com and 1 year of free ship­ping.  You can even enter once a day, every day — so come back often!

You can enter every­day until Halloween.

And last but not least is the Sew Like a Pro Sweep­stakes from SeamsToMe.com and Anna Maria Horner

Enter now and you could win every­thing you need to sew like a pro! One grand prize win­ner will receive a Singer® Con­fi­dence™ Quil­ter sewing machine, a signed copy of Anna’s book, 20 yards of Anna’s fab­ric from West­min­ster Fibers, and the Dual Duty XP Thread Sam­pler pack from Coats & Clark. Thir­teen (13) oth­ers will win prize pack­ages con­tain­ing a signed book, fab­ric and thread sampler.

 

Of course if none of these catch your inter­est you can enter any­way and give my your win­nings. Yay!

Five sur­geons from big cities are dis­cussing who makes the Best patients to oper­ate on. The first sur­geon, from New York, says, “I like to see accoun­tants on my oper­at­ing table because when you open them up, every­thing inside is num­bered.”

The sec­ond, from Chicago, responds, “Yeah, but you should try elec­tri­cians! Every­thing inside them is color coded.”

The third sur­geon, from Dal­las, says, “No, I really think librar­i­ans are the best, every­thing inside them is in alpha­bet­i­cal order”

The fourth sur­geon, from Los Ange­les, chimes in: “You know, I like con­struc­tion work­ers. Those guys always under­stand when you have a few parts left over.”

But the fifth sur­geon, from Wash­ing­ton, DC, shut them all up when he observed: “You’re all wrong. Politi­cians are the eas­i­est to oper­ate on.. There’s no guts, no heart, no balls, no brains and no spine, and the head and the rear end are interchangeable.