Whee!  My Dangerous Love and Bahama Breeze Rapunzelstixs came!  They're so shiny  .  I must be part magpie; I just love shiny things.   

I've finally admitted that sticks shorter than 6 inches won't hold all of my hair.   I rounded up my shorter hairsticks and gave them to a friend.  NOT my LL sticks though, I use them for decoration.  I consider them jewelry along with my earrings, etc.  I do have to put one of those tiny little hair safe rubber bands around the bottom third of the stick and twist them into my hair or else they tend to slide out--once my Geisha stick popped right out of my bun and smashed into the pavement!    Luckily the pin was only bent a bit and it seems fine now.  If they don't fall out they slide down and my hair tangles around the findings.  The rubber bands stop that as well and they don't hurt my hair as long as I remember they're there and don't just yank the sticks out in the evening.  Ouch.

Hi.  I like your idea of soaking feet in asa & h2o.  I have tile in my house and work barefoot so my heels are always rough, flakey and most of the time cracked. 

I came across this recipe-intend to make it someday so haven't tried it yet.  Perhaps this would work for you instead of stinky teatree.  It is good stuff, but I can't stand the smell, either.

1 tsp eo lemongrass
5 tsp eo rosemary
3 tsp eo lavender
4 tsp eo basil
2 tsp eo lemon
2 tsp eo sandalwood
10 tsp jojoba oil

Combine & store in dark, cool place.  Massage 2 tsp into dry scalp for 3 mins. and rub a bit into ends of hair.  Wrap head in plastic or shower cap, then wrap again with warm damp towel.  To keep towel warm, dampen and place in microwave for 45 seconds or so then put on over plastic.  Set timer for 5 mins., at end of 5 mins. put back in microwave and repeat warming until you've kept warm towel on for 30-45 minutes.  Rinse and shampoo.

Sounds good, huh?

Went to a conference this weekend (Fri, Sat, Sun) and it was my first big travelling experience with all my new hair and skin care.  I like making my own potions, but it's a bear to travel with them.   I took my lotion bar (to substitute for my facewashing and hair oils), rosewater, ACV, toner, and conditioner.  I ended up not using the conditioner or ACV.  I took my shampoo bar and homemade soap as well, and I made up 2 pouches of herbs for my rinse (lined my mortar with a coffee filter and pounded together 1 tsp ea. catnip pellets, sage and rosemary) which made my cosmetics bag smell awfully nice.  I knew the hotel where I was staying had a coffee maker and I used that to heat the water to make the rinse.  I do have a coil that plugs into the wall that you put in a cup of water to heat it almost to boiling that I can take with me when needed. 

I washed with the Rosemary Lavender Aloe bar on Thursday night and though my hair was a bit tangly I didn't use the ACV rinse.  My hair was much fuller on Friday than usual, very nice.  I used the sample Shea Rose Clay soap to shave my legs and it was a bit drying.  I'll save it for the summer when my skin is even oiler than usual.  The lotion bar worked well on my hair, but I found out I really have to rub it into the hair, rather than lightly coat my palms and scrunch it into my ends.  It worked fine to wash my face but I prefer my oil/shea mix.  It's fine for vacations though and I hate travelling with messy bottles of oil.   I keep the bar in a Rubbermaid container 'cause it'll melt if it gets too hot.  I also works wonders for my skin and I melted a bit in my bathwater and it was so nice.  The main problem is the bar smells like the unrefined shea butter; usually when I put shea on my skin the smell is gone in around 10 minutes but with the lotion bar it lingers.  It isn't a bad smell but I don't want to smell like unrefined shea all day.  I'll have to melt a bar and scent it with eo.  The beeswax in the bar did not seem to leave any residue on my hair.

My hotel was right across from the mall and the accessories stores (Claire's and Icing) were having a buy one hairtoy get one 50% off sale and believe me, sale hairtoys is the only thing that could have gotten me in those places during prom season.  Most everything is purple or pink, making it look like Barbie exploded all over the walls, but I found some (some?--  lots  ) things.

My hair behaved itself this weekend and looked darn good if I do say so myself.  The meeting however--YAWN.  One afternoon lecture was 5 hours long and not pertinent in any way, shape, or form to my work or life.  I wrote out journal entries longhand, practiced handwriting by transcribing favorite Marx Bros. quotes and even wrote a song about hairsticks and I still had hours to fill.    And it didn't help when the mall was calling to me the whole time.  Stupid mall.   

After I got home I strained the lavender out of the ACV I'd left steeping for a week.  It smelled strongly of lavender and not of ACV at all.  Very nice.  I added 10 drops of lavender eo and a TBSP of glycerine.  I used it instead of my herbal rinse--1/2 cup ACV to 4 cups warm water.  It worked well, but 4 cups is a bit more than I use.  I'll use it weekly, but next time I'll use 1/4 cup in 2-3 cups water.  That way the ACV/lavender mix will last 2 months instead of one.  You probably could leave out the glycerin if you didn't have any, it probably doesn't make that much difference.  I used the Herb Garden shampoo bar, no conditioner, and the rinse last night.  My hair is incredibly soft today.

All of your mini buns sound cute!  I have a new idea for you:
4 mini buns.  Divide your hair down the center.  Then divide each section in half and secure each into 4 little ponys.  Then twist each section into a bun or braid and bun.  I like this look with the hair low, close the the nape of the neck.  Then I'll take a pair of hairstix and cross them through the center most buns.
I find it makes my head feel light, like I don't have sooo much hair.

I'm curious, how do you make the mini infinity and mini chinese buns?  That sounds fun.  How long is your hair?  Mine's somewhere around 19 1/2 inches.

I got my spiderweb slide and tri-color rose pic from bronze jewelers yesterday!  They're so bright; I expected them to be more subdued for some reason, but they're gorgeous.  I wore my slide today and it held all day without bugging me (no pun intended).  At first I was afraid it wouldn't hold my hair--a french twist is much to thick and a twisted loop is too thick as well.  I finally french braided my hair and tucked the tail up.  I've never been able to do that style before because I couldn't find the right toy to hold it up.  Hairsticks slide out and the standard barrette catches my hair and pulls it out (shudder).   The slide words wonderfully well and it's nice and big; four inches long and about 3 inches on the wide end.  The spider is beautiful and nice and big as well.    The pick is lovely too.  Last night I pulled the sticks out of my 2 buns and stuck the pick through them.  It held them both and squeezed them both together so they looked like one bun swirled on both ends. 

The Lime Cucumber Yogurt soap was very moisturizing and worked as well for me as the Dead Sea Spa soap.  I think it's just the clay that makes the Shea Rose clay drying.  I was going to give a bar to my SIL, but her skin is so dry it wouldn't work at all.   I think I'll order her the Dead Sea soap next time.

My hair finally makes a bun, but I'm not real thrilled with it.  It's still a bit knobby and pulls a bit since I have to twist it so tightly to make it stay.  I secured it with 2 hairsticks and 2 magic grip hair pins and it held all day without inducing a migraine, so can't really complain.  It was the 3rd attempt at styling this am; my hair did not want to cooperate.  I measured it and it's about 3.5 inches wide by 1.5 inches deep.  I want a snood from bronze jewelers (the spiderweb one with spider.  Anyone surprised?)  I think I'll wait a little while and gain a couple of inches so my bun is more stable.

Used the Herb Garden shampoo bar last night.  My hair really seems to love it.  There's no tangling or stickiness and I don't have to use ACV or conditioner.  I wonder if it's because my hair really prefers it to the Rosemary Lavender Aloe or if it's just finally gotten used to the shampoo bars?  I'll try the RLA on Sunday and see.  My hair is super soft today.

I doubled the amount of sage in my herbal rinse, mostly because I bought a huge jar of sage at Kroger.  I made toner last night and poured the unused rooibos tea into the rinse as well.  Now, instead of leaving the turbi twist towel on all evening, I take it off after 20 min or so, use my leave-in and detangle, and leave my hair down until bedtime when I braid it.  Then I unbraid it first thing in the am.  When I do this my hair is almost dry when I style it, and using the leave-in before leaving it down keeps tangles to a minimum. 

I didn't use hairspray this morning to keep the flyaways down, but used the aloe mixture instead.  It worked pretty well and my hair is so soft this evening instead of being stiff and tacky.

Used Rosemary Lavender Aloe soap last pm and even with the lavender vinegar rinse, my hair isn't as soft as with the Herb Garden.  It's still soft, but so far Herb Garden is the best!  My new soaps, the honeybeeregg and nettle I'll use next week.

Made the zit zapper mask again last night, with a few additions.  My new recipe:

1 tsp bentonite clay
1-2 crushed asa
1 tsp yogurt
1 tsp honey
1 tsp ACV
1-2 gtt tea tree oil
1-2 gtt peppermint eo

Combine, put on face, leave for an hour and rinse.  The peppermint made my face tingle, which is why I used it, and my skin was nice and soft after rinsing.  I read somewhere you can use kitty litter for a clay mask--I suppose it's the non-clumping kind, and you'd want to crush it up--but it might work.  I bought a pound of bentonite clay, though, and at 1 tsp every other week, it's going to last a while.

Put my hair up in a bun today and tied a scarf around it.  Looked good, but by 3pm my scalp hurt so badly I had to take it down.  Sigh.  I guess I put it too high--it was close to my crown.  I don't like the look of a low bun on me, though, so I must wait for more hair.

It was unseasonably cold this weekend and Sunday we had snow!     It was gone by afternoon and I shouldn't complain; Mom and Dad had 8 inches of snow.  I brought Agatha in on Saturday, at her request.  She still likes to be outside, but she got spoiled during her recuperation and won't put up with cold weather anymore.   The boys were not happy and they all growled and muttered at each other through the crack under the door.   Those studies that say having a cat lowers your blood pressure obviously never had one, let alone three. 

I covered the cork of my toner bottle.  I cut out a circle of plastic from some shrinkwrap and wrapped the cork in it and stuck the whole thing in the bottle.  I trimmed the plastic to about 2/3 of the height of the exposed cork, then wrapped it all with brown waxed twine I was making book thongs with.  I secured the top end with a sequin pin stuck through a flat grey glass bead with red streaks.  The top of the cork was left open.   I like it.  It looks like a little hat.

I also messed around with some 20 gague wire I had and made some wire slides (I used a chopstick for the stick part).  They held fine, but they all looked kind of tatty.  Maybe I could add some beads, or paint them.  Maybe heavier wire would look better.