Hair Hurdles and Other Updates

So, I sat down to write a complaining blog about a recent trip to the salon, but I'd better start out with the positive news.
My youngest son has decided to return to college. He is re-enrolled and has an apartment. He just needs to firm up classes and get a job. Those of you who have listened to my worries on this topic, know it is a relief, or it will be once everything is settled and he moves to his apartment next Friday. Then we'll keep our fingers crossed until he completes the semester and earns passing grades.
Our other concerns, like whether my husband will keep his job as the newspaper reorganizes under its new owner, continue to hang over our heads, but we're feeling hopeful.
On to my hair debacle. I'm sitting here for an hour with a plastic bag over my head and a deep conditioner on my hair in an attempt to save it.
A week ago, I went to Aveda Nurtur to have my roots and highlights done. The hairdresser was new at the salon. She decided to do an all over color first. After she washed it, she did the highlights. The entire process took three hours, rather than the usual two hours. As I sat there, I got more and more fidgety. I had papers to grade and never got a big chunk of time to get them done as someone kept checking my hair or washing it or rinsing it.
When I finally finished the color process, another stylist dried my hair. As she laboriously pulled a round brush through my curly hair, trying to straighten it, I told her that a flat iron was really the only thing that took the curl out of my hair.
"Oh, I could do that, but it would cost an extra $10," the stylist said.
That pissed me off. Why shouldn't I leave the salon with my hair actually styled the way I want. I felt like I was on one of those airlines that charge extra for peanuts and seatbelts and carry-on bags.
I walked home from the salon and fixed it. That infuriated me, since I'd paid over $100 to have my hair done, coming home and to flatiron it myself felt ridiculous.
I thought about writing a note to the salon to complain, but as the days went past, I dropped it. Until I started noticing that the hair on my bangs and around my face that had been highlights were crinkly and breaking. The highlights had basically fried my hair.
I stopped at the salon yesterday and they gave me a tiny little cup of conditioner and suggested I try a deep condition which should take care of it.
And that's why I'm wasting another hour sitting with my hair in a plastic bag and determining that the price to have my hair colored and styled was a complete waste this week.
This family selfie is the only picture I have of myself after my recent trip to the salon.

But I did get a photo of two of the kids plus my husband dressed up for a wedding.

Worry Lines

Last February, when I had my birthday, I got a facial at the local Aveda shop. Pattie, the woman who does facials at Aveda, has seen me about once a year for the past 10 years, so we always catch up.
This year, as she smoothed my hair off my forehead and attached a velcro headband to hold it in place she asked me my secret.
"How have you avoided worry lines between your eyebrows?" she asked, pointing to her own parentheses just above the bridge of her nose.
I shrugged. I hadn't really thought about it.
Until Friday, when I looked in the car mirror and yikes! I didn't have two parentheses between my eyebrows, I had parentheses plus a dash. That space above my nose, right before my forehead begins is now crowded with punctuation marks.

How has this happened in seven months?

I know I've been juggling funds recently with two kids in college, and, face it, money worries make some of the biggest impacts on our beauty.

Also, this whole teenager, young adult thing is having a huge impact. I used to think if I could just get a full night's sleep that everything would be wonderful. Now I know that bigger worries awaited me than getting the kids to sleep through the night.

But, with two kids away in college, my day-to-day worries about them should lessen. The one child left at home goes to school each day, works out three days a week, picks his girlfriend up from college to spend the evening at our house, and gets home by his curfew on weekends.

Okay, he did have a minor fender bender Thursday night, the night before I noticed these new marks. No damage to our car and nothing to the other car, except a loose bolt on the license plate. But the young man he bumped blew up at Tucker and made the whole scenario worse.

I'm hopeful that these parentheses will fade rather than deepen, as the year of college payments reaches its end in March, and maybe I'll have two months of a line free forehead, before the payments begin again.

Still Itching

Ugh.
I know that I'm much more conscious of the rash and swelling on my face than anyone else is, but even the teenage sons have begun to comment on it.
"Maybe you should stop using it," Tucker suggested.
Yeah, I thought of that and stopped using the moisturizer as soon as I felt the rash beginning on my neck. This all began when I tried a new moisturizer from Aveda. Now five days later, the rash and swelling are worse.
"Your eye's swollen," Spencer said when he leaned over to let me kiss him on the cheek before he ran out the door.
The left side of my face is very swollen now and the skin is very dry. Yesterday, I tried taking it easy and swallowing Benadryl every 6 hours to reduce the itch and swelling. I also tried applying hydrocortisone cream, but I felt nervous about rubbing it on my face.
Today, the left side of my face has definite jowls and the swelling under my eye interferes with my line of vision.
I searched online for a doctor on Sunday and ended up going to a CVS Minute Clinic where a nurse practitioner seemed afraid to touch me, as if the scaly, swollen skin would spread.
She ended up giving me a prescription for prednisone because, by now, the allergic reaction must by "systemic," she said.
I just hope that I look a little better by tomorrow when I have to work one-on-one with students.
Now I just have to figure out what is causing the back pain -- is it some of the medicine I've been taking, the allergic reaction, or the lack of running since my face flamed up from that "all natural" moisturizer.
And that will be my next step, to try to find out what is in the moisturizer that set my face on fire. I definitely want to avoid it in the future.

Wrinkles Be Gone

My husband is so lucky that I woke up with a swollen face this morning. Otherwise, I was going to write about the fact that he came home from France with one chocolate bar. One. That's right. No other chocolate. Three bottles of wine, some croissants and ONE chocolate bar.
Instead of giving him a hard time, I am a little woozy from Benadryl and drinking an espresso to counteract the sleepy qualities.
It all started on Sunday when I bought a new moisturizer. I went to the Aveda store, which I love. Almost all of my "beauty" products are Aveda. And I've been using my travel store of moisturizer since we had the driveway redone in August.
I went to buy my usual tourmaline moisturizer and inquired about eye cream. They didn't have any except the kind I had an allergic reaction to. However, the saleslady continued, I could try the "Embrightenment" moisturizer which would have a similar effect around my eyes. It was 20 dollars more, but if it could work as moisturizer and eye cream, I was really coming out ahead, right?
So I brought it home and used it Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.
Yesterday afternoon, I could feel a slight sandpaper type rash on my neck. As the evening progressed, my skin was itchy and I could feel the rash along my jawline. This morning in bed with my husband, who came home from a week in France and brought only one pre-wrapped chocolate bar, I could feel that sand papery feel over all of my face. And my face felt really tight.
That's when I got up and looked in the mirror.
Yikes!
My whole face was swollen and my eyes had a definite Asian slant to them.
Oh! So that's how the moisturizer works. It gets rid of wrinkles by making your face puff out. I have no wrinkles, but the space between my eyelids is definitely smaller since my eyes are swollen too.
So, I took a Benadryl and I'm drinking the coffee since I have to teach starting at 8.
Then I'll have to head back to the Aveda store to see if they'll replace the rash-causing moisturizer with my old standby.
What I can't understand is that Aveda said it is replacing products to make them more natural. Apparently, my face cannot handle more natural. Bring me some synthetic products!

Concrete Beauty

This hole in the concrete is affecting my beauty routine.

No, I didn’t fall in it and scrape myself.
It’s just that the hole in the concrete, and then the filling of it, costs $2000. Because of my lack of planning, I am running out of important beauty products the same week we are shelling out money for new concrete. I’m scrimping and searching through my gym bag to find backup beauty products.
The first crisis came with my Aveda confixor, a liquid hair gel that smells fabulous. People frequently comment on the scent and I have gotten to the point when people say, “What smells good?” that I answer, “Oh, it’s my hair gel.” It does more than smell good though. It changes the texture of my hair. I look better the minute I smooth it in my hair. So running out of confixor made me a little panicked. I found a small unmarked bottle in my gym bag. It seemed like the same consistency as confixor, but the smell was different. I’ve been using it sparingly.
As the week has passed, I’ve been scraping my finger in the inside of this beautiful green jar of Aveda moisturizer so I can dab it on my face.
I feel like a kid trying to get the last of the Nutella from the container.
Soon though, another payday will roll around and I’ll be able to stock up on my beauty products, plus sit on the luxurious concrete apron behind the garage. That’s right. I’m not going to pay $2000 for a slab of concrete and let people ignore it. If I have to sacrifice beauty for this hunk of rock, everyone who visits is going to take the time to admire it.

Curly Girls Unite

On our run this morning, talk turned to hair, which is strange because currently, DreamGirl has no hair. She ran without a cap, her bald head still nubbly in spots as the chemotherapy continues to work its magic.
I thought I was being petty as I twisted my hair into a braid to control the frizz created by the humidity. I reminded myself even as I tucked the braid in a cap that DreamGirl will be starting from scratch when her hair starts to grow out, so I should quit complaining. I thought I might feel uncomfortable talking about hair problems with a bald woman, but I didn't.
I asked her how she could resist telling bald men that she likes their hairstyle. She just smiled.
Then she told me that her daughter is having hair issues. When she brushes it, it grows huge.
"Tell her not to brush it," I urged.
"She doesn't have curly hair," DreamGirl said.
"Trust me. If her hair is getting big and frizzy, she has curly hair if you just allow the curls to emerge."

This is still a novel idea to many people, but if you have curly hair, brushing is not the way to go. I should know.
For years I brushed my hair and dealt with weird bumps that I tried to smooth down. When I read the book Curly Girl by Lorraine Massey, I became a convert.
I know what you're all thinking. Isn't this the same woman who loves to straighten her hair? Yes, that's me. But in this humidity, there's no sense pretending I have straight hair. I have to let it curl and control the frizz the best I can.
I start in the shower. I don't use shampoo. I haven't for years. Curly hair has open follicles and shampoo is bad for it. Curly hair also doesn't get greasy.
So I rub my scalp and add conditioner. I spread the conditioner from my scalp to the ends, removing all the tangles with my fingers. It's important to remove the tangles because I don't brush it, remember.
In humidity like this, I also leave some of the conditioner in. It isn't leave-in conditioner, but I only rinse the top of my head and leave conditioner on the ends.
When I get out of the shower, I don't wrap my head in a towel. Instead, I use a towel to scrunch it and get out the excess water. Then I add a hair product. I use Aveda Confixer. Then I let my hair dry. That's it.
I'll pull down my bangs and try to dry them, but they usually curl up again.
I got to thinking about curls after I went through old pictures for Grace's photo album. I saw some pictures of myself that I loved. My hair was really long, down to my elbows, and dark. The curls had taken over in long rolls that looked almost Rastafarian. This was at the height of my Curly Girl phase.
Before I read Curly Girl, my hair looked wavy instead of curly. That's because I used a pick to comb it every day after my shower. Not combing or brushing it makes a huge difference -- and can even lead to the Rastafarian look.
That's why I told DreamGirl that her daughter should stop brushing her hair. The more we curly girls brush our hair, the more we'll resemble Rosanne Rosannadanna from Saturday Night Live.
I even have a favorite curl. No matter how many times I straighten my hair, once I let it curl again, a curl on the right side down below my ear always emerges. It falls in a perfect long loop. Why can't all of my hair do that? Then I would truly have Romance heroine hair.
My hair is much shorter now, which is a problem for curls. The shorter the hair, the less weight, which means it has a tendency to frizz up. I like the weight of long hair to help control the frizz.
That's where straightening my hair has foiled my plans again. The more I straighten it, the more I damage it and have to cut the ends, thus resulting in shorter and shorter hair.