Hoppy Easter!!

Interview with Alan Tudyk

Death at a Funeral | Serenity | Secret's Out

Happy Birthday...

to Alan Tudyk!

Henna time!

I've been using henna on my hair for a few years now. I LOVE red hair, and although my natural hair is too dark for henna to make it really red, it makes it at least auburn. I'm trying to find the silver lining of my going grey, in that the grey hairs will dye more red. So the greyer I get, the redder I'll get. My hair is naturally dry so I would never dare use chemical color or *gasp* a bleach-and-color process. But henna - real henna - is natural and good for your hair. Today it's time to re-henna my hair. I'm using not-so-much-henna-as-usual because my main goal is to re-do my roots, not re-color the whole thing. I just decided now at the last minute to document the process.

This is what real henna looks like. It is the powdered, dried leaves of Lawsonia inermis, the henna plant. It's mixed with an acidic liquid, such as lemon juice, and left to sit and let its dye release. This can take 12 - 24 hours, depending upon the temperature in the room. Since I made the mix up yesterday and only just now decided to document this, I do not have any pictures of my actual henna powder or my mixing process. The above picture is lifted from the 'web.


I mixed up my henna with the lemon juice last night, and here is the result today. It's a kinda bad smelling, green mud.


These are my supplies: the henna, obviously; plastic gloves are a MUST, as henna will dye your skin even better than it dyes your hair. The plunger-thingy is new to me. It's to help target more of the henna toward the roots.

I'm not so good at keeping the henna off my skin, so I smooth some Vaseline around my hairline and ears before I begin.

Ok. I didn't have a plan, but I meant to take a couple of pictures of the application process before having to get both hands involved. I failed miserably. This one picture is blurry because I discovered it was very difficult to hold the camera with the plastic glove on. And then I immediately had to use both hands. So that was the end of that.

Here I am with it applied, mess and all. I've just cleaned up my hands. Don't hate me because I'm beautiful.

Yeah. Isn't henna glamorous?

All in all, this was pretty mess-free. When I first started doing this, I had to line the sink, counter and floor with newspaper. And even then I'd end up with henna on the wall, woodwork, and door. Today I put down no newspaper, and ended up with just a little gloop on the sink and toilet, which was easy to remove.

See this goop on my arm? It was only there for maybe 10 minutes, but it's already stained my arm orange. But because it was only there briefly, it will fade quickly.

So here I am with my muddy mess wrapped in Saran Wrap and a heat cap. I like to leave the henna on for about four hours. So I'm going to go make some supper, then relax, read, and watch some TV. Then I'll wash it out and condition. Tomorrow I hope to be able to provide you with a nice 'after' shot.

If you would like to learn more about henna, please check out the Henna for Hair site. This is where I get my supplies and also where I learned about henna.



Edit: Here's the color yesterday. It will probably darken up in the next couple of days.

12 of 12 - March

6:45 am

As usual, as soon as I wake up and go into the living room, the rolling around begins.

6:50 am

Mmmm...I think I'll take an orange to work.

6:52 am

As I make The Boy's sandwich, The Queen demands a piece of cheese.

6:55 am

Exactly how much work do I need to do on myself before I leave the house?

6:56 am

This stuff is FABULOUS for second-day hair!

7:00am

Starting the car.

7:10 am

Angel is on. This is after Fred inhales the 'mummy dust'. Just before she dies. Whedon...you bastard!

8:10 am
I've arrived at the parking lot at work. The daffodils are coming up! Spring is here.

8:30 am
As I mentioned before, we're not allowed cameras at work, because we deal with sensitive information. So pretend this is a picture of my desk. See the nice cup of coffee I've got?

1:30 pm
Remember what I said about spring? I was wrong. Now it's freakin' snowing!! [/eyeroll] I had to come down and take a picture of this.

1:32 pm

Since we're in the parking lot...isn't this neat? I love it.

4:48 pm
Had to stop for gas on the way home. The price is crazy!

4:58 pm

I've just gotten home. The first thing I do is collect the mail.

Email exchange between my boss and me:

So, it just started SNOWING like a bastard here. Which is absolutely crazy because we've had nice weather lately. (You will also need to know that we work in an office park at the top of a huge hill, and that we've been 'crying wolf' like this all winter.) It's too warm for the snow to accumulate, so there's really no problem. But I felt the need to sass my boss:

B,

There's a blizzard outside. We might have to leave early.

Laurie

His response:

I don't see any blizzard in the forecast, just some flooding. I think we are all safer up here on the hill.

And he included a link to the local forcast, which says rain, not snow.

Someday I'll Be Saturday Night

And last night, we were.

The Boy and I rocked Mohegan Sun at the Bon Jovi concert. We had a blast! I drove down to Connecticut in some serious rain yesterday to get there. We staying in a little hotel about a mile away (with free shuttle service!) from the venue. The show was awesome, as has been every Bon Jovi show I've gone to. We woke up to a nice little continental breakfast at the hotel, then checked out, and made the drive home. I must say, the drive today in the nice, clear weather was much preferred over the pouring, poor visability one the day before. But no matter. It was all worth it.





All of my pictures of the show can be found here.