This Little Piggy Stayed Home

So, turns out, every time I do my hair in piggy tails, I get millions of compliments. I used to not be a fan, but I have to admit, I'm starting to really dig them.

I think the trick is to capture the natural flow of the curls and not tie the pigtails too high and tight, especially since I have such thick hair. I've done that before with less stellar results:

Also, this is my commitment to start taking better photos for this pristine blog I write.

Just kidding. We all know that will never happen. :O

Yo Ho, Yo Ho, A Pirate's Life for Me!

So Elena, Matthew and I were at the Dizzle, (aka, the DI, aka Deseret Industries Thrift Store) looking for costumes. They gave me this one to try on, and it was STINKIN' CUTE! However, I'm a thrifty girl, and I just couldn't bring myself to fork over 20 big ones for a Halloween costume. And, you can't really tell from the pic, but the dress was maybe 14 sizes too big and a little short, so it would have required some alteration. And...I didn't really want to be a pirate. Good inspiration for a future sewing project though maybe!

I was able however to pick up some AMAZING wonder woman boot covers (I've been looking for those!!) Annnd, the dress led me to a little inspiration for my probable Halloween costume this year ;)

PS, on the way home the most amazing thing happened. Thrift Store by Macklemore came on the radio. Seriously. Poppin' tags. We cranked that.

Round Brush Heaven

All I'm saying...is if you want volume on the top region of your head, use a round brush. Teasing...well you can do that I guess. I just love my hair and it's not nice to tease. I have taken to blowdrying my hair with a round brush lately, and it's the best structured volume I've ever experienced! I just picked up a cheapo 3" soft bristle round brush from Ulta. I really love using it on my bangs, I kind of pull them up/forward/to the side. But I also love it all over my head:) It gives my curly hair so much more bounce and makes my straight hair look so much less drab. I have really thick hair, which is a huge blessing, but it's weighty, and I struggle to keep it volumized on top and avoid the dreaded pyramid hair. This is my top hair volume salvation:)

#mirrorselfie

Great Inventions: Dry Shampoo and Directional Horns

Here's my list of great inventions.  Some have already been made, others have yet to.  But I'm sure they will at some point, because in the words of Olaf, "It just makes sense!"

1. Dry shampoo.  Invented!  This stuff is a miracle worker. Ellen DeGeneres doesn't see the value of dry shampoo. I've got an exercise for you Ellen: look at the hair on top of your head. Ask yourself, how long does it take to wash that hair?  How long does it take to DRY that hair? How long to style it?  Yeah, about 5 minutes total, that's what I thought. 

Let's look at another person's hair.  Say, mine.  Do you know how long it takes to rinse out shampoo from those heavy tresses?  Do you know how many pounds of water can be held on my head by those powerful strands? Water that has to evaporate before I can go outside in the winter?  Yeah.  I love dry shampoo.  If you haven't used it (and your name's not Ellen) you will love this. Say it was a stressful day and you were running your fingers through your hair a lot.  You wake up in the morning and you look like a stringy mess. Just spray this anywhere that looks like it needs at and fluff through it with a brush.  Viola!  It looks freshly washed for another day. :)  Saving you time for more important things than washing your hair.

2. Horns that honk in a specific direction. Not invented.  Why?

Car designers seem to think that the only person we'd ever need to honk at is the person in front of us.  This seems ironic, since if you rear end someone, it's automatically considered your fault.  I have often thought of the importance of this invention.  Like when you see your BFF and want to honk at them without making the car in front of you paranoid.  Like when you want to wave to the taco stand guy but he's not looking at you.  Like when a duck is crossing the road and you want to warn the car next to you. 

But seriously, I saw an old lady almost get smashed today because some dude was cruising down center street at 30mph and ignoring the fact that the lane of traffic next to him had stopped.  I wanted to honk at him, but I knew the car in front of me would think I was annoyed and honking at him for stopping for an old lady and the car driving by would probably ignore it.  Conundrum. 

Engineers, I call upon you to solve this. 

52 New Things: My Hair Adventure... (6 to go)

So.  Several new things. This week has been a hair adventure.  I attempted to put in some subtle ombre highlights.  They turned out pretty well, but the dye I used to tone it was actually a high lift dye, and it turned my hair suuper red!

"Hmm, I wonder what's happening under this cap right now.  Probably my hair's turning orange."

It was Sunday the next day, so I had to go to church with orange hair. (You're welcome.)

The sun'll come out...tomorrow! This is a fairly accurate pic of the color

I went to Salt Lake for Christmas.  I got my sister's hair dresser to do my hair.  She didn't think it was that bad (my first red flag).  She said she could still do the highlights and dye the rest back to the original dark brown.  Cool:)  But not cool at the same time, because it was still orange when I left.  Yes, I cried in the car on the way home.  Yes, like a baby.  Yes, for the first time I contemplated that I might have to live the next five years with orange hair.

So relaxed, just sending in sample pics to Sesame Street in case they like the eyebrow look on me.  Because yes, I bleached them out too.  Totally unaware that the dye would NOT hold at all and I would still have orange hair.

I made an appointment for a color correction at a really nice salon a few blocks from my house.  By nice, I mean expensive.  I read some mixed reviews, and I started to get a little worried that I would have a similar experience as at my last hair appointment.

So I had an idea.  This one was actually good.  I thought, why don't I just get a couple boxes of dye and toner and do a strip test.  If it turns out, money in the bank.  If not, I'll just go to the salon.  And you know what?  Money in the bank:)  After presents on Christmas morning (and no Christmas pics, sorry) Mom and I scrubbed up and did a little hair repair.  I conditioned it for an hour afterward (because my hair had been treated how many times by now???).  When I washed it out, ahhhhhhhhhh it wasn't orange anymore!

The roots were very, very dark. In my zeal to wash out the extra dye, I toned it down a little (It's still darker than before:/) but I really washed out the bottom right under the line of dark dye.

There is a distinct line between dark and light (symbolic?;)

The brassiness is probably the bigger problem.  It wouldn't be so noticeable if it wasn't so red.

I like the subtle highlights showing through:)

Line of red in the middle of my hair

And I just couldn't leave it.  I got the Revlon Frost and Glow Honey highlighting kit and light ash brown dye. 

I put in the highlights in.  I looked a little like Rouge from x men:)  

Then I toned them with the dye.  I also put some of the dye just lightly on the black part of my hair.  Guess what? It actually turned out pretty great:)  Not perfect, yes over-processed (ha) but luckily I have beastly hair that is thick and full of body and basically nothing can destroy it.  Of course I will be babying it for the next few months, but I think it'll be fine:) I got a purple toning shampoo to help balance out the slightly red and gold tones that are still in my hair.  Other than that, I finally like it:)

Ahh, so subtle, just the way I like it:)

Channeling: India

Dutch (inside-out French) braid diagonally across the back of my head.

I was having a hard time getting a good picture.:)

My fav color sea foam green cardigan, gold necklace and favorite skinny black trousers from AE.

Sock bun

I finally gave in and did a sock bun:) Cute!  However, it gave me a headache and I could only leave it in for a few minutes. Maybe I'll figure out how to do it less painfully...