Thursday, December 9, 2010

leftover whipped cream, anyone?

This dry winter weather has my hair in tangles, so I decided I'd have to do one of the Curly Girl suggested conditioning treatments. I've tried the avocado/honey/almond oil combo (I think smell like guacamole after, but when I ask others, they say not), which was the softest my hair has been in forever, but I wanted to try something else this time.
I had some whipping cream that was approaching it's sell-by date, so I figured I'd do that one. It's actually in there as a scalp treatment, for dry, itchy scalp, but as I had that as well (darned desert winters), that's what I set out to do.
I whipped the cream, without adding any sugar (though sugar won't harm your hair - it likes it well enough), and, after setting the bowl in the bathroom sink, I was ready.
I considered washing my hands just once more before scooping it up, so that I wouldn't be polluting this fine bowl of whipped cream, but then realized I'd be going right back into the stuff as I worked more of it into my hair, so hair (and other things) in the cream was going to happen in any event.
It didn't say to wet my hair first, so I didn't. I just started scooping up the whipped cream and massaging my scalp with it. Wet hair might have helped avoid some of the tangles I got while I did this, but see, I remembered that wetting your hair first keeps it from absorbing other things (this is why you want to wet your hair before swimming in a chlorinated pool - it'll protect your hair), so I thought it might be best if the only thing my hair was absorbing was the cream.
I'm sure you wish I'd taken a picture. Just recall how Julia Roberts looked in Dying Young (or in Pret-a-Porter (Ready to Wear) - but I'm sure most of you didn't see that one) when she had her hair up in mayonnaise to condition it. Only I smelled of cream, not mayo. (The Twins had a friend over. How fun for them, explaining my new "look".)
When it was time to rinse, I realized that instead of knitting while I waited for my hair to soak up the cream, I should have taken a moment to empty the kitchen sink, that being the one sink with a faucet high enough to get my head under. I endured a good 15 minutes of cream dripping down my face and neck while I washed dishes and scrubbed the sink.
I rinsed until the water ran clear, and wrapped my hair up in a towel. (I know some of these "deep conditioning treatments" say you should "wash as usual" after doing the treatment, but that's a bad idea. You just spent at least 30 minutes giving your hair some much-needed oils and moisture, and now you're going to wash it and strip all of it out? Believe me, your hair doesn't want that.)
Left it that way when I went to bed, since the hair was still pretty wet. This morning, I woke up to a head full of glossy curls tossed every which way.
There's still some of that cream left. I covered the bowl and put it in the back of the refrigerator. I just hope neither of the boys decides it looks like something to eat; I might want to recondition my ends later.

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