The best ideas for a facial ever. Not.

If there is a chance for me to do something weird, I'm probably going to do it, unless it involves drastic danger or non-organic foods (let's get real here).  Last night I came upon such a chance and jumped in both feet.  Since this is my life, things did not go exactly as anticipated.

(Case in point:  One time, I bludgeoned my toe INSIDE A SPINNING VACUUM HEAD.  How?  Oh, you know.  I was trying to get that sucker into the other room up on to the carpet, lifted it, and gave it a shove with my foot - and at that second, the 90 degree angle of the vacuum head dropped and that whirling tornado of decapitating death coincided with the swing of my foot and in went the toes.  The yells of torture resonated throughout the house.  The family approached slowly.  "What...did...you...do?"  They seem to have been anticipating a fountain of blood spewing out of my severed toes based on the instantaneous drop to the floor, fetal position, and howling that accompanied this drastic scene.  I'm good.  It's all good.  Just back up.  Or bring me some ice wine.  Whatever.)
 
Well, last night I was on pinterest, the land of great ideas that you should try (or just pin and never actually do).  I probably have subscribed to natural or homemade beauty and this pin popped up advertising the creation of those Biore rip-your-skin-off strips.  You know those, right?  I used to use them quite a bit, but now I read their ingredients.  They have some horrible thing in there - either a paraben or a polysorbate, so I dumped them when I read that and haven't used one of those for a long time.  They are kind of fun, however, which made me slightly sad to see them go.

Well, I had to see how you could possibly make a Biore strip.  That just seemed so strange!  Her recipe and instructions were simple enough, and I had the ingredients on hand, so I figured I'd try it.  Your skin will be glowing, they said.  You'll love it, they said.  Just try it, they said.

here is a girl looking radiant
and happy after using her
homemade biore strip

Simply mix a couple tablespoons of milk with a couple tablespoons of gelatin and warm it up, then put it on your face.  Ohhhkaaay.  Her instructions included using a microwave (psh, no, don't have one of those), so I just heated it up on a pot.  It smelled so gross.  Warm milk, ew.  But she promised nice smooth skin, so the torture of stench seemed worth it at the time.

When the blobby mixture was nice and warm, I took it over to the bathroom to minimize my mess that I knew would ensue.  I used a tiny itty bitty spoon to pour the concoction on my face and the back of the spoon to smear it on.  This was kind of weird to say the least.  I had drippy milky gelatin pouring down my cheeks and I was patting my face with a spoon.  Oh well!  Not to be deterred by stench or spoons on my face, I persisted in such weirdness.

All I had to do after was just simply to wait for it to dry a bit, then start peeling.  

So, it's not really drying.  Did I put too much on?  Or does this have too much milk and not enough gelatin?  It's collecting at my chin in a river of grossness.  I have a beard of milk jello.  This is going to be great, I can already tell.  Stay hopeful, it's not over yet.

After several minutes, I supposed some parts of it were dry.  I started peeling the jello beard and it was like I was in elementary school again and had poured Elmers on my hands.  Sort of fun, but not really feeling like it's cleaning pores or anything, it's just a strange science experiment at this point.

And then.

I got to the parts up higher on my face that had a much thinner layer of milk jello (so sick).  These parts were my very sensitive cheeks.  This, of course, dried to a crisp.  It was glued onto my face with vigor.  If I didn't know better, I would have supposed it had fused into my face and become part of it.  I found a corner to start pulling, and the stabbing pain of the pinchy, rippy, torture made my eyes involuntarily water a fountain of tears.  This is great.  My face is turning red from what feels like violently using a dry razor on my cheek.  Or a wolverine slashing my skin off.  Or boiling my face in hot peppers.  Something along those lines.

Now I may not have mentioned it, but just prior to doing this experiment, I saw another great idea on pinterest about using turmeric and rose water on your face to improve complexion and so much more...so I did that right before the skin removal party.  Have you cooked with turmeric?  Touch it ever?  Are your fingers still orange?  Good, because my face was.

So let's see here.  If you follow these good instructions for a special facial treatment, you can end up with:

- an orange face
- ripped off skin
- milk smell/beard
- red skin where you ripped it off

I mean, really - what do you have to lose!

I hope to do it again really soon.

Peace, love, and if you rub turmeric on your face in just the right pattern, you can kind of make an orange beard (and who wouldn't want that),
Ms. Daisy

Hair = A Salad. Naturally.

Yes, folks.  I said your hair is a salad.  Let me explain.

I know.  Sometimes I say wacky things, but the title isn't to make you want to eat your hair (oh, so gross.  Do you remember kids who would do that in elementary school?  They'd suck on their hair?  I'm GAGGING just thinking about it.).

No.

The correlation is simple.  Your hair wants you to put some dressing on it.  Same as your mesclun mix with some delicious paper thin radish slices and fenugreek sprouts...mmm..I want a carrot.  

Dressing?  Yes.  Of course.  Don't be silly.

Let me explain how I came to this astute conclusion.

As you may (unfortunately) know, last May I did a very crazy and unwise thing.  I attempted to get my hair blondified.  Why?  Because, duh.  Blonde hair is AWESOME, that's why.  I don't really think of it that way so much anymore.  I should have listened to my hippie self that went on spouting about chemicals and toxic death painted on my head, but I was so SAD!  Sad with that brown hair.

I used to get highlights and people described me as one who had blonde hair.  Then I swore off all that bad hair crap and let it all grow out until it was all brown and boring.  It did have a little bit of auburn in in, so it wasn't a flat color, but it was just so ...brown.  People would say to me, "Oh!  Your hair is so...dark!"  Yeah, tell me about it.

So in a fit of spontaneous will one night, I looked up organic hair color.  I determined that I would find a place that would do organic blonde on me.  This would solve my dilemma!  I would be able to have blonde hair without dreadful carcinogens and toxic death going into my scalp pores directly to my brains!  Perfect!

Yeah.  So I did it.  I went in with silky brown hair and came out looking like Ronald McDonald with a serious accent on the orange and afro style.  Except even HOTTER since when everything was failing, Mr. Hair Man decided to try to "save" it by adding in bleached highlights (so much for organic, eh?), so it would be more accurately described as an orange afro with yellow stripes.  Too bad it wasn't Halloween.  The whole tiger outfit was all ready to go.

After a little suggested that I shave my head and a little bit of hysteria, my friend saved my FREAKIN LIFE.  Now this whole thing is bad enough, but my dears, I had to go to a wedding two days hence from the whole horrid situation.  This is not a wedding I could have showed up wearing a cowboy hat, a baseball hat, a bandana or a head scarf.  I was either going to get the mop fixed or borrow my friend's wig.

Frantic ended when my sweet friend paid for me to look like a human again.  Maybe some of you are not as horridly vain as I am, but when I looked like a frizz clown, I just could not stand it.  It was shocking at every mirrored surface.  When I woke up in the morning and sat up in bed, I would look over at the mirror and jump back and my brain would say, "Who in the heck is THAT?!"  It was disturbing as it repeatedly went back to orange, no matter what I did.

All this to say, I got 6 (count them, 6) processes done on my hair in 24 hours.  (2 all over dyes, 1 highlight, 3 toners)  My hair was what you may call slightly unhappy.  A week or two later, I tried to dye it back brown.  It went back to orange.  I tried walnut husks.  It went back orange.  Coffee.  It did nothing.  Orange, orange, orange.  Finally, some hendigo worked.  Mostly.

Oh!  And I swim, as you know!  So let's add some chlorine to that pile.  (Do not tell me anything about chlorine.  I know.  But I ain't givin' it up.)  My hair looked and felt like plastic Barbie hair.  When it was wet it was dry.

I read that this was because my hair's cuticle (um, okay) was open and I likely had split ends.  So I read up on how to close your hair's cuticle (isn't that weird.  You hair's cuticle.  It's like nail time.).  The most common thing that I read (after reading the pH levels of hair, etc.) was that I ought to use apple cider vinegar.

Are you thinking what I thought?  Well, check.  Did you just say, "OH GROSS!"?  Cuz I did initially.  Actually, I thought, "Weird dirty hippies!

But as you can now understand, I am quite desperate and will pretty much try anything to fix this hair, and since it was in the cupboard, heck, why not.  I followed Crunchy Betty's  advice (boil 4 cups of water, add dried rosemary and some apple cider vinegar, cool down, dump on head - at least that's my version anyway).   

My darlings, this is a good thing.  Yes, you do smell like a bit of a vinegar head for a moment while it is wet, but it does go away.  It also brings your hair back to a good pH.  This means you don't look quite as much like a frizz head.  

Last week I added more drama to my hair by redoing the hendigo.  Now hendigo is total rock star, unless you have previously orange and bleached hair...in that case, your bleached stripes will just turn a nice awesome mud green.  I think it really sets off the orange stripes next to it nicely, though.  People say, "You don't have green hair!"  And then I show them.  Then they say, "Oh.  Well, um, I mean, uh, well, it will grow out."  

Awesome.

T-minus two years and counting.  

Have you been tempted lately to dye your hair?  Let me be a lesson to yas!  If, however, you want to give your hair a helper, give it some rosemary infused apple cider vinegar.  I also have infused olive oil and rosemary to tame it.  My twinge of green makes for a very lovely salad head anyway, so get that dressing going.  

Delish.  

Peace, love, and radishes do sound really good right now, 
Ms. Daisy

Zit Removal Guide, the Daisy way

My face thinks it is 15.  

I predictably break out once a month (thank you, hormones).  This is payback for my teenage years when I think I got 3 zits total from the time I was 12 until I was 21.  Now, you can set the clock to my zits.  Awesome.  But even though I'm in my 30's, it still stinks to get blemishes.  I mean, it's not life crushing like when you're 16, but it is still stupidly annoying.  

I tried Crunchy Betty's face scrub with milk and nutmeg, and it does make you have a baby butt face (that is - your face is so soft it feels like a baby's butt, not that you are a small butt face), but honestly, I think for the zits, it really might only help a teense.  

I was wondering what was out there that would be helpful to crush the life out of the red little hormone dots in my life, and I may have stumbled upon something.  Now, obvs, different things work for different people because of our different chemistry, but this works for me.  What's the secret mix?  

Well, if you followed Crunchy Betty a couple years ago, you may remember the month or so when everyone was washing their face with honey.  Were you on that bus?  I tried it.  It was pretty cool.  Honey is anti-microbial, and filled with wonderful enzymes and lots of other goodies that make it a wonder.  

One day a few months ago, I had a few zits and the thought dawned upon me to combine the wonderful properties of honey with the scrubby exfoliating powers of nutmeg (yeah, seriously, but don't use nutmeg on your face more than twice a week - the overdose of nutmeg on the face looks like your face got into a fight with sandpaper and a cat). 

I poured a small blob of honey into my hand, sprinkled nutmeg into the mix, squished it around and slimed it on my face (in an upwardly circular motion, of course - I really should be less technical, but I just can't...).  I stared at my weird looking face in the mirror for a few minutes, thinking this was likely a necessary step in my experiment.  I pretended I was at a spa as I layed a hot washcloth over my face (even though I was standing in my vintage 1950's bathroom - but hey, when you have a washcloth over your face, you can pretty much pretend you are anywhere) and then followed with wiping the magical mess off.  

I don't have any hard empirical evidence, but from my point of view, I honestly think it was helpful in zit reduction.  It makes sense that it could be, anyway, right?  You have the anti-microbial properties of the honey gutting out your zit dirt (I think that's the scientific name for it), and the nutmeg is smoothing to the areas on your face that are having skin distortion/flaking/etc.  Anyway, it  worked for me, and if you want to try it, I hope it works for you.  

Happy zit reduction!  

Peace, love, and grow up, face, 
Ms. Daisy