The who's who of non-microwave users, plus engineering extra credit

I mentioned before that with the reduction or elimination of microwave use, there is a tendency for others to...umm...how shall I say this?  Ah, yes.  Treat you like a total health freak (or just a freak in general who wears tin foil headgear - mine totally like matches my new tin foil dress!!).

BUT!

You are not alone (although you may feel you are - you aren't!).  If nobody else you know in the entire world seems that they are avoiding a microwave, there really are people out there who are on this bus with us.  According to the available facts and figures out there, about 90% of American homes own a microwave.  Do you know what this means?  It means that a whole 10% of people (or more - maybe some have them in their homes and don't use them) are NOT using a microwave.  

That's right.  We can't all be cool, you know!  

Well, here's a few others who are outspoken about their NON-microwave use.

1.  Vani, a.k.a. Food Babe.  Here is her article and advice on the subject: Why It's Time To Throw Out Your Microwave
 
2.  Stephanie at Keeper of the Home.  Here is her article: The Microwave: Why You Should Avoid It and Other Options

3.  Katie at Wellness Mama.  Check this one out, too: Not Using A Microwave

4.  Dr. Mercola!  Microwave Hazards

There are more, but these are some people who are outspoken about avoiding their use. 

If you're inclined to the science side of things, I'm going to share a video with you about how the engineering behind the radiation box.  To be sure, it is a creative thing...it's just not something I want to use to heat up or cook my food.  As you watch, actively think about the wild contrast between heating something up traditionally via convection.

 
 Think about it.  Doesn't really remind me of back to nature, cooking over an open flame.  I guess that whole metal thing with the ball of electrons shooting out of it kind of gives it away...


Peace, love, and welcome to the cool peeps club, 
Ms. Daisy

Challenge 1: Dump your microwave

Welcome to the Just One Thing challenge!  If you're wondering what you are getting yourself into, let me lay it out for you.

As you know, a few posts back I talked about the myriad of things that you can possibly do to be healthy.  Sometimes it feels that there is such an ocean of choices and decisions to make to walk toward becoming healthier that it can become overwhelming.  A common response to being totally overwhelmed is to throw your arms up in the air and give up.  This is where this challenge comes in.  I am going to introduce one thing at a time (approximately every two weeks), focus on it, challenge you to change it for a couple weeks - with the hope that you will think it worth it to adopt into your lifestyle.

I will tell you the science behind the why, how to adapt it into your lifestyle, answer common questions (or complaints) about adopting that issue and stand behind you cheering you on as you do it.  If you want to comment below or email me to ask a question, I am happy to help.

And now, the first challenge: dumping your microwave.

Scene one: your kitchen

You: So, uh, well, I don't know how else to say this really...
It: What.  What are you trying to say?  Just say it.  Don't try to beat around the bush.  You're seeing someone else, aren't you?
You:  Um, no, it's just that...well, um...
It: It's WHAT?  WHAT?!
You: We need to break up.
It:  You cannot be serious.  You cannot live without me.  What are you going to do? Heat your coffee up over a fire outside?  Give me a break!
You:  It's...um...it's not you...it's me...
It:  I'll give you "it's not you, it's me"!  I INVENTED "it's not you it's me"!
You:  You're right.  It's you.

(Warning:  In the following clip, George says the "D" word.)

Can you even wrap your brain around it?  Can you imagine NOT using your microwave for two weeks?  Of course you can.  You're tough.

So here's the thing.  We totally take for granted that we are RADIATING OUR FOOD every day.  Do you know how a microwave works?  A microwave shoots energy into the water molecules of food and makes them shake back and forth 1 to 100 billion times PER SECOND.  You know that friction heats things up, and this is what this does.  (Sounds totally natural, doesn't it?  OH I KNOW!)

When you take that microwaved item out of the radiation box, you've got free radicals just flying all over the place (you know about free radicals, don't you?  Yeah, that's speeding up you looking like a wrinklebag and sending you presents in the form of carcinogens.  Thank you, microwave.  This is just what I wanted along with my coffee...).  If you are using plastic in your microwave, heaven help you.  You might as well punch yourself in the face repeatedly.  

This says nothing of the screwed up proteins, the reduced nutrient value of your food and veggies, and all the rest.

So here's what I want you to try for two weeks - choose to use a different method of heating your food that is not a microwave.  Your coffee?  Heat it up on a pot on the stove.  Your leftovers?  Toaster oven.  (Or regular oven if you don't have one.)

Hi!  I'm a stove!  Let's be friends!

I am going to tell you about a very interesting study done by Hans Hertel this week that will help you rethink your microwave use.  For now, I'm going to leave you with a very disturbing thing that happened since the inventions of microwave ovens - a woman named Norma Levitt was killed when after she had a blood transfusion (after her hip surgery) when the nurse heated the blood up in the microwave.  Makes you think of (well, a lot of things - like that was a really dumb nurse, but...) how the microwave changes your food - it's not just "hotter".  We've got crazy reactions going on in there.

What do you think?  Are you freaking out right now at the thought of it?  Email me and let me know if you can stand it.  What will you miss most about it?  (I mean besides the cancer.)  What do you use your microwave for?  

Peace, love, and wait, what's a stove?
Ms. Daisy

Just one more day until...the JUST ONE THING CHALLENGE!

Did you notice I was yelling there in the title?  Yeah, I was.  I'm excited.

So are you ready for it?  Are you wondering why I'm freaking out and yelling?  

Well, you know, I like to get excited about things.
  
Duh.  So, let me give you a sneak preview - we're staring with something that is going to cost you ZERO dollars (or pounds, or lira, or euros, or cacahuetes).  And it is going to be something that is going to boost your immune system (yes!), save you money (aww yeah!), and make your food taste better (whuuuuuuuuuuut).

Are you ready for it?

Okay.  I have to say that when I said it to my sweet mother-in-law, she may have reacted as if I said, "For the next two weeks, you need to live without your arms."  But we are strong people, aren't we?  Aren't we determined?  Are you the kind of person who could do anything that would yield you positive results if you wanted to step up to the challenge for a mere two weeks?  We are not wimpy little wussbuckets, no, no.

We're starting our challenge - the first two weeks - in living without using...a microwave.

(I paused there in case you were screaming and falling out of your chair.  I'll wait.  Climb back up.  It's gonna be okay.  I'm not sure if you knew this, but humanity lived without microwaves for like maybe six thousand years.  I think we might make it for these next two weeks.)

What do you think?  Are you freaking out?  Well, don't. JULIE!  Don't freak out!  Mama Jo, we are going to get through this.

Tomorrow I'll tell you more about it.  

Peace, love, and get on my bus, baby!
Ms. Daisy

I repeat: do NOT get a dog. Part 8,000,000

Let's say you've got company coming over tomorrow night.  Let's say they've not been to your house before.  Let's say they live in Nicelandia and you live in Raton Rouge.

What, pray tell, will happen?  

a) your dog will poop all over the kitchen floor on Saturday morning (before anyone is awake)
b) your dog will poop all over the basement steps and they are carpeted  
c) your dog will poop up the walls and on your stove
d) your dog will poop 100% pure liquid
e) your dog will poop only on carpeted areas avoiding the 80% uncarpeted, 50's vintage tile in the basement (because that would be too easy to clean up)
f) your dog will poop a smell that no human has ever smelled which makes your husband run, screaming, far far away in the other direction, where he goes and gets a mask to even be in the house
or
g) yes, I am going to include it: all of the above

Guilty.

If you guessed "g", well, by golly, you're right!  Tell them what they've won, Johnny!  

Johnny: a newwww DOG!!

Feel free to come pick her up anytime.

Peace, love, and I've washed it 4 times and I can still smell it,
Ms. Daisy

Join the Just One Thing challenge!

So, did you think about it?  Do you want to take on the get healthy, Just One Thing challenge?  Oh, you so do.  I know you do!  Let's rebel against this unhealthy, sick, crazy society and take steps toward being healthy, strong, and clear-headed.

As I said, we'll start up on September 1 - I'll post the deets that day.  You can be thinking about getting your game face on and starting fresh for the school year.  

I am here to encourage you toward healthy, manageable steps - one step at a time.  We're not swallowing the whole camel here, just taking one bite at a time.  This challenge is not some wild thing that will cost you loads of money or insane brain power, it is intended to make a lifestyle change for the better until each thing becomes your natural way of life.

So many people feel the gamut of what you could possibly do to become healthier is totally impossible because there are gajillions of things to do - that's why this is awesome.  You don't really have to think about it too much and you only have to do one thing at a time.


Join me!  Let's rock this!

If you want, you can send me an email to let me know you're on board.  It kinda helps with accountability and you can ask me questions.

The email for this challenge is: justonethingchallenge {at} gmail.com

Peace, love and camel soup,
Ms. Daisy

The Just One Thing Challenge

some things people often want to change...but don't...

Good morning, peeps!  I am super excited to share the (bum ba da baaaaaaaaaaa!) Just One Thing challenge with you.

And you're like, "Wow, yeah!  That's great!...um...what's the Just One Thing challenge?"

So here's what I'm thinking.  A lot of people want to be healthy, they really do.  But the problem lies in that there are sooooooo many things that you could do that it kind of gets down to being totally overwhelmed and when you hit that stage, you go in to the I Am Totally Giving Up mode.  You think about high fructose corn syrup, GMO's, partially hydrogenated oils, pop, microwave use, toxic tap water, household cleaners of death, toxic personal products, pesticides, and the list goes on and on - and as each thing is added to the top of the pile, you feel the sinking and drowning feeling that subdues you into passive exasperation, which makes you throw up your hands and say, "Forget it!  It's all going to kill me!  Why am I even going to try?!  I might as well enjoy my McDonald's burgers and forget about it!"  

No, my dears.  Do not give up.  I want you to live, dang it, LIVE!  An existence filled with prescription meds, unsatisfying quasi-food substances, a cloudy brain due to toxins, obesity, and cancer is not the optimal life.  It is the easier way, to be sure, but is that the life you're going to consider that you lived to the fullest when you get to the end of your story?  Don't you have a bucket list?
    
You can't do it all - all at once.  That makes people go nuts.  Change doesn't last. You've got to make change you can deal with, one step at a time.  That is how success happens.  (Unless you're my friend Nikki.  She cut everything cold turkey.  Side note: you have to take into consideration that Nikki won that Alpha award at Lifetime Fitness.  She's a little Type A and I appreciate that, cuz I am too, but most people find success down a slow, manageable path.)

That's what I'm here for today.  The Just One Thing challenge is just that.  Changing one little thing at a time, until it becomes an easy part of your routine.  I walked down this road and I can tell you, it works.  You can gain support knowing that other people are doing it, too.  You're not alone.  I'll help you through it.  I'll give you the why - which fuels the reasoning behind doing something to help it stick.  

So, what do you say?  Do you want to try it?  Want to jump on board?  Everybody's doin' it...  Spread the word.  Get your friends onboard, encourage them to be healthy, too.  Make a competition among yourselves to fuel your passion, which will optimize your success!  I won't ask you to do anything that I'm not doing, too.  

What do you think? Jump aboard, we're starting September 1.  More info to come.

Peace, love, and let's do just one thing,
Ms. Daisy

Don't be like so 1990! As if! Toxins that are like, so totally, like five minutes ago.

90's marketing. Still amazing 20 years later.

You remember 1990, right?  Yes, some of you were like 2 years old.  (That goes out to my seester and her peeps.)  But for the rest of us, we remember it like it was just yesterday.  We rocked the hair, the neon hypercolor t-shirts, pretended to know what Nirvana was saying, and belted out, "Noooothing compares, noTHING com-pares toyouuuuuu..." while wearing your Z Cavericci's.  Can I borrow your I.O.U. sweatshirt, BFF?  LYLAS!  You can use my slap bracelet.  Those were the days, eh?

Well, the world has changed quite a bit from those good ol' days.  No longer is it fashionable to wear clothing that shows off in gloriously wild different colors when you are sweating.  (No seriously, who THOUGHT of that?)

There are a few other bits that have tried to hold their grip in the realms of today, however, and they are naughty and don't belong here.

These belong to the dark side of 1990.  We are like so totally over them, as if.

However, although they may not be welcome, some of these may even be lurking in your home.  These are way worse than the pictures of your hair with two gallons of Aqua Net on it.

What, pray tell, may these be?

Let's start off with one that is a prevalent pestilence of today's world: the fad of anti-bacterialism, specifically in the form of anti-bacterial soap.

"Wha?!"  You say.  "A pestilence?  Surely you jest, dear Ms. Daisy!"

Oh, I wish, my darling, I wish.  But a pestilence I mean, nonetheless.  Maybe you're familiar with the active ingredient in anti-bac soaps - it's called triclosan.  If you've got a bottle in the house, check yours.  It is likely it's there.  Let me give you a heads up - this is NOT good - for you, your family, your friends, the earth, the animals...you're pretty much killing everyone and everything.  Great job.

Triclosan was marketed to be a murderous agent on the bad germs.  Right?  Isn't that what you thought?  (What else would I wash my hands with after touching uncoooked chicken?!)  When you go out and buy something that says "anti-bacterial", it is likely you're thinking, "Like oh my gosh! (Valley girl accent, please.)  I am so killing these yuckies!" 

Permit me my drama while I say that they are rather quite killing you.

Besides the whole gigantic thing about killing off your natural responders that are on your body to fight evil invaders in the first place (which is highly dangerous and comes with an entire host of issues), we've got a darker and even scarier side of it - new studies are showing that triclosan is something that mimics estrogen in the body.  This throws off your endocrine system (pituitary, ovaries, testes, thyroid, pancreas, hypothalamus gland, gastrointestinal tract, adrenals, pineal and parathyroid: a.k.a. stuff you don't want screwed up).  This leads to abnormal cell growths - ever heard of abnormal cell growth?  Maybe...um...tumors?

When this was studied at the Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology, they found that this looked like an increase in breast cancer.  Breast cancer cells looooooooooooove triclosan.  They are sorority girls and triclosan is a frat party.  They think they're at the beach when they hang out with this stuff.  They thrive on it.  Oh!  And good news for the breast cancer cells - triclosan bioaccumulates.  Yep.  It goes in and stays.  Not good news for humans, however.  

There is another compound called octylphenol (the lesser known antibac ingredient) that is best friends with triclosan.  They work together and octylphenol increases the amount of cancer cells while triclosan gets them going.  Not the chicken soap you were looking for, I'd imagine.

In this study, triclosan was found to be in the urine of 75% of all those studied.  (According to sciencedaily.com)  This is so not cool, dude, not cool.

Do some further reading here:
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/tx5000156

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/04/140423102756.htm

Triclosan isn't just hiding in the antibacterial soap.  Nope, glory hallelujah, you can find it hanging out in your Colgate Total toothpaste.  What a relief.  I was wondering how I could directly put it into my mouth!  If you want to check out a longer (and more ridiculous) list of some products that contain triclosan, check it out here. 

What to do?  Personally, I avoid that stuff like the plague.  I use the soap that is made by Dr. Bronner.  There is a liquid variety if you are so inclined, and there is also the traditional bar types should that fancy strike you.  The liquid stuff is so concentrated that it may be diluted 50% with water.  I believe it is sold usually in one liter bottles (and it costs about $10 at Trader Joe's).  This means you can get about 2 liters of soap for ten bucks.  Yeah.  Cheaper and doesn't contain poison and cancer candy.  Double bonus.

Hang on, baby, I've almost made your dinner...

What else ought to be the passing fad, you ask?  Are you ready for this shocker?  Your microwave.  Think about it for two seconds.  You totally take for granted that you are heating up your food with RADIATION.  No glaring danger, eh?  Yes, it may be part of the social norm, but it doesn't mean 1) it ought to be and 2) that it is safe.  

Microwaving food heats up the food from the inside out - making those insides quake and shake with heat while other bits of it remain cold.  Have you ever experienced that?  You have to mix it up to warm it all?  You are already familiar with the warnings about heating up bottles in the microwave (hot spots, distorting the makeup of the milk on a cellular level) - you know, you may as well be punching your baby with a blowtorch?  

Dr. Hans Hertel explains it like this: "There is extensive scientific literature concerning the hazardous effects of direct microwave radiation of living systems...it is astonishing therefore to realize how little effort has been taken to replace this detrimental technique of microwave cooking with technology more in accordance with nature...of all the natural substances - which are polar - the oxygen of water molecules reacts most sensitively.  This is how microwave cooking heat is generated - friction from this violence in water molecules.  Structures of molecules are torn apart, molecules are forcefully deformed, called structural isomerism, and thus become impaired in quality.  This is contrary to conventional heating of food where heat transfers convectionally from without to within.  Cooking by microwaves begins within the cells and molecules where water is present and where the energy is transformed into frictional heat."  (quoted in Search for Health)  


Basically, you are living through a social experiment.  The microwave is the question, and you are the guinea pigger.  How does that wheel feel, Pikachu?  

What do you do?  How often and for what do you use your microwave?  Are you a person who just uses it to heat your coffee/tea for the fifteenth time (since you didn't get a chance to sit down and drink it all yet)?  Or do you defrost your meat in it?  Or do you cook your child's breakfast in it?  Or do you sleep in it?  Er, wait.  Maybe (hopefully) not that one.

I have a challenge for you.  Try just for this week to not use your microwave.  Put a big old sticky note on it to remind you.  Cold coffee?  Heat it up in a pot on the stove.  It takes about the same amount of time.  Need to defrost meat?  Plan ahead, sista!  Get that stuff out of the freezer the night before.  I think you'll find you appreciate the taste of things that are not cooked in a radiation box.

(Call me a foodie, I know!)

These two big pieces of our culture came into the norm in these United States and we adopted them without much thought.  We're smarter now and I'm encouraging you to think about what you're putting in and on your body.  Be aware, and do your due diligence.  

Would you give it a try?  Would you switch to a non-anti-bac soap?  Would you try to cast off the microwave for a week and see how it goes?  Maybe you'll find your new (yet extra vintage) ways are like so totally gnarly dude, that you won't like want to ever go like back.

Peace, love, and be radical,
Ms. Daisy

An Incredible Display of Incompetence: Trugreen = True Buffoonery

The scene: a spelling bee world championship.  
The players: three homeschooler finalists and a panel of judges.

Judge #1:  Please spell incompetence. 

The very definition of incompetence.

Homeschooler #1: Might you use it in a sentence, please?
Judge #1: The company Trugreen lawncare shows nothing but extreme and wild incompetence in all of its transactions.
Homeschooler #1:  Could you please tell me the definition?
Judge #2:  Let me explain it to you, sonny - it's a little story and it goes something like this...

One day a salesman came to my house.  He was a Trugreen salesman.  Now we already had a lawncare service - an all organic service that used nitrogen on our lawn and made it nice and healthy and not made of World War II bomb products.  But Mr. Trugreen Salesman promised us that they too had a wonderful nitrogen organic treatment that they would be happy to apply to our lawn - for the fraction of the price!

Well, alrighty.  I suppose we could give it a try.  We're always looking for ways to save money when we can, right?

Mr. Trugreen Sprayer Man comes, yes, he has a snaggle tooth and a molester mustache and looks at women like they are grass-fed T-bone steaks, and yes, besides spraying toxic chemicals all day long, he also chain smokes.  Well, this should prove to be interesting, no?

Spray #1 happens.  Nitrogen applied.  Hooray.

Spray #2 happens.  I talk to Snaggle Tooth and he says he "added a little extra for me", some grub control.  I wonder if my hubby ordered that, and go promptly inside to discuss my horror at such a thing as it is 100% pure toxins.  Hubby says he did not order it.  How did we get it then?

Call the company.  They don't know.  

Spray #3 happens.  Snaggle tooth has sprayed toxic chemicals.  You know, the kind that I would boycott with signs on the side of the road in a protest?  I call the company, concerned, perplexed, and freaking out.  They have no idea how this happened.

We are now totally fed up.  The grass is dead.  We have chemicals on our lawn.  MY lawn.  You know, the organic, hippie, compost bin, permaculture gardener, non-toxic to the all the way max lawn people?  And crazysauce sprayed WWII bombs on it.  My blood begins to boil.

I call with flamboyant words to share that express the very depths of my raw emotion, and although it is not the fault of the woman on the phone (I repeat to her a few times) I am beyond irate and consider making up new swear* words just for the occasion.

Hubby calls and tells them we have to break up with them and we'd like a refund for killing our grass, spraying it with death chemicals and not giving us the service that we were promised.  They agree.

They mail a check for the wrong amount.  A much smaller amount than it ought to have been.

We call again to straighten it out.  We ask to speak to the manager five times.  Manager never calls back (still hasn't).

We cancel the account and try to put it behind us.

Until today.

Oh no.  Please no.  What is this?  I drive up to my house.  There is one of those little plastic signs in the corner of my grass.  Oh sweet sandwiches and cheese, for all that is good and decent, please tell me that is NOT a "I just sprayed your lawn with a carcinogenic, mutagenic, toxic chemical of death again" sign.

It is.

Phone call.  Hi customer service person, I am calling because I have a tiny little (uber-sarcastic tone) problem.  I have cancelled my service with your company because they are total nincompoop buffoons who keep spraying toxic chemicals when I ordered organic nitrogen and for some reason YOUR SNAGGLETOOTH MOLESTER came back and sprayed my lawn today.  I am going to lose my entire mind right now.

Customer Service Rep: Um, I am not sure how this happened.  Your account is closed.

Me: How on earth is it possible that Mo Lester sprayed my lawn again today?  Is this for real?  Not only did you NOT give me what I wanted, but you gave me something I would never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever want in one zillion million billion trillion years.  THREE TIMES.

Customer Service Rep:  I don't know.

Me: For the love of all that is good and decent, please send a personal message to Mo Lester that if he comes back to my property, I am going to go ape.  Have you processed our refund?

Customer Service Rep: Um...it looks like they submitted a request.

Me: Thanks.

Homeschooler #1: I-n-c-o-m-p-e-t-e-n-c-e.  Incompetence.

Judge #1:  Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner.

Peace, love and for your homework, please discuss at what point it is ethical to put landmines in your front lawn,
Ms. Daisy

*p.s. When I say swear words, I do mean words like "stinky blinky waggle baggle moo muffin!"  Just in case you thought I was a sailor.

Get Rid of Orange Hair: My Shameful Journey

Sometimes, very rarely, I make mistakes (okay, okay, maybe a bit more oftener than that, but I was hoping you might not notice).  Sometimes these mistakes are apparent only to me and God.  Sometimes they are only apparent to my family or friends.  And then sometimes you make a mistake that upon making, everyone in the whole freakin' world notices any time they look at you or in your general direction.

This was me circa the end of May up until two days ago.

I thought it would be a really fanstastic idea to follow my dream of becoming blonde again.  Yes, the organic side of me was saying, "What the crap, yo?  You know better than that!  You know you can't use bleach and all those toxic chemicals, you'll kill yourself, your brains, your liver and you'll be soaking yourself in carcinogens like nobody's beeswax, homegirl!  Hello, ever heard of PPD?  Like, total death sentence, dumbface!!  DUH!!"  

The kind of hair I wanted.

The diva side of me didn't want to listen.  It wanted to find a way around the poison and solve it, being a non-toxic blonde.  I thought I had figured it out.  Oh glory, could it be that there was such a thing as organic color?  I looked it up online and after many hours of reading, there really was something called organic color. And it could make you blonde.  Is this for realies?  Oh baby.  I called the salon and made an appointment.  But first, I asked, "Can this really make me blonde? I have brown hair.  I don't want orange hair.  I don't want strawberry blonde hair.  I don't want golden blonde hair.  I want straight up ash blonde.  Can your product do this?"

I was then repeatedly assured it could and would.

I was so excited I could hardly stand it.

The day finally came and I took a picture of myself and sent it to the hubby with the caption something along the lines of "Sayonara brown hair! SUCKAAAA!!!!"  

It would be the last picture I remember having happy hair.

My visit to the salon was in an extremely upscale town about a half hour away.  These people use their Coach bags as gym bags because they're so common and refer to their Jimmy Choo as "these old things?!"  The people who live in this town have servants, nannies and Porches and Rolls Royce are as common as the F-150's (with the stickers of deer heads on the window and the "I work for Ford, I drive a Ford" plastic around the license plate) are in mine.  I thought I was safe.

I was el-wrongo.

I sat down in the chair and asked to see a hair color wheel.  I showed them the exact color I wanted and pointed out the colors I wanted to avoid like the plague.  I told them that when I used to get bleach highlights, my hair would take about an hour and a half to two hours to come up.  I have freak hair.  Is this going to work?  Are you sure?  Yes, yes, yes.  Do it all the time!

Okay.

This stuff you leave on your hair for 30 minutes and then rinse it out.

Rinse 1: hair slightly lighter, slightly more auburn, but still brown.

Did it again.

Rinse 2: resist swearing, sweating, stabbing and screaming.  My hair is flaming freak orange yellow.  Clown hair.  But fried to a freakin' crisp.  Dead.  Feels like straw.  By bending it sideways it breaks.  Thousands of split ends and shortened hair.  Oh. My. Gosh.  I am Ronald McDonald.  And I have to go to a wedding.  In 48 hours.  Use your tae kwon do for good, use tae kwon do for good, use tae kwon do for good.  It's just hair, right?  

His solution: bleach highlights to blonde up the orange.  He says, "Oh, you wanted  bleachy light blonde color?  Well, of course you cannot achieve that with this product.  That comes only about by bleach!"

Are. You. Freakin'. Kidding. Me.

She is cute, but this is not the color I wanted.  Unfortch, I got it.

So he pulls a 1980 vintage and pulls my long hair through a CAP with a crochet hook and bleaches it.

Thanks.

My hair was destroyed.  My childrenos suggested that I shave my head bald.

Along came my friend.  My sweet, sweet friend.  She rescued me from my desperation, took me to her salon and they toned the orange down significantly.  Then my sweet friend PAID for my fiasco-fix.  She has been with me through the worst times in my life, and she came through in true cape-like fashion.  She is a sister to me and I love her terribly.  God bless that blessing.

Fast forward two weeks.  My hair is getting oranger.  What the heck?!  The combination of swimming for several hours a week and the Trader Joe tea tree shampoo and conditioner are stripping the toner out of my hair with lightning speed.

I make pleas of desperation to make some cash and take it to another salon to have them dye my hair brown.  It works great.  For two weeks.  Then my hair is flaming orange again.

Hubby kaboshes the spending on the hair.  I am stuck.

Crap.

I try to dye my hair with coffee.  It doesn't work.

I try to dye my hair with black walnut hull powder.  It works.  Until I shampoo my head.  Then it is gone.  So much for those two hours.

I consider coloring on my hair with a brown Sharpie marker.

I spend hours looking up hair online.  I wear thick headbandy things to cover up the bulk of it around my face.  

I put Mrs. Stewart's bluing laundry brightner (the pre-bleach solution of 100 years ago to get your yellowed/dulling whites bright white again) into my shampoo and conditioner hoping to tone out the orange.  (I read about purple shampoo, but it was out because of all the chemicals it contained.)  Maybe my hair wasn't fluorescent orange anymore, but it was still orange.

Then I calculated how long it would take, based on the regrowth of hair from late May until now to have a full head of my (changed perception!) wonderful brown hair back again.  Oh.  Three years.

Sigh.

I am being punished for my foolishness.  And I must suffer my punishment for three years of horror every time I look at myself in the mirror.  Every time I meet a new person, they will think I am aiming to be a 17 year old prostitute who went wild in her bathroom with 50 developer and some bleach.  Why did I do it?  WHY?  WHY?!  WHYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!

Pause.

Maybe you're asking me, "Hey Ms. Daisy, why the HECK didn't you just go to the store and go get a box dye?  Why didn't you go to Sally's and get something to dye your hair brown again?"  

You should know by now that I don't usually do the traditional things, my dear.  (No, that would be too easy.)

You do know I research those chemicals, right?  Steeping my head in carcinogen tea was not going to be my option.  My diva self was tempted to try it, I can assure you.  How easy it would have been!  I even had a box of dye in my hands at Target.  And then I did what I always do.  I flipped the box to the back and read the ingredients.  ARGH!!!!!!!!  WHY!  WHY!!  WHYYYYYYYYY!!!!

Knowledge.  Hmph.

Then it happened.  I found a product that contained 100% natural, organic stuff.  And it had a bunch of happy people who had used it.  They were using it to color their grey hair, though.  Would it work on my orange fiasco?  What if I ended up with green hair?  Maybe I'd like that better.  Huh.  Decisions to consider.

What the heck.  It was $11 online, so I ordered it.  I couldn't find it even in my uber-healthy health food store, so I had to wait for it to be shipped to me.  Patience, hurry up!

It contains natural indigo, henna (this is what freaked me out - visions of yet oranger hair kept me in a hyperventilation state of panic), amla and two other herbs to chillax your hair.

Well, what the heck, right?  I did a strand test and made it quite watery.  After 90 minutes it didn't work.  I called the company.  They said, "You did it too thin.  Think cake batter paste."

Good thing that was just a strand test.  The next day I got it all ready.  I sloshed my head with a greenish brown mud that smelled like baby food peas and put a cap on.  I prayed, "Please, God, let this not be a failure like all the rest and have my husband be so furious about spending even $22 (I got 2 boxes just in case) on another failure.  And please let me not have green hair.  Amen."

Yes, it took a little bit of work to get the mudpie out of my hair.  I had to climb into the bathtub, dunk my head into a basin and I let the faucet pour over the back of my head, dump the bucket of blackish sooty water, start over.  Repeat 5 times until clear.  Yes, my hair felt like it was made of sticks, but this was just the in-betweenies.  I put conditioner on it until I could rake my fingers through it again and then it was time for the test.  After spending 90 minutes with my mud hair and now having a sort of aura of baby food peas, I can tell you it was all TOTALLY WORTH IT.

What joy in a box looks like.

I washed and dried it.  Then I heard angels singing in bright sunshine streaming down into my bathroom mirror.  Glory hallelujah!  My brown hair was back.  My tending toward fro-chemically-burnt hair seems to be 90% repaired! And could it be?  Is it possible?  It was a normal brown color (oh wait, that's because it was from a natural source, um, duh)!  It was not orange.  It made me look like a human adult again.  It was not green.  Sayonara orange!  Thank you God!

The product is made by Aubrey Organics.  It is called "Color Me Natural" in dark brown.  It contains things that are all good for your hair: indigo (indigofera tinctoria), lawsonia inermis alba (henna), emblica officinalis, eclipta alba, acacia cathechu.  That's it.  It is 100% herbal.  My hubster said, "Your head smells like plants."  See?  Natural.  I got it here, at iherb.
 And I have a $10 off code if you want it - VNR736.

Yes, I have learned my lesson.  And in case you were wondering, no, I will not be hoping to have blonde hair ever again.  I will be happy with what the good Lord has given me.  

Peace, love and the natural way is ALWAYS the best way, even if it smells like peas,
Ms. Daisy

Summer Reading

Hey dollface, I don't usually post about my reading club over on the main page, but this book I read is totally amazing and I couldn't bear not to directly share it with you.  

So, head on over to Ms. Daisy's Reading Club and check out Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation by Michael Pollan (the one and only).

Here is a link to take you swiftly: http://daisyreadspinkglitter.blogspot.com/2014/07/cooked-natural-history-of.html

Peace, love and go get this book,
 Ms. Daisy