Bad Hair Day (she said with a sad little laugh)

Part of me feels that I have to explain to you, Gentle Reader, that it is significant that at the end of this day I choose to laugh at myself. It was a strange day. A day that bordered on awful, but I choose to stay on the "laugh at myself" side of that borderline.

The following story is not WHY I had a bad day. It's just one of those things.

Backstory: I recently got another Brazilian Blowout. (Using this Keratin Treatment.) I have thick, crazy, bushy blonde hair. It never dries. It can take days for my hair to dry naturally. But with the keratin treatment, my hair can air dry in about half an hour.

I was running late for a doctor's appointment today and absolutely had to take a shower before I left. I rushed as fast as possible, but I was still not fast enough. There wasn't time to blow-dry my hair. I can let my hair air-dry with the keratin treatment in effect, but it doesn't look great. It still needs some styling. I prefer to blow-dry it. But there was no time for that, so I only quickly dried my bangs so that they would be going in a somewhat uniform direction.

I grabbed a ponytail elastic/holder with the intent of putting my hair up, and ran to the car with dripping wet hair. I got the bright idea in the car to aim the heater vents directly at my head to help dry my hair. After a few minutes I realized my hair was actually getting dry in the front with the heat blowing on it. So I leaned over (while driving) and tried to fluff my hair out so it would dry in the back and in the under layers.

By the time I got to the doctor's (10 minutes later), my hair was about 90% dry. For someone with hair as thick and long as mine, this is nothing short of a miracle. (Thank you keratin treatment!)

The doctor made a funny comment about how I wasn't looking good. I kinda shrugged it off and didn't think much of it. I forgot to bring the ponytail holder in with me, so my hair was still down.

It was a short appointment and I was starving, so I went straight to lunch at a deli. I got a meatball sub, sat down, and relaxed for a bit. A fairly decent looking came in. I caught him looking at me. I may have smiled back a little bit. I didn't put too much effort into it. Like I said, I was having a rough day and really I was just there to unwind and let it all go.

I ate my very messy meatball sub in peace. A few meatballs tried to escape the sub, and I picked them up and ate them with my fingers. I noticed the kinda cute guy looking at me, but figured he was just jealous of the awesome sub.

From there I went to the grocery store.  I thought it was odd that a man from church didn't seem to recognize me. I smiled at him but he looked back at me weird.

Whatever. Like I said, it was a strange day for other reasons already.

And then another man acted really strange, cutting me off to butt in front of me in the pharmacy line. It was so uncalled for. Just... odd.

I checked out and went home. I put the food away. I talked to the missionaries (that live in my basement) from the top of the stairs without actually seeing them.

And then, 4 hours and 20 minutes after I had left the house, (how do I know this? because i was running late to get in the shower/go to my appointment because i was on the phone. apparently i was in such a rush that I didn't hang up the phone (landline) properly, and it had a busy signal/off the hook beeping in my room. When I hung it up I noticed the timer said 4:20.) I walked into my bathroom and saw myself in the mirror for the first time all day. 

Oy vey.

1. I had no idea that my white sweater was not quite as opaque as it used to be. White sweater, white undershirt, not a white bra. And not see-thru in a sexy way. But as in a stupid and clueless way, like who wears an ugly brown bra under a white sweater?

2. I had walked around thinking my hair looked like this - (actual picture of the back of my head after my first Brazilian Blowout)-

But it looked more like this-

I can't regret that there is no actual picture of how bad it looked. But to be honest, take out the green face and the goatee in the picture above, and the hair is actually pretty spot on. The top part of my head was still a little bit damp, so the hair was flat on my head. Except for thousands of little flyaway bits that stuck out everywhere.

The bottom half of my hair was a frizzy mess. Remember that fluffing I did in front of the heater? One side of my head was "fluffed" a lot more than the other. And there was a definite kink on the left side where the seatbelt goes over my shoulder. Bi-level, fluffed hair. Not exactly a sexy look.

I didn't have on any makeup. I'm taking an antibiotic that keeps me feeling fairly queasy (see: doctor's appointment above). I was pale and sickly looking.

With  scary schizo hair.

And a see-thru sweater.

It is not a stretch to say I looked like a meth addict.

Suddenly I understand why the guy was so odd to me at the pharmacy counter.

And why the EMT at the deli was keeping a close eye on me.

And why the man from church didn't recognize me. (I barely recognized me.)

And why the doctor commented on how bad I looked.

And that pretty much sums up the oddities of this day. And all I can say is, I'm glad I can laugh about it now.

Brazilian Blowout Before and After

Here goes nothing!
The truth about my hair!
The truth is I have very wavy, almost curly, thick, and hard to manage hair. I have to spend way more time than is reasonable on my hair to only manage to make it look like I don't spend much time on my hair. It takes me a good  thirty minutes to blow dry my hair, using "silky serum," a round brush, and a paddle brush to make it almost, nearly lay down flat.
Leave it naturally curly you say?
I wish! Sadly it turns out more like a fluffyfrizzbobob, which is totally a real word.
Here's the proof-

Natural, air dried hair. 

Not so pretty.
But sometimes, maybe, after hours of scrunching, product, gently combing, and then more scrunching and product, I can get a few minutes of nice curls out of it.
What's worse, is what it looks like if I try to blow dry it without all the tools of the trade-

Have I mentioned I have more hair than a woolly mammoth? It's true, I do.

So when I started hearing about the virtues of a "brazilian blowout" or "brazilian keratin treatment" I became interested. My only regret? Not doing it a year ago when my cousin first told me about them!

A brazilian blowout is nothing like getting your hair straightened. It isn't some awful chemical treatment that straightens your hair. Instead, it is a massive protein infusion into your hair. It can be an extremely expensive procedure at a salon. Here in my fairly inexpensive small town it is about $250-$350 to have done.

I don't have that kind of money.

So I turned to the interwebz, YouTube, and then Amazon, to see if I could do this at home and save a lot of money. After a great deal of research, I found CoCo's Brazilian Hair Keratin Treatment Kit
 on both Amazon and YouTube. Before buying it I went to a local salon and asked if they thought it could be done at home. I found out that this is the brand they would have used and charged me roughly $350 to do (I get the most expensive price thanks to my extra long, thick, and copious amounts of hair). And they fully admitted it is easy to apply at home and even suggested I save the money and do it myself. The price online? (the product linked above and way below) $69!


So I did it. Well, really, my mother did it. 
The instructions implied it would take 2-3 hours to do. Maybe it was our novice, amateur status, or my ridiculous amount of hair, or just painstaking caution on my mother's part. But it took us closer to 4 hours to do. 
The process- 
1. Wash hair with special clarifying shampoo. (Does this stuff make a difference? Absolutely. My hair felt very different after using it. Not its usual texture at all.)
2. Dry hair to 80%. (Used blow dryer to do this, took a good 30 minutes in this humidity to dry.)
3. Apply keratin using little paint brush thingy. (Did not come with the kit. Purchased at Sally's for about $0.99.) This took us a full hour to do. 
Important note- many of the different "brazilian blowout" brands will have a horrific smell. Many will even say you need to ventilate well. One of the salons here in my town will even make sure no pregnant women will be in salon at same time, and will turn on fans it smells so bad. The Coco's brand smells like chocolate, and smelled good actually. I was quite hungry by the end. 
4. Blow dry hair out to about 90%. To save my life I couldn't get my hair actually dry with all that keratin in it! I tried blowing it out for a good 45 minutes before giving up and going to step 5.
5. With the hair dry but still laden down, use a 450 degree flat iron. (I checked my iron before we started and discovered mine only went up to 350, so I bought a $20 one (on sale from $69) at Sally's. I still saved money over paying a salon.) Flat iron hair, piece by tiny piece, about 10 times on each piece. Steam will come off hair the entire time. This step took us a good 2 hours. We were very tired by the end. 

My hair immediately after flat ironing it with the keratin in it. As you can see, it looked fine for going out in public.

6. Ta da! That's it! The end! 
7. Sort of. You actually now leave your hair just like that (in my case feeling a little bit like I had used way too much hair serum) for 48 hours before washing it. (Note to self- next time don't do this over the hottest 2 days of the summer.) Also,  no pinning hair up or using a rubber band during this time. It will leave a crease in your hair if you do!
8. From here on out use only sulfate free hair products (including shampoo and conditioner) to preserve the life of the blowout. 


So the big reveal! What does my hair look like now?
This is my hair after washing it (finally) today, and blow drying it without a hair brush. JUST my fingers! (full disclosure, I did run a brush over it once after drying it)

It took me about 5 minutes tops to dry it with the blow dryer. To make it look like this before would have taken me an hour of blowing it out with a round brush or paddle brush, plus another 30-45 mins with a flat iron. Seriously- 5 minutes. 
And it feels super silky and nice. I can't stop playing with my hair right now. I'm in love with it! It is bouncy, silky, flowy, and gorgeous (even if I do say so myself.). And it looks like this on a miserably hot and humid day. It is unbelievable!
Before and after pictures-
On the top, what my hair looks like hand blow dried before, on the left, my hair hand blow dried after. 

YOU CAN BUY IT ON AMAZON FOR $59 HERE. 
*updated May 17, 2017* I've now purchased this twice a year for 6 years. Still works. Still love it!*


Would I recommend this product to anyone? Absolutely!!

For those wondering how long this will last, the answer is still up in the air! In theory, according to the product, it will last 3-4 months! Considering my upcoming trips to Girls Camp and then Cambodia, I will just be happy if it lasts through the end of August. Anything beyond that will be icing on the cake. 
Tomorrow I will be going to the lake all day with the youth. I'm looking forward to seeing how well my hair holds up. Normally a beach or lake trip would mean having to put my hair in braids to keep it from becoming a tangled mess all day. (I do not come up out of the water looking like this!) I'll report back in and let you know what happens.

Truly all-natural me - just the way I prefer it! No makeup, no hair fuss, no nothing, just a bad tan line!