Saturday, 16 February 2013

Strange product experience of the day

I wanted to do an overnight Nodosaurus

I had recently bought a Garnier Fructis mask that was on sale, and here I have to admit I’m always a bit lost to what the name of a Garnier product is because there are always so much writing on them.
It says “Intense mask” and “Ultra-nourishing 3 minutes” on the lid and “Nutri repair 3 intense” on the side.
Then it says “3 fruit oils: Olive, avocado & shea + apricot micro grains” on the side as well as a bunch of other fluff about “Deep nutrient mask” and “Anti rough effect”.

I then tried to find an ingredient list for this online. No luck. It always leaves me slightly creeped out when companies don’t want to share these on their product pages. Why the secrecy? Are they afraid people will be able to tell their claims of super fancy hype-tech © molecules with deep-penetrating oil complex are in reality just a bunch of cones?
Oh well, too lazy to hand-type it all.
I just skimmed the list…
(Even skimming the list made my eyes hurt. Print it a bit better, will ya??)
Mineral oil high on the list. Oh my gosh, you will, like, get hair-cancer or something from this!!
(Really fantastic to have a head of hair that is so easy to get along with and that doesn’t listen to positive or negative hype. As long as I keep aloe vera and coconut oil away from my scalp, it is all good. But I digress)
Colour high on the list.
Blackcurrant seed oil. Odd that they don’t brag about that one when Fructis has such an obsession with fruit oils and fruit extracts?
Sugar cane extract. Sweet.
Olive fruit oil.
Camellia leaf extract. My hair loves this oil. Strange that this one is unlisted on the front too.
Linalool. Hah, my previous ingredients-checks have had an effect: I remember this one.
In Europe, Linalool is included on the list of “allergenic” substances. The European Cosmetics Directive requires manufacturers of cosmetics and personal care products to indicate the presence of certain “allergenic” substances in the list of ingredients if they are present above certain levels in the product (see Annex III). The presence of Linalool must be indicated in the list of ingredients when its concentration exceeds: 0.001% in leave-on the skin products 0.01% in products that are rinsed off the skin
This one is about in the middle of the ingredient list, so I doubt it is below the 0.01% concentration.
Apple fruit extract. Ah, remember when Fructis smelled like horribly artificial sour apple bubble gum? This takes me back… *Swoons in memories of being off on the boarding school and smelling like sour apple bubble gum for like a year. It didn’t mix well with wearing CK One by the way. Ah, the mid 90s… *
Avocado oil.
Shea butter. Hm, not “extract” or anything, just shea butter.
Lemon peel extract.
Apricot seed powder.
Seems like your typical Fructis product. So far so good.
I opened it.

What is this?

Exfoliating grains?
…In a conditioner?
Is this what they meant with “Anti rough effect”? That you exfoliate your hair smooth?
I went over the ingredient list again, but found nothing, not even in the annoying fluff on the front about any sort of grains. It does mention “apricot seed powder” as one of the last items on the ingredient list, but hmm, this doesn’t look like apricot seed powder does it?

I decided to put it in my hair anyways and did a Nodosaurus.
The bag immediately started slipping though. They really weren’t kidding about the “anti rough effect”! I couldn’t even keep the Nodosaurus in and ended up having to rinse it out before going to bed.
Odd product all the way around.

Tuesday, 12 February 2013

Answers from a thread

I’d like to share my answers to a thread on UTT: Link.

What is your cinnabun diameter? (Different buns have different measures, I figure a cinnabun is a tight bun that will make it easier to compare apples to apples.)

I’d say around 12-13 cm?

What length hair do you have? (in inches or cm, please; waist or BSL or other varies so much from person to person) 

I measured for the first time in several years and got 144-145 cm or so, which  is around top calf length. 

(Pardon the slightly messy ends) 

What is your pony circumference?
 12 cm.

How would you describe your taper and/or how long has it been at your current length or longer?

Hmm, I don’t think my hair tapers a lot but since it is so long, the ends are pretty thin. It doesn’t taper to fairy tale ends though.

Just for fun, here is a side shot of the cinnamon bun. 

Sunday, 10 February 2013

Short pieces

Since there always seems to be some confusing about those short pieces whenever they are brought up on hair forums, I think I will try to push my luck and try to explain those…

The short pieces by the temples are simply a fact on a head of hair. There isn’t anything you can do to make them grow (much) longer or stronger. These pieces have a shorter life span than the rest of your hair. It’s genetically pre-set like that. The active growing phase of hair is called the anagen phase and usually said to be up to 7 years, but we all know that isn’t true.

One of the theories on why any living thing lives so and so long is that each cell only has a certain number of mitoses it can do. That’s where a normal body cell “copies itself” although that’s a wrong way to put it since it really splits itself into two identical new cells. But just like taking a copy of a copy, things will eventually go wrong and the complex process replicating will end up with errors in the DNA. (This is what can also result in cancer) This will eventually lead to faults in the code and cells won’t be able to fulfil their job as well. Slowly, the complex mechanisms in the cells will break down. Every single function a cell can perform is the result of reading the DNA sequence correctly, this gives the cell the “recipes” it needs.

The theory is that it’s the same reason you go grey in that area first. Because those pieces have a shorter life span before the follicles stop producing the hair strand (Called the catagen and telogen phase) and ejects the strand from the follicle, the theory is that you have only so many “life spans” of each strand before the genetic code and efficiency of the follicle cells starts to deteriorate. This is where the errors start to show by colour changing in the hair strand.

Normally the different kinds of melanin which gives hair its colour will be deposited in the inner parts of the hair strand (The cortex) The outer parts of the human hair is quite see-through, so “colour” is determined by what melanin types are deposited inside the strands. Take away all the melanin and you are left with the “surface” only of hair. Its just like with the polar bear: Its fur is actually see-through, but the light reflects on it and gives it the appearance of being white. “White” is really the colour of all light being reflected back by the surface instead of being absorbed.

Of course in my opinion, I see a problem in assuming that the catagen and telogen somehow is more demanding on hair than the catagen and telogen phase and causes the follicle-cells in that phase to deteriorate faster than the other follicles. Maybe it’s like how some light bulbs has only so many “switches” in it… Leaving it on for long periods of time is no problem, but turning it on and off is what determines how long it lives. 
Or maybe it’s like how if you have a damaged nail and needs to have it pulled off or otherwise removed, it grows back increasingly weird if it happens more than once. Normal, undamaged nails seems to have no problems like this.
Of course that is just my personal speculations and maybe I’m trying to draw parallels that make no sense.

Maybe it’s a genetically set thing to show a certain age. Just like when a silverback gorilla actually gets… Well, a silver back. Maybe us humans going grey like that is supposed to happen to show that we were smart and resourceful to live long enough to go grey and show to our tribe that we are someone to listen to. Of course, again, that’s just my personal speculation. 

The fact remains though, that certain areas of your scalp grows sparser, finer and has a shorter life cycle than the rest. And this seems to be the same for everyone no matter your hair type or what ever your growth pattern otherwise seems to be. The same areas seem to be affected first if you should experience any kind of hair loss.

But course in my opinion, those short pieces are just super irritating.