Me hairz: an update

It's about Day 28 of what I'm now calling my detox period. My hair hasn't changed much in the last week or so. My fingers didn't peel for very long at all, so I'm hoping they stay strong through the next transition period: organic shampoo.

This isn't any ordinary shampoo people. It's not even the kind that has 'natural' in the name, like many supermarket shampoo tarts. It's from a proper organic product shop and I found it online in an organic haircare review. And that's the limit of my research into this type of issue.

So bye-bye my strong slightly oily hair; bye-bye slightly longer showers with lots of combing; hello $14 per bottle shampoo and a deep, desperate hope that you're the shampoo for me.

I'm so sick of caring.

Can I survive without shampoo?

I found this article ages ago and it tweaked my curiosity.

Traditionally I've washed my hair everyday. Too oily, yuck.
Then, sometime last year, I shifted to every 2nd day and my hair seemed to cope with that ok.
Then I changed to 'natural' shampoos on the (persistent) recommendation of my hairdressers. Apparently, supermarket bought shampoos leave a 'film' that 'weighs down' your hair and is essentially 'evil'.

So I started on on expensive 'natural' shampoo and started to get a little acne on my temples and back. oh yey. Seems to happen every time I go to natural products.
Then I changed to a shampoo for oily hair based on , again, hairdresser recommendation.
[Tangent: this is the ONLY shampoo for oily hair I could find. It used to be that there would be an equal amount of shampoos for 'dry', 'normal', 'oily' and 'normal to oily' hair types. Not so these days. Apparently we've all evolved into normal and dry hair types. I suppose they'll blame air conditioning.]

However, I am now at day 16 of my own 'no shampoo' experiment. I have long, fine, dense hair and I haven't shampooed it since Dec 20. Every day I use a fine toothed comb in the shower to wash out dirt and 'encourage' the oil throughout the length of the hair.

Around day 9 we went swimming in the bay - very salty and I had that classic bay-water hair for a few days. Read: salty and not smooth.

Day 11 saw 'stuff' in my comb. I'm not sure if this was fall out from the salt-water swim, as its diminishing now, but it feels like oil/sweat. I'm trying not to get grossed out.

I've carefully scheduled this for my summer holidays, but its so hot I'm not blow drying my hair for anyone. Consequently, I put my hair up to mask the oiliness and it never really dries in the midddle. Also, I'm expecting to be seen by important-people-who-are-still-forming-opinions/impressions-about-me around Monday week, so I need a result/decision soon.

Will my hair turn out like this lucky Briton's?
Well, even when I get sick of this, or it actually balances out (which I'm betting it won't because its only the 'dry haired' people who benefited from the experiment of the article) there are many more fun and interesting ways to avoid shampoo, but none of them describe going more than one day without washing, which cancels out my first objective which was: to have less work. Hmph.

A Uniform Education

Apparently the Brumby gov't is considering introducing a dress code for teachers, which has been predictably translated into "They want teachers to wear uniforms"
Hmm.

Well, there are a few professions where you usually wear a uniform: Queen's Counsel, Doctors, nurses, etc. They all have respected jobs, although tend to wear their uniforms over their regular clothes ('cept surgeons).
Although most jobs where you have to wear a uniform are not professions per se: They're traditionally trades or services*. There is a school of thought (a ha ha) that teaching is a skill a.k.a trade, so maybe we can find our place in that set... Sooo, lesseeee...

Painters wear white overalls, foresters wear green I think, carpenters wear light brown, the SES wear white, Firemen wear yellow (or black and yellow), ambos wear blue, I assume plumbers wear the regular dark blue, I don't know what sparkies wear. So what does that leave?
I'm thinking... when you graduate education your hood colour is emerald, but that's already taken by foresters. Well, magenta is for the Arts, but currently unclaimed in the rainbow of overalls (and teaching really is an art** too) - so what about a range in that colour? Purple for preschool teachers, Pink for Primary, Scarlet for Secondary and Red for Tertiary. Yarr!! Wiggle me up!
OR How 'bout we just wear our academic robes? Dude!! How much would I love to be teaching plastic-straw construction in that?!! Or Octopus!

OR how about we just stick with the current dress code: dressing professionally and appropriately.
Clean, un-torn clothes that don't show too much cleavage or leg, generally cover your shoulders (out of courtesy for various cultures) and sensible footwear for whatever you're doing.
Duh.

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*But then there's this whole other thing that a profession is simply a field where you continuously learn and have a professional collegiate community - There are very few skilled jobs that don't fit that bill these days.
** Mind you, its quite an applied science, with some nursing, social work, law and engineering chucked in.

I'm beginning to twitch...

I don't know how to feel about this one:

Man Finally Put In Charge Of Struggling Feminist Movement

"All the feminist movement needed to do was bring on someone who had the balls to do something about this glass ceiling business," said McGowan, who quickly closed the 23.5 percent gender wage gap by "making a few calls to the big boys upstairs." "In the world of gender identity and empowered female sexuality, it's all about who you know."
...

"With a charismatic, self-assured guy like Pete pulling the strings, we might even see a female elected president one of these days," said Nathan Roth, an analyst at the Cato Institute. "Finally, the feminist movement has a face that commands respect."

McGowan, however, said he didn't get into the business of women's rights for the praise.

"What these women were able to accomplish with the little manpower they had is very impressive," McGowan said. "I just bring a certain something to the table—I'm not sure what—that gave us that extra little push into complete female independence. I guess it just comes naturally."

Cheers, World. Cheers