Holiday Time

Hi readers,
I’ve been a little lax with my posting, haven’t I? I’m currently four days in to the two week break after my first term at hairdressing school (yay!). My plan was to get back to the five days a week posting schedule that I’d planned at the outset of this blog.
That clearly hasn’t happened, despite having enrolled myself in Writing 101 with the hope that it would give me that extra push to post five days a week.
So what have I been doing? Well, I’ve been writing (just not here). Everyday since Monday, the first thing I’ve done after breakfast is open up my journal and write. Then, after I feel like I’ve done enough freewriting, I move over to another notebook and continue work on the novel I started months ago – before starting hairdressing school.
It feels good to be familiarising myself with the characters and their stories again. It’s right at the beginning and my protagonist has only just begun to get her feet sticky, but I’m eager to find out how she’ll get out of her current situation – though she’s going to get more involved by trying to get out. 
Needless to say, I haven’t done any revision for school either. It’s funny how I have this constant swing between the two things I really enjoy doing (actually, it’s a trifecta – I also love dancing) – I use one to procrastinate about doing the other. But if that’s all I have to worry about right now, I think I’m doing pretty well.

Now it’s your turn, my lovely readers; have you been doing enough of what you love lately? I would love to hear about your projects and passions inthe comments ☺

Love and waves,
Astrid

First Post In Reverse: My Freewriting Response

Well this is the start of a freewriting exercise. It’s more difficult to do these on the computer as opposed to handwriting (my preferred way of freewriting – I do that all the time), because the backspace key is just there.
However, it is actually easier because typing is closer to the speed of my thoughts than handwriting.
So I realised that I wasn’t seeing things backward – I just missed yesterday’s assignment for Writing 101. It doesn’t really matter. I know that the purpose of Blogging U is to get us writing everyday. That’s what makes this better than a uni course – there isn’t that dread of a final grade. If I get more readers or page views out of this course – awesome! If not, at least I got a chance to practice my writing.

Sometimes I wonder at my writing, and now I’m wondering at what people will think of this. I often wonder that kind of thing when I’m writing in my journal – just getting thoughts out and the satisfaction of seeing the loops of my handwritten words on the page. It’s so wonderfully tactile.

I just stopped to read that last paragraph – that’s not what I’m supposed to do in this exercise is it? Oops.
In the freewriting assignment (which was actually yesterday’s assignment, so now I’m doing two posts in one day), they mentioned Natalie Goldberg, and Writing Down the Bones. I love that book so much. In it, Goldberg equates this kind of writing – and the practice of writing in general – with meditation. And that is so true – to just write and let the words flow. It’s an amazing thing and I notice that when I don’t write for a while, my anxiety tends to heighten. It’s kind of a chicken/egg thing – am I anxious because I’m not writing or am I not writing because I’m anxious? I think Natalie Goldberg would say it’s because I’m a writer who’s not writing.

This is going to feel weird to let people read this. You’d be surprised how much of my ‘writing’ is this inane kind of natter.

Now I think I should try and veer away from that kind of negativity. Writing makes me happy, so it doesn’t really matter whether it’s good or not. Of course once I get to a point where I produce content people like to read, of course that would be great. But I really just enjoy writing for writing’s sake. It’s very much a private kind of hobby.
Which brings me around to wanting to pursue a career as a hairdresser – it isn’t quite so private. Hairdressing is something that I can share with people and will be able to help people. With writing, of course all that is true too, but so much of it is subjective. Not so say that hairstyling isn’t subjective – there’s always new ways to do things in any creative field – but… I’m not sure exactly what I’m trying to say.
Okay, I think I know what I was trying to say – hairdressing is about people. There is always at least two people involved in the profession of hairdressing: the stylist and the client. There is no way that it can become private – unless you work on mannequin heads but really, what’s the point of that?
With writing, the sharing is optional. So I like that with hairdressing (aside from it just being plain fun) I have to share my creativity for there to be a purpose to it.
It’s weird that for me the two – professions, careers, hobbies, activities (there are just too many darn words in my brain) – are kind of complementary. I don’t think I’m unique – but it is unusual.

After writing in those parentheses, I now have actually run out of words. I wonder how much time is left? Less than a minute! If you’ve read this all though, throw me a comment or a like – I’ll get a kick out of knowing people have read this blabber 😀

Love and waves,
Astrid

Handcream

I had this post sitting in my drafts and forgot to publish it yesterday – so here’s a Saturday post for you 🙂

This is the hand cream I currently have in my handbag – and it’s almost empty!

As a hairdresser in training, I’ve noticed that my hands are already starting to get dry after a day at school or the salon – and I’m not even in the industry full time yet.
Aside from the dryness, an occupational hazard of this industry is contact dermatitis. So far, I’ve been lucky enough to avoid it but many apprentices and students develop it within  their first few months. I’m not guaranteed safety though – it can  spring up at any time.
So good quality hand creams are a must for hairdressers. I think I might start reviewing hand care products along with the hair stuff.

What hand products do you like to use?
Love and waves,
Astrid

Writing 101

A few months ago, I signed up to Writing 201 through WordPress Blogging U. I did get some things out of it – like trying to put a little more thought into my posts – editing being the big thing – but I only made a concerted effort to participate in the first half of the month. In the second half of the month college had gotten into swing and I found it hard to get the motivation to really keep up with the assignments.

Also, I had only just started my blog. This time around, I’m starting from the beginning. I just signed up to Writing 101, which will (hopefully) encourage me to get back to the ‘five posts a week’ goal that I had when I began Can’t Stop Thinking About Hair.

Blogging U is also running Blogging 101 which aims to help with the post developing side of blogging. I chose to participate in Writing 101 because frequency of posting is the aspect I’d like to concentrate on for now. Developing better posts will come once I have that habit – of course, I’m always open to suggestions in the comments here at any time 🙂

Which of my WordPress readers are joining in one of the courses next Monday September 15th? I’m looking forward to seeing you in the Commons!

Love and waves,
Astrid

PS: I know the past two posts haven’t been hair related – I’ve got two things in the works that will appear at the end of this week or beginning of next week. X

Delving below the surface

Hi guys, departing from the hair today.
My anxiety has been fluctuating a bit more recently, and today it sucked particularly badly. Something did happen to trigger it, but Internet makes me hesitant to share it (I don’t want talk about everything here – you never know who’s going to see it).
I’m not sure why my anxiety is worse lately – I’ve actually been making an effort to eat better and exercise more. And I’ve been doing well at college too. So I don’t know why I’ve been more sensitive to things that when you look at them on paper (or tell people about them later), shouldn’t be all that bad. Annoying or frustrating, possibly, but not causing me to burst into tears and have a bout of anxiety that lasts half an hour.
The worrying thing for me is that it’s been a year since I went on anti-depressants. They made a huge difference to my anxiety and depression – calming me enough to be able to sort through my worries and problems with a clear head instead of just panicking. However, the way I’ve been having bursts of more intense anxiety in the past few weeks makes me worried that it may not be working anymore. And I really don’t want to up my dosage.
I’m seeing my psychologist on Tuesday, so she will probably allay my fears about the medication (most likely caused by my current general anxiety) and help me to sort out some of the things that have triggered these feelings.

I know this post is kind of jumbled, but I wanted to share because reading other’s experiences with anxiety and depression has helped me in the past.

Love and waves,
Astrid

First Aussie Spotlight: Sukin

Hello chickens! How are you today? What’s the weather like in your part of the world? Here in Sydney it’s the first day of Spring, and the blue skies really showed off for it.

Now that the chit-chat is out of the way, let me introduce my first product for my Aussie spotlight series: Sukin! For this review I bought the Moisture Restoring Shampoo and Conditioner and the Protein Hair Treatment.

Moisture Restoring Shampoo

On first use I found this shampoo to be quite drying – straight after applying it, my hair felt stripped and squeaky. This happened less and less as I used it and by the last time I used it (last week) I felt like my hair was getting moisturised. Whether this was due to me using the combination of their other products, or I was getting used to it, or maybe it was actually doing its job over repeated uses, I’m not sure. Either way, if you prefer a more luxurious texture to your shampoo, you might want to stay away from this one.

Moisture Restoring Conditioner

I loved this! Out of the three products I tried, I noticed the most immediate results from the conditioner – and it’s the one I’ll probably repurchase. After the way the shampoo felt like it was stripping my hair, the conditioner just melted into the strands and they felt softer straight away. The first day testing these products I kept touching my hair because it felt so silky.

Protein Hair Treatment

This treatment comes in sachets and to me, one sachet didn’t feel like enough even though my hair is short. I know that protein treatments aren’t supposed to feel as moisturising as, well, moisture treatments, but because it didn’t spread very well I felt like I needed more than the single use sachet. I think I noticed the least difference from this product. However, I did not leave it on for the full fifteen minutes (I really don’t like getting my head wet twice on a wash day), so that probably affected my results.

Where can you get Sukin? From their online store, Priceline, other chemists and online retailers. They don’t ship internationally from their website, however some of the other online retailers they list are international sites.

How much is it? $*

Eco-friendly: 8/10 I couldn’t find anything saying that their packaging was recycled although it is recyclable and they are a carbon neutral business.

Animal testing? No

Curly Girl friendly? 3/3 No sulfates, silicones or drying alcohol.

Colour safe? No. I couldn’t find any mention of whether these products help with colour-fade and damage.

I hope you found this review helpful! Do you have any suggestions for what Australian brand I should try next? Please let me know your thoughts in the comments 🙂

Love and waves,
Astrid

*$: under $10
$$: under $20
$$$: under $30
$$$$: under $40
$$$$$: over $40

All pictures are from the Sukin website.