I've missed reading this thread while I've been in the PNG jungle for the last 9 weeks. My hair handled the tropics pretty well, I'm thinking the cold bucket showers from the river probably helped. Since I've been home my hair has been excellent, I've decided to carry on the cold showers and just turn the cold water on to get wet, turn it off and soap up then turn it on again to rinse of and give my scalp a quick finger massage under the running water. I haven't even been water washing it every day and it is still awesome. I did get it coloured at the organic hairdressers in Freo when I got back last week (just needed some glam in my life after the jungle) it was an ammonia free dye but they washed it out with shampoo, do any of you still go to the hairdresser? this was the first time I've been back to the hairdresser since I stopped shampooing about 8 months ago. Do you tell your hairdressers that you don't shampoo so you can visit without them shampooing? do you colour your hair? I was thinking I could use henna, then I walked past the organic hairdresser and it was just quicker and easier for me that day. I'd love to hear how you all deal with this issue, I'm in my thirties now and have quite a few greys I don't really want on display (too many to pluck out)


Mx

I was getting really annoyed with my mid-length hair - I liked the idea of having it long and all the one length so that I could just trim it up myself without the need of going to the hairdresser but I got so annoyed with it that over the last couple of weeks I started thinking about getting it cut short...well, short it now is - I got my partner to do me a no.4 buzz cut and it feels fantastic!

Jacki
xx

OMG.  Jen, I empathise.

I don't think I ever had nits at school - at least I can't remember having them.  I got them a couple of years ago, and was beside myself.

I didn't even know what to do - I had to call my mother. 

I still remember the shock - scratching the living daylights out of my scalp and then noticing something on the edge of the bath moving.  *shudder*

That was a time that I wish I had a buzz cut instead of hair half way down my back.

Glad wrap is a great look, and it keeps your head warm.  I remember years and years ago, I wondered what I would look like with black hair (I love jet black hair), and so I spent a whole day with a pair of black ski pants on my head to try it out.  I even had a pony tail fashioned out of the "legs". 

Can you just use conditioner?  I used so many bloomin' containers of the smelly stuff.

At the risk of making your stomach hurt - here's another tale of me and "hair".

I finished doing henna on my hair when I was o.s. in my early 20s, and then in the dead of night realised that it was Mother's Day in Australia.

I dashed out to the phone box to make the call....

My mother then informed me that I was a week early - it was next Sunday.

I said "Mum, I am standing in a well lit public phone box in the middle of London with a plastic shopping bag on my head, looking like Marge Simpson"..... "and you mean to tell me, it's NOT Mother's Day?"   

And, in Morocco I regularly used to go into cafes wearing a black plastic sleeping bag cover (with handy draw string) on my head, covering henna.  Of course, in Morocco - nobody bats an eyelash.

By the way, black leggings don't suit me.

 

By the way, ski pants are one thing, but if I ever post that I am getting around with my undies on my head....

feel free to gently suggest that I have my B12 levels checked.

Jennie have you ever tried tea tree oil mixed with a little olive oil on your daughter, this is what I used to do if mine got nits, you just comb it through and get all the live ones out (it stuns them or something) and then pick out any eggs.  Once I used this, I would spray their hair with a mixture of tea tree oil and water each morning before they went to school and they stopped getting them!!!!!  Worth a try maybe?

Jeanette

My heart goes out to you Jennie, I remember doing the same thing time and time again because I would treat everyone at home and they would go back to school and get them again, curious though it was only my eldest daughter who would bring them home, I think it has something to do with the way we smell because she always got them worse than anyone else.  My youngest daughter is now in grade 4 and has never brought them home... and I have used mainly the tea tree on her in times when they have been in the classroom (to deter them).  They are horrible little critters who have no purpose here in our homes

Good luck and don't scratch too much,   ohhhh now I'm scratching ...

Oh I feel really sorry for you guys. I had head lice quite a few times at school and when we went to England when I was 6, Mum and Dad and I all caught it from the head rests in the plane. The first thing we wanted when we got to the UK was a chemist, lol.
I really hope I never get them again; I was in my room reading the other night and a mozzie came in, it bit me about three times and I was SOOOOOO itchy, i made myself bleed scratching. Then I decided I couldn't take being bitten anymore (I was quite worked up by this stage) and so I killed it and then I couldn't stop crying. So I don't know how I'd feel if I had to kill a whole head full of nits!

Maggie, regarding hairdressers - I haven't been to one in well over a year. I already didn't like going because almost every hairdresser I've ever gone to has told me my hair is 'boring' and I should get a more interesting cut. Once a hairdresser did all this layering and feathering after I said I didn't want it - I cried and cried and my Mum got very angry at him - I never went there again! So anyway, now my Mum just cuts it every now and then.