Mom Hair: New House Addition

Ok to break up the monotony of house working blog posts, I thought I’d throw this in.

Actually I was inspired by a reader who sent me a nice little message. ;)
We were talking mom hair and I realized I have one more new trick up my sleeve.

Talk about mom hair…add in house remodeling to the equation = MESSY me. So I started doing this a bit after we moved in here. It helps me feel a little bit better when I walk by the mirror.

Just a simple sheer silky scarf, tied around my classic bun-blob as a headband. But it’s a really nice pop of color that hides any unwashed fizzy mess. This is also perfect for post-partum regrowth shorties. (Mine have since grown out…so yes, ladies, there is hope! It does keep growing, it will fade into the rest of your hair.)

*For me the trick is to let it cover the tops of my ears, and some of my forehead -- it makes it more boho.

It would look good over hair left down too. I just really like mine up during the day. (Less to pull on, or ask to be brushed by a three year old.) And I don’t feel like I can pull the look off with my hair down.

Let’s be real, this actually is my indoors-don’t-plan-to-go-anywhere, just-want-to-feel-a-little-like-I-try trick, so the mirror doesn’t laugh at me. I don’t really hope to wow the world with this.
BUT….
I wore it out to Target the other day with my girls in tow, and I actually got the women-passing-by-love-hate glare from a 20 something sharing the isle with us. You know the one I’m talking about, “I like that look so much I’m mad at you for wearing it. How dare you assume you are so cool? I wish I was workin it that hard.”
It gave me a laugh -- I was just trying not to look like a hot mess (you should have seen the rats’ nest the scarf was hiding), but apparently it went over better than expected. I got girl envy status out of it. (Just FYI, I actually don’t enjoy girl envy…makes me uncomfortable...but I thought I’d share because it kinda proves the look is worth while.)

Another just FYI:  I put on make up for the photos -- because it’s the internet. (I actually had some haters on Pintrest on one of my pin-photos -- telling me to fix my eyebrows. Actually on a pin of the post where I made this scarf. Not gonna lie, it hurt my feelings. But also not gonna lie….I know it couldn’t have been moms who wrote that -- mom’s know just making the scarf and taking a photo of it when you have a 10 month old and a two year old is an pretty great accomplishment -- we don’t ask for eyebrows too. I also was very aware of my eyebrow situation, and they were right -- they needed help, but it wasn’t on my to do list at the time. And well, I’m not blogging to impress people, I like to try and help people with my ideas. Oh well. All that to say…. I put make up on for the picture, but real life often lacks makeup. I DO NOT look this pulled together, often.)

Like I said, I made this scarf -- its easy, if you can sew you can make one too. {See here for info.} But it’s long, so I tie it around twice. I start it at the base of my head, and go around twice and tie it to the side.

I also occasionally use this little short scarf (thrifted) , when I need a little leopard in my life. This one is the kind that is a square when unfolded

Forgive the bathroom, and the I-tried-to-blur-them-out-so-hard-with-photo-color-editing SEASHELL wallpaper of my bathroom. We are in the middle of remodeling our 1960’s colonial, that got a little too much love in approximately 1981. (If you are a DIY-lover, stick around to watch us toil! :) )

Also, forgive the selfies -- I hate taking them for the blog -- I never know what kind of faces to make or anything. I feel like a poser. Hopefully the internet will be kinder to me this go around. If not -- oh well. I’m just a momma tryin to make it through the days of young ones. If you’ve been there, you know.

Maybe a scarf will cheer you up?

If you aren’t feelin the scarf,  never doubt the power of a well executed headband. (I got this one on clearance at Target.)

Also, I have a pinterest board where I’ve been tucking away hair ideas for myself. They are mostly up-dos (surprise!) that look cute and appear to be something I could do really quickly. Maybe you’d be inspired by some of those. Here’s the board.

I also have a few old posts on mom hair:

First post (here) just covers the basics of how I deal with my hair with babies around.

This post is my fav super easy and cheap (basically free cause I bet you already have some) DYI Dry Shampoo --- See Here for details.

And here is something else I do to help with the postpartum baby hair regrowth.

Here’s to Happy Hair Days!

More Mom Hair

Thought I'd show you another one of my mom hair tricks today.

This one is particularly helpful for once your dealing with sorta-kinda-grown-out baby hairs but those fun little guys they aren't long enough to really work with yet. (If you are wondering what I'm talking about: you get 'em after you shed your pregnancy hair in mass, and then it starts to all grow back at once)

(The stage right before this, where they are just non-helpable, is the "funnest".  Just grin and bare it. :) It grows.)

Anyway,
Mine are starting to be functional(ish) right now, around a year out from birth. But they still are quite short and want to escape most my stylings. (Or lack of stylings on a bla day.)
When my hair is down I like to combine some mousse and smoothing serum and rub it into my hair line while its wet.
But on the days where I want my hair up. (Which is often -- its kinda just the way I like it. Easy, pretty and functional.) I'm loving this thing!

After trying to google for this thing under weird-name-attempts I finally figured out its officially called:

 a flexible stretch comb.

I think these came out when I was just about to go into Jr High. At least thats the first time I'd ever seen one. And being that I was a junior higher, (and jr highers are awkward) the first girl I ever saw wearing one, wore it soooooooo poorly that I literally thought she had brain surgery and had terrible football-lace-stitches around her skull.

So I never wanted to own one of these after that!

Then I had a baby (years later),

and I was watching Project Runway on DVD and Heidi Klum just so happened to wear one so shockingly well (and I mean, that's just how she wears anything) that I wanted to go buy one right that instant! She erased years of hair-horror in an instant!

(I tired really hard to find a picture of her in the hair style online, but I can't. Its driving me so crazy that I may end up re-watching seasons 2 &4 (which are the ones I think I had watched -- but I'm not even sure!) just to find it. She had one of these flexible stretch combs in, and her hair was all lose and wavy and then done into a french braid.  -- I mean she just reglamourized french braids for me right then and there too! (Yeah they are cool again now, but they weren't back then she was going out on a limb and rocking it.))

(If for some reason you know what I'm talking about, let me know what season it is, or send me a pic!)

Anyway, I thought, "She made that look so good, no one is gonna convince me this thing isn't cool."

So I just wore it with confidence from day one.

It seriously fixes so many of my hair issues at the moment.

I had it tucked away since our move, and just pulled it out this week and I'm loving it all over again!

And Blake loves when I wear it. 

And that makes it that much sweeter!

I throw this hair style together in 2 mins and Blake thinks I'm runway worthy.

Never hurts a girl's day to get that kind of reaction.

To do it, I just pull my hair up in a lose messy pony tail. 

Fasten this thing around my neck, carefully pull it up over my face, tuck it into my hair, and pull it back.

You can keep it tight, or kinda fluff the hair up. 

(I like both, but my baby hairs are so short I don't do much fluffing for now)

Then I take the pony tail out and redo it. 

I like to puff the top of the hair behind the headband,

and then put the rest in a messy blob-bun.

My headband's fastener is kind lose and can open up, so I tuck a bobbie pin up into the headband on either side of the fastener and it stays put all day.

My hair is also shorter underneath still from when I cut it all off. 

So I stick two long bobbie pins across the back (between the headband and the bun) to hold that in place.

And there you have it.

If you missed them here are two other old mom hair posts: 1, 2

Mom Hair Part 2: Dry Shampoo

So yesterday I showed you a couple of my hair tricks.

But I just realized that I left out my new favoritest-favorite!

One of the hardest parts of new motherhood is finding time to wash your hair...

which is why I have fallen in love with:

Cocoa Powder as Dry Shampoo!

I won't judge you for judging me.

It does sound gross initially.

But after I tried it one time, I was hooked.

My mom has blonde hair and when I was in that awkward junior high stage she told me about how: when she was a kid, she used baby powder sprinkled in her hair to make it look not greasy between washes. I tried it, but as brunette that was always hard to pull off. You have to be really sure you rub it all in, or you have flour head. And even after you rub it in your hair looks kinda grayed.

After Jasmine was born I tried some cheapo store bought dry shampoo but I wasn't impressed. The stuff that came out was white, so there was the same hide-this-stuff issue as the baby powder. BUT it also has this extremely strong sent that overwhelmed me. I couldn't stand it! I threw it away and was just new-mom-greasy.

Recently I heard of using cocoa powder. (I can't remember where, but it was not Pinterest, I think it was a talk show.) It took me a long time to want to go that far. (It was actually seeing someone use cocoa powder as bronzer on a different talk show that made me think, "Ok ok I've got to give cocoa powder more credit.") (I have also tried it as bronzer....it works!)

I put some in a salt shaker and sprinkled it on my head. On first try I was in love. It blends right in my hair. It does an awesome job of hiding the grease. It actually gives me tons of body. (Which is great with my thinned out new mom hair.) (It gives me so much body that I actually like my hair more on the cocoa days than the just washed days.) The color also helped during my " 'wow my hair looks crazy thin right now' pre growing back" stage to make me  look less bald.  

All that and I like how it smells. I mean its chocolate. (Who doesn't like the sent of chocolate?) But its subtle. I also enjoy how it smells washing it out (not so subtle then). Mmm.

Let me show you.

1. Start with dirty hair. (The iPad must have been feeling loyal today, I couldn't convince her to actually show you just how greasy I looked.)

2. Shake, shake, shake

3. Get it everywhere -- I lift up sections all around my head and get it so my whole scalp area is powdered up.

4. Rub it in, so it looks natural.

Done. 

You'd never know.

Until you look down at my sink!

This is day two of the head band curls from yesterday's post.

I think Day 2 with the help of cocoa is even better than they were on Day 1! Nice!

• If you have red hair, Ghirardelli's cocoa is surprisingly red in tone. (Also like way more delicious than the cheapo brands.) I bet it would work well for ya.

• If you have light brown hair, you could mix cocoa with corn starch till you get a color to match.

• If you are blonde, go for straight corn starch. Sorry you won't get to smell like chocolate. But you can scent corn starch with essential oils -- so you can pick your favorite.

Don't let the weirdness of this keep you from trying it once.

Honestly the store bought dry shampoo is pretty much the same deal (they often use clay), they just figured out how to get it in a spray form.

P.S.

You can check out a couple other "Mom Hair" posts

here 

and

here.

Mom Hair

I remember randomly coming across some women's blog one day, soon after getting married, and well before becoming a mom.

This blogger had boasted in a post about how she did NOT have mom hair.

In my youth, I didn't stop to admit that I never really considered "mom-hair" outside of maybe like the phenomenon when a new mom chops her hair off. But I did stop to wrongfully judge her hair as "so-not-cool-I-don't-know-why-she-is-bragging."
And maybe that's a good case to show you don't do yourself any favors when you brag, cause it leaves you are wide open for criticism.
BUT anyway, that's so not the point of this post.

My point is, I have since learned that there is something about being a mom that really kills your hair.

I did not realize that pregnancy hair is destined to fill up your bathtub drain for months on end, after you give birth (3 months after -- approximately.)

And that, as that hair fell out, my hair was becoming thinner than it had ever been or I ever thought it would be (since all of it was now in my drain pipe.)



I remember being a kid and hearing my second cousin, who had just had a baby, talk about how her feet were bigger and her hair was different. As a sevenish-year-old that all sounded like the coolest stuff ever -- being a grown up but still growing...awesome! Having hair that changes...awesome! She told me how some women's hair gets curly after it wasn't. Or turns brown after having been blonde. I remember excitedly telling her that was the coolest thing in the world and I hope it happened to me!!!!
Cut to being 27 and I no longer felt that way. The curly hair I had once spent years praying would turn straight, but had since learned to love (and love a lot) was now turning straight! But it wasn't straight-straight. But it wasn't curly. It was just flat on top and big on the bottom. And messy looking no matter what.

THEN
Add in the fact that oh...yeah....when I don't get enough sleep and I have 5 mins tops to shower and get dressed (before my baby insisted I pick her up)....I really just didn't even want to try to style my hair or do makeup. (And besides, you know I'm not leaving the house yet...like I want to try to breastfeed out of the house -- me and that boppy, the non-latching baby, and the "stunning outfits" I have to dawn on my postpartum figure that doesn't fit into any of my clothes or any bra sizes known to man...errr woman.)
But I had it in my head that I for some reason was competing with Hollywood mom's getting "caught" by paparazzi. So I felt like I should try.
(Note: Don't get in that mind frame...its dumb.)

So...yeah...anyway... mom hair:
Its not a fact of "giving up" like I had supposed wrongly before I got there.
Its like a force of nature, you don't get a say in.

But don't dispare.
You aren't bound to grossness.
There are ways to help.
And by the way...its just a stage of life...don't freak out....your babies will get older and you will have time to style again. You haven't fallen into shambles before your time.


Clearly this hair salvation is not a one size fits all solution time.
Everyone has different hair to start with.
So if you are expecting, I'd suggest you spend some time figuring out ways to do your hair in 5 mins or less (preferably 3 or less really.) Because then you'll have the ninja mom skills you need when your baby says "NOT HAIR TIME>>>MEEE TIME!!!!"

But I was just gonna share a few of the things that worked well for me.

I was gonna do pictures....but who am I kidding. I'm not that cool. I'm doing good to accomplish these things, I don't have it together enough to photograph the evidence. (And I'm also scared to see them in "print" --- they may not be as pulled together as I think they are.)


My first solution after having Jasmine was the sock bun.

I found this BEFORE pinterest existed. I just googled "ways to do hair over night."
I was showering at night and wanted to just get up in the morning and be ready.
(And by ready I mean, not hate walking by the mirror.)
This was an awesome solution for my not-really-curly-definetly-not-straight postpartum hair.
This type of hair trick is now all over pinterest done by many a lady....and the sock bun even has some "as seen on tv" gadgets instead of socks out there.
But I thought I'd pay homage the the girl who helped my mom-life out quite a bit by using her video.

This is who showed me how to do the bun.

And the fact that it makes curls.

I had layers at the time so I needed to do two buns.

I'd wash my hair at night, dry it with the blow dryer till it was just a pinch damp.

Then I would put my hair half up, and bun up that part. Then I would put the bottom half in a pony tail and bun that.

Its really easy to sleep on. I'd take it out in the morning, and worked really great for me.

I felt much more pulled together.

This time around I cut my hair off after Baby #2 because I finally got around to my goal of donating my hair.

So for a long time there wasn't much to be done to it. (My curly hair isn't always good short -- but lucky for me..I've matured a lot and didn't care if I looked like a hot mess. :) )

Last night I tried the head band curls

That worked well for my medium length hair. It's also nice because the underneath of my hair is still short from my cut and its reaches that.

When I took it out this morning I was like "Woah I look awesome."

However....when I went back by the mirror it had mellowed into just ok.

Which is definitely better than gross, but I wish I could figure out to to make it stay the way it was.

Other than that...

I really like putting my hair up.

These twisty spin pins are awesome for buns. BUT they also are great for all sorts of random updos.


I've been liking doing a do sort of like this

via

and securing the twist by screwing those spin pins up into the twist. And into the bun.
I really like that look on me lately. (But mine is no where near as polished as this one -- I'm usually into messy looks anyway -- which just happens to work well with this stage of life too! ha!)
And its actually really fast.
I just kinda roll my hair towards my head (I do both sides) (But I do like the bin to the side like this) and put a ponytail holder at the base. Then use the twisty pin to keep the roll in place. Then kinda blob the bun over on itself and twirl a pin into that.

Also these twisty combs were great for a french twist look when my hair was shorter. It was one of the only ways I could get my hair up at first. And I still like doing it that way now too.

via

(This isn't the prettiest photo -- but it shows the idea well.)

I feel pretty polished with this look.

I was lucky enough to find both these types of hair gadgets at the dollar store! But they normally have them at Target and the like for a bit more cash.

I bought two packs of the spin pins (which means I have 4 pins) and that is enough for me. (But I kinda kick myself for not also grabbing a pack of the mini ones too because sometimes the regular size is too long and sticks out.)

And I bought 3 of the twisty combs to keep my short layers in check, but two usually cuts it for me now.

So yeah... just a few thoughts on ways I use to not feel so hair "bla" when small ones taking up all my time.

Edit in: Oh wait I forgot one important thing: DYI Dry Shampoo --- See Here for details.

And here is something to help with the postpartum baby hair regrowth.