Cutting my long hair - from tailbone length to waist length

After: Waist length

Before: Tailbone/hip length

Yes, for those who know my love for very long hair, it might be surprising news, but I finally decided to cut my hair from tailbone/hip length to waist length.

I felt like it got too heavy for my rather petite body structure and I had several serious neck issues, especially after washing it. It might be part stress, but I believe it is mainly due to the weight of my hair, which got thicker in the last few years after changing my hair routine.

Front view

I also had to give up not drying it with a hairdryer, every time I would let it dry by itself I could be sure to have a totally stiff neck the next morning. Nothing you wish to experience more than once, especially not after EVERY freaking hair wash.... So, I guess here in Europe, especially in Germany, I will have to rely on my hairdryer unfortunately.

So, there you go, my new hair cut - as always cut at home - my head and hair have not seen a hair stylist for more than 5 years now and I really don't miss the (at most times disappointing) experience ;)

Side view

Mannas Zappan - Organic soap bars from Hungary

Mannas Zappan Soap Bars & Dresdner Essence relax bath

I had to write about one of my latest obsessions... but first things first: A few weeks ago, my London friends dance girl and holiday girl came to visit me here in Germany for a weekend. Spending our days eating out and sightseeing around the Baden-Baden and Alsace regions and hiking up the enchanting Geroldsauer Waterfalls, we actually spent our first 1h together just exchanging presents <3

One of the presents holiday girl gave to me was a wonderful collection of organic body, face and hair soap bars that she ordered from a supplier in Hungary. The brand is called Mannas Zappan and the products were originally made by a mum that got frustrated with available body care products. Mainly due to her children's allergies, she felt that common products did not work with her family and created their own original organic products: the soap(bar)s are all natural and organic, the ones I received in my collection, have an intense and earthy perfume, each of them has its distinct smell that gets you quite quick. All lather fantastically (for those who miss the lather in other organic soaps), probably due to the coconut soap that most of the soaps contain. I tried them out today (yes, all of them at once :D, I just could not resist) after having a wonderful muscle relax bath using the Dresdner Essenz Muskellockerungsbad. (Got to spoil yourself from time to time, don't ya?!)

My collection of
Mannas Zappan soap bars

On the left a few pictures of the soap bars, here a quick translation of each soap type (no guarantee though, it has been with the google translator ;)

On the upper left, a body soap bar with cinnamon and coconut, it says something like good for maintaining firm skin. Yummy it is for sure!

On the lower left in light green, the shampoo soap bar of my collection, I absolutely loved my hair - I tend to have normal, rather dry hair and often have an electricity thing going on just after drying them, but this shampoo soap really helped avoiding the static state. It smells a bit citrussy and I suspect another green ingredient here:

Good hair, bad hair and our world`s fear of gray/white hair & Update on hair cut

Just as anyone else on our dear planet, I have been confronted with hair issues during all my life. Any kind of it really. But today let`s only talk about our precious tresses!

Starting at teenager age, I had just decided to let my hair grow and quickly learned that the hair business is not as simple as it seems. I was quickly told that my hair was not thick enough to be grown long or that it had too many split ends and needed 3cm to be cut and after some time, it was suggested that I also do something about my rather boring hair colour. Insecure as those teenagers are, my colouring routine started at about 16 ranging from dark blue-black to chocolate-red-brown and went on until I was about 23 ending with indigo-and-henna-dark-red-brown. (I love how literal you can see the expression DYING HAIR. right!?....) Seven long years of dying my hair. Seven long years of horrible chemical substances eating into my scalp and flowing down my poor vains. And at about 20 years of age, the first grays started to appear. So as soon as I realized that those grays were appearing, I was pretty much condemned to colour my hair forever. So I was told. By the media, TV ads, magazines, some of my family (except my mum who herself has the most beautiful gray-streaked tresses herself since her late 20s/early 30s <3), friends, and finally after enough brain washing, by myself. Getting grays in such a young age, dreadful!

Well, during those 7 years, my routine was quite simple compared to what other people do, I had a shampoo and conditioner (silicone loaden of course), some loreal and fructis and such. Plus one finishing cream for shiny and non-frizzy hair. Plus some hairbrushes (in 4-5x daily use), hair dryer (about every 3 days when washing my hair) and a small set of flat ironer, curler etc (which I used at the age of 22-23, maybe 10x or less in total before changing my routine radically). I coloured my hair about every 3-4 months, sometimes later and went to cut it about every 4-6 months. I was pretty low maintenance most of the time, already before changing my routine, some might say now.

New hair cut:
Shorter front hair on March 2014

Wake-up-hair ;)

Then, about 4 years ago, I started researching about product content and general (beauty=) health related issues as well as going through some personal growth and changes in attitude and how I viewed myself and everything around me and totally stopped EVERYTHING I did before. I went through a lot of different stages (like trying out the no-poo-movement and such) and then finally decided to let my true hair/hair colour shine (and sometimes bounce) again =)

general length the same,
kept at hip length

And I have not looked back ever since. I did go back to shampooing due to my sensitive scalp, no other products such as spray or such, a very mild shampoo version (see my hair routine for more information) (most of my shampoos are Alverde) and wash my hair about once a week now. I brush it once (sometimes twice) a day, mostly in the evening, sometimes in the morning, but here in Brazil I have it up in a bun for most of the daylight (HOT) hours as it is really too hot for having hair longer than your ears ;) I have it down in the late afternoon and evening hours as well as when sleeping, I just throw it over the pillow and wake up with my octopus hair almost strangling me ;) I have tried sleeping with buns and braids during almost 3 years. But it is just not the same comfort and now that my hair is long and heavy enough, I just keep it over my pillow for most of the night and from time to time, throw it back into its off-pillow position when it gets into my face after tossing around too much and have to grab it from under the prince of sun`s head haha.... oh well ;) since changing my routine, my hair shows that it too has its moods. Sometimes it is very wavy and almost curly, sometimes it is almost sleek with just really slight waves.... it probably just depends on my current state of mind haha..... one thing that I noticed though is that the longer I go between washes, the easier it goes to the wavy-curly state. I do love combing my hair and letting the curls (that appear at the ends mostly) bounce around for a bit.

Side view of new shorter front section

I also cut it myself (straight across mainly, at hip length), a few weeks ago I decided to cut some of my front hair as my hair was getting too heavy for my taste and finally had the courage to cut about 3 hands of length! But I love it, the rest of my hair is still hip length, it is lighter and the front section lies in a soft wave next my face.

My beautiful glitter-whites in the sun <3

Now about the gray hair/white hair issue: I LOVE my white hair which distributes in layers and fine glitter-lines throughout my head, but mostly at the front sections and I get so many questions who coloured my hair and did the delicate light-blond highlights and that it looks sooo nice and natural and shines like little stars glittering in the sun, especially the front highlights sections... and how I managed that sometimes only a few hairs are highlighted and not streaks of hair, really SINGLE hairs. I always answer that my hair dresser is called god and that he is a real genius in making me perfectly look exactly how I am supposed to be, combining my hair colours and structure exactly to how it best combines with my natural skin, cheek and lip colour :D

I get strange looks then, some pauses and deep thinking periods and some ask:

My morning in three easy steps

Here my morning in three easy steps haha:

Step 1: Wake up and put this octopus hair in a bun to stop it from strangling me

Step 2: Open the door and in comes Luke for his first belly rub

Step 3: Morning coffee =) 

And guess what happened after taking the morning cup pictures?  

The Top Three hair growth stimulating Brazilian foods

Since creating this blog, I was often asked why Brazilian women have such long, thick hair and why my hair is growing at such a fast rate since I went to Brazil. I guess with Brazilian women it also has a lot to do with really good genes, often women have some Indio (Native) origins - and Indios and Indias here are known for their thick, beautiful hair. In my own case I would say that there are a lot of factors involved, part genes (German, Hungarian and Russian hair princesses :D just kidding ;) haha), part the new environment with new circumstances such as the hot weather and more relaxed life style, but also my own happiness, and frequent exercising.

Maintenance November 2013: Hair length around
hip (jeans cut) length straight across

The fact that I cut my own hair might play a crucial part as I can decide how many times per month or year I cut, currently it is 1-2 times a month about 1-2 inches depending on the growth. I currently keep my hair length just above my jeans and pretty much straight (across) - obviously as it is self cut it is certainly not perfectly straight, but when I shake it, it looks more loose and wavy anyway (on the picture it has been thouroughly brushed), but as it grows that quickly it does not really matter because after a few weeks it is all unruly in its length again.

But let's get back to probably one of the main reasons for this wonderful hair growth: Foodie Goodies <3 ;).

That's why I decided to make my top three hair growth stimulating Brazilian foods list, there you go:

1. Beans

The winner of this list of course are the good old beans. If I had to pick one product that I added to my core nutrition (and eat almost if not every single day since I came to Brazil), then I would always decide to mention BEANS. There are a looot of different sorts here, but the sort we (and most Brazilians of all backgrounds) eat every day, is called "feijao carioca", "Pinto beans" in English.

We also occasionally eat "feijao fradinho", also known as "feijao de corda" (Black eyed beans) and "feijao preto" (Black beans, mostly eaten in the Rio region). We mostly get them in their dried form and cook the whole lot (1kg per package) in our pressure cooker to then freeze portions for convenient quick re-heating during the week.

Quick and beautiful 1-min updo: Infinity Bun

The infinity is a really quick (less than 1min) but beautiful updo/bun. The updo I usually go for when I have no time but want my hair to look tidy and nice.

Simple steps:

1.       Twist your hair

2.       Create a normal bun with the twisted braid

3.       Push the upper circled part of the bun either to the side or up.

That’s it, here you have your infinity bun =)

Round bun - braided or twisted

This is one of my favourite hairdos, quite simple and quick but beautiful to look at.

It is really practical in those hot temperatures here and also during days when my scalp is sensitive as my heavy hair distributes itself easier due to the hairdo and so less pressure will be put on the individual roots and scalp sections.

Instructions:

Native Brazilian hair secrets - Dica da Índia: tutano do boi

Warning: The vegetarians and vegans amongst you might not want to read the next lines ;)

  

This Native Brazilian hair secret combines ox marrow (tutano do boi) with other natural or cosmetic ingredients:

First, the

Rapunzel's Secrets: Long Hair Tipps

January 2012: past waist length

- or realising your dreams whatever they are...!

I remember when I was a little girl I had two long-haired cousins with hair jumping around their waist. Very often I was just standing there staring at their hair and more than once asked my mother to let me grow my hair longer than chin length - unfortunately I was a very active child that liked to run around, get dirty through playing in the forests and garden, jump and climb onto trees which makes long hair a difficult task for a mother of four, so I understand the reasons behind my mother's denial of my wish. She herself never had it very long and keeps it short, she likes that it is practical and simple to maintain [but also loves to play with my long hair ;)].

update on 2.11.2013: hair length now straight across hips

The wish of having long hair never stopped. But again, hair dressers and other people got into the way, telling me it was not possible to have long hair with my hair structure or that long hair doesn t suit me. Only about two years ago I decided to stop going to the hairdresser, stopped altering my hair in any way and stopped listening to anyone trying to hinder me from realising one of my childhood dreams. Researching on the internet and talking to people from different countries about hair care, I learned the Indian, Japanese, German, Indio's and other culture's secrets of how to have hair longer than your waist.