Blue's Product Placement: Sally Hansen Lavender Spa Body Wax Hair Removal Kit

Preemptive Editor's Note: Blue would like to preface this by stating quite firmly that she supports wholeheartedly the natural state of both the female and the male of our species: hirsute. However, she understands that many people -- e.g. employers -- do not share this sentiment. This is her response.

While I was in India, I stopped shaving my legs. The bucket bath was not conducive to a daily shaving, and I'm the kind of girl who will revert back to stubble within 24 hours.

I stopped shaving my legs, and my underarms, and didn't miss it for a moment. Of course, I was fortunate in that all of my pretty blue salwars hid the furriness. I loved that I could go from "just woken up" to "ready to face the world" in fifteen minutes.

When I returned to the US, I started shaving again. I hated it. Not the smooth legs vs. furry legs business, but the act of shaving itself. It was time-consuming, repetitive, and I nicked myself far too often. I found myself seeking out excuses not to shave my legs: well, I'm wearing jeans today, etc.

Then I found the best excuse of all: my broken toe. As I had to shower with one leg taped into a plastic garbage sack, shaving was clearly not an option.

So here I was, with a month's growth of hair on my legs, dreading the idea of going back to shaving. Then I had an inspiration.

Enter Sally Hansen and her Lavender Spa Body Wax Hair Removal Kit. I figured that since I had already done the hard work of growing out the leg hair, the least I could do was see if waxing really kept it off "for 5 to 8 weeks."

My first thought was to get it done by a professional, but even the college student joints wouldn't do a wax for less than $70, and Sally was only $9.99.

So last night I stripped to my skivvies, sat on a flattened 20-gallon trash bag (to catch the spills), and waxed my legs.

It took just about 90 minutes, and I distracted myself by watching episodes of CSI on Hulu. I found it a lot easier to pull out my hair by the roots if I was trying to figure out who the killer was before Grissom did. All said and done, however, it wasn't all that painful. I mean, it was a little uncomfortable, but it didn't hurt anything like some of the stuff I've been through recently.

The wax was really messy, but it got the job done. I would definitely urge anyone considering a DIY waxing to set out some plastic or something for the mess. I was also using the internet trick of dousing my legs liberally with baby powder before applying the wax (theoretically the wax will stick to the hair, but leave the skin untouched), and so my trash bag station was soon covered with drips and powder.

And there's nothing cooler than pulling off a strip and seeing exactly what hundreds of hair bulbs look like.

I know that people consider leg waxing to be one of those horrible things women do to oppress themselves, but -- barring my switch to reusable menstrual products -- this was the 100% most liberating thing I've done as a woman in a long time. I've solved a problem and now I shouldn't have to deal with it for five-to-eight weeks. That's fantastic.

I'll let you know when it all starts to grow back.

Blue's Product Placement: Garnier Fructis Sleek & Shine Weightless Anti-Frizz Serum

I shop store brand. For nearly everything. Oatmeal, cookies, coffee, soap. I even swapped out my favorite Dental Care for the much less appealing Ultrabrite (which is supposed to have some baking soda in it somewhere, but for the life of me I can't find it).

But there is one product for which I will not shop store brand. I tried, and switched back instantly.

That'd be my Garnier Fructis Length and Strength shampoo and conditioner.

I love this stuff. I discovered it in Hyderabad, when I was using my increased purchasing power to try every different shampoo I could get my hands on. (I was buying new shampoo all the time, given that the university kirana only sold 8-oz bottles.)

Long story short, I've got almost two feet of hair now and Garnier helps keep it soft and fluffy.

I did have a problem, though. During the course of a day, my hair would start to separate into straggly individual locks. I wanted a curtain of long, straight hair, not something that looked unkempt and unbrushed.

I also wanted my hair to stay glossy throughout the day, instead of turning dry and dull by evening.

So. I tried using more conditioner, and less conditioner, and then I tried using different conditioner. I tried using hairspray to get my hair to stay together (I don't recommend this one). Once I bought some "conditioning milk" that was on super sale (not a Garnier product -- this one was Sunsilk), but that only made my hair feel greasy.

I spent most days walking around with a rubber band on my wrist, so that I could scoop my disheveled hair into a messy bun around 4 p.m.

And then I went to the Garnier website.

They've got this fantastic little application called "Hair 411," where you get to name your specific hair problem through a flowchart-style interface. Then they list a few suggested products.

For me, that product was Sleek and Shine Weightless Anti-Frizz Serum.

Since I'm a competitive shopper, I know exactly which supermarket chain sells Garnier product at the lowest price. I got my magic serum for $3.

And ladies and gentlemen, let me tell you about how fabulous this little bottle of goo is. I haven't yet been able to replace my digital camera, so I can't take a picture. Whatever it does, it does well. My hair stayed glossy and fresh-looking all day long, and not once did it get clumpy or straggly.

Oh, Garnier. I know you've got someone on your team who follows site links, so to the rep reading this: I heart your product.

Yet Another Self-Indulgent Post About My Hair

See, the reason that I am so in love with my hair right now is because for such a long time I hated it. I used to torture it, too. Carson Kressley would have gasped at the amount of hair spray and other product I used to put into it. I was trying to make it fuller, thicker, etc. and it perpetually remained flat, dull, and thin.

Once, when I got it cut, the hairdresser held up a few limp strands in her hand and said “Darling, you’ve got baby-fine hair. It looks like your hair just never grew up!”

And then I decided I couldn’t afford to get it cut every month (I had a perpetual chin-length bob for about… wow, ten years) and I was just going to let it do its thing. Whatever. I was tired of it.

As the bob grew out, I stopped using styling products to try and keep the ends turned under (another thing my hair would never do – turn under properly). With the absence of corporate-sponsored goo, my hair began to look better. It began to thicken. I stopped handing it over to Midwestern cosmetology graduates who used all kinds of crazy shears and razors on its ends. It liked me much better for it.

And so here I am, with twelve inches more hair than I had this time last year, in much better condition. Particularly because I’ve just started adding a “magical Indian Ayurvedic conditioner” that I don’t believe is sold in the U.S. and probably contains all kinds of anti-FDA ingredients but I swear is making my hair grow longer overnight. (Yes, I know that it was already growing longer overnight. Just… indulge me.)

The point of this post, however, is that I seem to be putting it up in ways that both confound and amaze my students. The coronet, for example. Today when I met some students outside of the theatre building, they stopped and asked me “how I had gotten my hair to do that.”

“It’s very easy,” I said. “Braid one side, pin it on top of the head, then braid the other side and pin it on top of the head.”

I demonstrated.

“It’s very beautiful,” one of the female students said. “It makes you look so… exotic!”

The other one, which surprised me a little more, came on a day when I wore my hair in two knots behind my ears. Not exactly Princess Leia, but not the anime-fetishist’s odango atama either. Lower, on the back of the neck. (I'd share a picture, really, but I can't find one. Maybe I'm the only person ever to do this with her hair.)

“I have never seen anyone wear her hair like that before,” one of the visiting faculty said. “How did you make it stay up?”

This I thought should have been quite obvious, but sometimes mysterious and exotic things have to be explained.

“Do you know how to make one bun here, at the back of your neck?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“It is exactly the same,” I said, “only you make two.”

I think if all else fails I’ll set up a Hyderabadi beauty salon.

Inga Muscio's Book

So a while back I did a post about my hair, in which I included a picture of my desk.

And on said desk, there was a book. (E-I-E-I-O.)

An anonymous commenter suggested that I blur out the title of the book, as the title is a word sometimes used as a vulgarity against the female anatomy.

Instead, I pulled the post until I had time to write more thoroughly about Inga Muscio's book, and why it occupies such a prominent spot on my desk, and why I don't want to blur it.

The book is titled Cunt. My sister gave it to me about four years ago. Since then, I have loaned it to a number of women, and, luckily, always got it returned. When I lived with Ms. Ginny and our two other (female) roommates, it sat on our coffee table, and people who came to the house would pick it up and look into it.

Cunt is a book about women's health, much like Our Bodies, Ourselves but considerably smaller and snarkier. It focuses on what some might call "natural" methods of promoting health/preventing disease (not to mention pregnancy and STDs); it was in this book where I first read about sea sponges, the Keeper, and cloth pads.

It also includes sections on sexuality and gender and feminism, and on the long and convoluted history of the word that makes up its title. (It's fairly common knowledge that the word cunt derives from the word country, and was once a term of great respect; but Muscio takes us a bit further than that, through 250 years of linguistical fun. )

If you're interested in learning more, here's where to click. I'd offer to loan you my copy, but it would probably be less expensive for you to purchase your own (because I would totally make you pay for shipping ^__^), and even less expensive to read it at the library or at a bookstore.

At any rate, I wanted to explain the book, and so I did. It's a great book, and I'm glad to show it off. ^__^

Down to Where It Stops By Itself, Oh Yeah Baby!

While I was looking for photos and images to work into new headers, I had a sudden, almost shocking realization.

This is a picture of me from April 2006. Keep in mind that I work in a theatre department, and we have to do things like this. We have to.

And this is a picture of me from April 2007. An entire year of not cutting my hair, "just to see what would happen" (read: save money).


And here it is August, and it's a good three inches longer than it is in that picture.

I realize that this is perhaps entertaining no one but me (although that shot of me "interpretive dancing" should be pretty darn entertaining), but I find it fascinating.

(Keep in mind that I work in a theatre department, where we are encouraged to be self-absorbed.)

I wonder how long my hair will be next year?

(Editor's Note: If you want, you can play "I Spy" with all the things on Blue's desk. She's hoping you don't spy the spiderwebs -- she never noticed they were there until just now! Clever eyes will note the dandiya sticks, the Harry Potter video games, and the piece of junk laptop.)