A whole bunch of unrelated things

[sholio]

• I finished my wcpairings fic! Well, the rough draft anyway. And my beta likes it. \o/ So I just need to do a bit of polishing and then it'll be ready for its go-live date.

• That SF/mystery book that I was complaining about kinda falls apart towards the end, plot-wise. Possibly it's just that I read too much mystery/suspense, but I figured out a lot of things well in advance of the characters, and on top of that, their actions towards the end are pretty dumb, all things considered. I think it would have worked better for me if they'd had a more compelling reason to solve the mystery than simple curiosity, but what it basically amounts to is putting themselves in ludicrous amounts of danger just to find out what was going on, and OH LOOK, NOW WE'RE IN DANGER! So, yeah, disappointing overall.

• It is FINALLY WARM. Words cannot express how wonderful it feels, after the Winter That Would Not Die. It was 73F today, and the trees around town are starting to flush faintly green (though everything is still set on its default brown shade around our yard). Of course, all of this is happening just in time for me to leave ... for someplace ludicrously hot. I'm spending a few days in Florida to see family there. And yes, this is a silly time to go to Florida, but it happened that my husband was going to be there for business anyway, so we're combining it with a family trip. So I expect I'll be even scarcer around LJ/DW for a few days than I have been lately.

• I got my hair cut and dyed a very fetching shade of purplish red. It's a pixie cut, much shorter than my norm, and I think I actually look better with longer hair, but I do like the cut and I also like being a redhead. (I went red last summer, too, and liked it a lot.) The only downside is that hair dye is super painful. Is it like that for everyone? If so, I have all the respect in the world for people who dye their hair a lot, because seriously, OW. It's sort of like having your head set on fire, and I can't bring myself to do it terribly often (plus I suspect it's probably not very healthy). It looks great, though!

• Last but definitely not least, frith_in_thorns made me a thing. And it is AWESOME. She knitted me a pair of Voracious Gloves from Fallen London, with teeth and eyes! All my pictures of them basically suck, but you can get an idea here:



So yeah, my ridiculous picture doesn't do it justice because you can't see anything, but basically these gloves are THE BEST, and Frith is the best to make them for me. ♥

Comments

[rydra_wong]

The only downside is that hair dye is super painful. Is it like that for everyone?

It shouldn't be, AFAIK. Not that I am exactly an expert on this, but still. Did you do a patch test beforehand?

[sholio]

Thank you for the info! I did not, but it's never damaged my scalp; it just hurts. Still, I'll look into options!

[rydra_wong]

Yeah, I'd worry about it being a sign that you're becoming allergic to it; some very common dye ingredients are horrifically allergenic. Whence the requirement for patch tests even if you've used the same dye lots of times before.

I'm paranoid about this, and thus one of the rare rare people who actually does do the patch test every time, as well as using a dye that doesn't have PPD in it.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/nov/28/could-hair-dye-kill-you

[springwoof]

Beware. Many hair dyes use the same dye chemistries as fabric dyes. Some of these chemistries have been *banned* for use in fabric for decades now, because they are toxic and/or cancer-causing--but some hair dyes STILL USE THEM. (a loophole; legislators didn't consider hair dye, plus it's not as big an industry as textiles, so not as many tons of dye are used.) People are working on non-toxic hair dye, but it's not quite out on the market yet. I'd use henna to color my hair.

[sholio]

Heh, my mom is convinced that hair dye kills brain cells, and the more of it soaks into my skin, the more brain cells it's killing. I can tell that it's pretty toxic stuff, and I definitely won't be using it very often!

[siria]

Oh honey, no, hair dye shouldn't feel as if it's burning you! It sounds as if you're either having an allergic reaction, or you've got something like seborrheic dermatitis which would react badly to any chemicals. You could ask your hairdresser about the possibility of switching to using an ammonia free hair colour—I know that L'Oreal has a salon system called Inoa that's permanent and ammonia free. Covers nicely and no hair dye smell!

[sholio]

Good to know! I'll look into some different options. It's too bad, because my hair takes dye really well, and it looks great. But, ow.

[ratcreature]

I find it slightly unfair that it is warmer in *Alaska* than here. *has temperature envy*

[sholio]

Fairbanks actually gets pretty hot in June - up to the middle 30s C. It's really hard to believe that it was snowing a week ago.

[ratcreature]

What's almost worse than the temperatures is how ridiculously wet this May has been here (record-breaking rainfall amounts, i.e. over 120 liter per square meter this month), so everything is damp and swampy. When I walked today, I seriously regretted that I don't own rubber boots, because all paths in the parks were just giant swampy puddles covering so much that you couldn't walk around them, and I got mud inside my sneakers even while picking my way most carefully, even though it was all normally firm sandy paths, not soft earth or anything.

[magibrain]

Hair dye should ideally not hurt. What kind do you use? My partner, whose hair is usually a bright blue, green, or rainbow, uses Manic Panic, which does vegan stuff that's safe enough that we've occasionally given one of the cats a racing stripe with it. Downside is that if you do have darker hair, you need to bleach it out, first, which isn't so fun, and then make sure to condition well afterwards so your hair isn't in a constant state of chemically-damaged, but the results can be quite spectacular.

(Or such has been my observation. My hair is black and gets clipped to 1/8 inch every week, so I don't have a great deal of personal experience. I did once try to give myself a raven-wing iridescence with some of the partner's green, blue, and purple dyes, which were completely non-irritating, but also didn't do much more than dye my scalp for a few days. Oh, well.)

[sholio]

Ooh, thank you for telling me about Manic Panic! I think I might try that next time. My natural hair color is sort of medium, but it does take dye well, and the results might be nice even without bleaching.

[brightknightie]

As everyone has said, hair dye shouldn't hurt! You may be suffering an allergic reaction.

I dye my hip-length hair every other week with old-fashioned "demi-permanent" Level 1, which washes out in ~7-10 washes and has no ammonia and no peroxide (very safe, very little damage, unfortunately not long-lasting). You can still get it at specialty stories, though no longer in most grocery and drug stores, which only stock the more profitable and popular Levels 2 (w/peroxide) and 3 (w/ammonia and peroxide).

[sholio]

I really appreciate people letting me know about different options! I think that for my next dye job I'll look around for something less harsh (and less permanent), and see how that works.