Overdue Life Update / Rusk DeepShine Pure Pigments Review / SheaMoisture Reviews

It's been a while...

First semester of Nursing school - done. I managed to pass with a B+, which was pretty miraculous.

 I celebrated my final exam with this tasty treat as soon as the bar opened.

My boyfriend's mom lost her battle with metastatic breast cancer during my spring break. Her funeral was on St. Patrick's Day. The couple of months that followed were stressful. 

She was an amazing woman. Brown Family Medicine posted this photo of her on Facebook, adding: Our Family suffered a significant loss this week. Lorraine., our amazing Team C nurse, friend, advisor, colleague, and the person who just helped you through your day, passed away this week. Lorraine was a wonderful wife, mother, and caring nurse. She was a nurturer in all aspects of her life which extended to the providers and staff she worked with at the Family Care Center. She was always proud of the fact that she helped educate confident and caring family physicians.
She will be very missed

As soon as my classes ended, I started working 6 days/week. The paychecks are nicer, but it leaves little time for blogging, photographing, fishing, relaxing...or doing any of the shit I would actually like to do this summer.Currently, I have everyday Wednesday off and I spend most of it cleaning my apartment and doing my laundry. Enjoying weekends with friends and the endless barbeques that seem to pop up means going to work exhausted in the morning. Adult life is a bitch.


Some hair care changes have happened recently, which is actually what compelled me to blog tonight.

For starters, I have been using Rusk DeepShine Pure Pigments Conditioning Cream Color (color 666RR - coincedence? - probably not) the last few times my sister colored my hair. I have been dying my hair red for quite some time now and this is by far the best color I've used. Every other red I have tried fades to a color closer to brown. While this color does fade, it takes a lot longer and actually stays red. The results are true to the color swatch. (In hindsight, I should have snapped a photo of the color swatch.) Additionally, this color doesn't dry my hair out. My scalp, however, is not a fan - but, as I've mentioned, I do have eczema on my scalp, so the dry, itchy, flakiness that follows the week after coloring, regardless of the product, is more likely related to my skin condition. I am not sure if this color is available at Sally's, my sister always buys it at a local salon supply store because she's a licensed hair dresser.

Number of the beast!

Results!

My daily hair routine has changed some over the last few months, but not drastically.

Since my hair and scalp responded so well to tea tree oil, I started adding it to my shampoo and conditioner - which has consistently been SheaMoisture's Moisture Retention Shampoo and Restorative Conditioner. I've only been shampooing 1-2 times per week, co-washing with the Restorative Conditioner, or SheaMoisture's Extra-Moisture Detangler, which I also added tea tree oil to. I actually prefer the Extra-Moisture Detangler for co-washing and have stopped buying the Restorative Conditioner as a result. The detangler is lighter and has a nice slip. It moisturizes and cleans my hair without weighing it down. I also add some to a spray bottle of water for my second-day hair routine (which now consists of spray with detangler/water mixture until damp, scrunch, diffuse dry - takes 5 minutes, looks awesome).

While I was content with the results of my current hair routine, SheaMoisture products were buy-one-get-one free at Walgreen's yesterday. So, I jumped on the opportunity to try more of their products. I bought the African Black Soap Deep Cleansing Shampoo, African Black Soap Balancing Conditioner, Curling Gel Souffle, and Frizz-Free Curl Mousse for only $20. According to the labels, the African Black Soap shampoo and conditioner are specifically for "dry, itchy scalp" and "dandruff, eczema, and psoriasis," and both contain tea tree oil. I tried them both tonight. Firstly, I love how these products smell - it's a sweet, floral scent - after reading the ingredients, I assume that it's due to the honeysuckle in the products. The shampoo felt immediately drying and didn't lather as well as the Moisture Retention shampoo, so I was completely turned off by it. However, the conditioner was delightful. Same delicious smell as the shampoo, not too heavy, good slip, and moisturizing enough to completely counteracted the drying effects of the shampoo. I will definitely repurchase the conditioner. If by the time I empty the bottle, I see a significant improvement in my scalp's condition, I will repurchase the shampoo. For styling, I used a small amount of the Curling Gel Souffle distributed evenly throughout my hair. The heavy, almost oily consistency of the gel told me that my hair did not need much of it. At this rate, it will take me months to finish the product. I followed up with the Frizz-Free Curl Mousse with my hair sectioned in 4, 3 pumps per section. In contrast to the gel, the mousse is extremely light, so I will probably burn through this bottle. After diffusing dry, the results were awesome and the products are worthy of repurchasing. My hair was extremely curly without any crunch, shiny, soft, and smelling delicious.

Tonight's results.

Crochet / Snow Day / Tea Tree Oil & Scalp Issues

I spent all of yesterday morning and afternoon doing the things I figured I wouldn't have time to do once I started Nursing school. I did two loads of laundry, dishes, picked up the apartment, shaved my legs and armpits (which is always the first task to get neglected), and finished crocheting a scarf. 

Crocodile Stitch Video Here.

As it turns out, I had one more day to do all the those thing because my first day of Nursing school was canceled due to snow. Living in New England, I am sure that this happens almost every Spring semester. (It has happened to me more than once.) On the bright side, this gives me an extra day to keep reading the absurd amount of material for my first lecture, which was rescheduled for Friday morning. On-campus clinicals start tomorrow.

My town only ended up with about 5" instead of the anticipated 10-14".

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A few days ago, after coloring my hair again, my scalp completely rebelled. I've had scalp issues regularly for years, but this was so much worse. Not only was my scalp dry and flaking, it was itchy as sin and I had actually acquired a fair amount of scabs on my scalp from the combination of chemical processing and scratching. Since she's well versed in such things, I had my sister check it out. She parted and sectioned my hair to see more areas of my scalp and told me that I was right, I did have some scabs, it was, in fact, dry and flaking, and in addition, the areas that were less problematic appeared to be red, almost rashy. Great.  

I had suspected for a while that my on-going scalp issues probably weren't dandruff. After having my sister inspect my scalp, I realized that it was most likely eczema, which I had issues with most of my childhood, but never on my scalp.

So, after some brainstorming and research, we decided that tea tree oil was my best option. Regardless of the scalp condition, be it eczema, psoriasis, or dandruff, tea tree oil is used to treat it. So, I  bought a bottle of Jason Dandruff Relief Treatment Shampoo and a bottle of tea tree oil.

Here's what I did:

• Mixed 10-12 drops of tea tree oil with 30-40 drops of argan oil.
• Using a clean eye-dropper, I applied the mixed oil to my entire scalp and massaged it in.
• I threw my hair in a pony tail and let it sit for 20-30 minutes. 
• Shampooed with Jason Dandruff Relief Treatment Shampoo. 
• Skipped conditioner and used SheaMoisture Raw Shea Butter Extra Moisture Detangler.
• Applied a quarter-sized amount of DevaCurl Light Defining Gel to wet hair, avoiding the scalp.
• Air dried until 80% dry.
• Applied a dime-sized amount of Ganier Fructis Pure Clean Gel to the lower third of my hair.
• Diffused for 2-3 minutes until dry.

My scalp felt better as soon as I applied the tea tree oil. Luckily, it took almost two days before the itching returned, so I followed the same routine (minus the first three steps for pre-treating my scalp) this morning. The results are pretty awesome.

Quick Update

 My first semester of Nursing school starts this Wednesday. I'm both excited and scared out of my mind. My backpack now weighs 50lb, and that's only going to increase with the absurd amount of papers I have been printing for class. The good news: carrying around 50lb on my back is going to give me some sweet glutes.

Half of my books.

The stack so far...and I haven't even started printing the PowerPoints yet.

Just when I started to think that maybe I want to go lighter with my hair color, my sister masters the perfect shade of red. So, red it is. For now.

Don't brush curly hair, ever. Unless you are about to apply color to it.

Blow-dried straight, a rare occurrence. I don't think I'm a fan.

Same hair cut, curly. Much better, even if I lost some length.

The same day I dyed my hair, my sister let me try her Wen. Since, I've only tried the product that one time (because I am not about to spend $30-$40 on any hair product), I can only tell you that: 1.) It smells amazing. My sister had bought the Summer Mango Coconut scent and it smells delicious.2.) It made my hair feel amazingly soft and silky, so it was perfect for after the chemical assault my hair had just been through. 3.) However, I am pretty confident that I could not use the product regularly because it is so moisturizing. I've been having issues with SheaMoisture's Moisture Retention shampoo being too moisturizing for my fine hair lately, so I've had to stop using conditioner with that product. There's no way my hair could handle Wen on a regular basis, nor could I afford it.

In my free time, which hasn't been very often, I've been spending some time birding with my camera. Come May, at the end of the semester, I am going to miss that entirely too much.

Bald Eagle, New Years Eve on the pond at my dad's house.

Northern Cardinal, Trustom Pond, 1/07/14

Cedar waxwing at a cemetery in Exeter, RI 1/09/14

Whitetail Deer, Trustom Pond, 1/07/14

Red shouldered hawk, Johnson's Pond, 1/07/14

Whitebreasted Nuthatch, Trustom Pond, 1/07/14

Red shouldered hawk in my back yard, 1/17/14

Other than that, I've been knitting hats, crocheting scarfs, and generally acting like an old lady.