It’s Getting Hairy! – by Sheila

Well, we seem to be back to the topic of hair again: it never seems to be far away!  Could that be because we have a fair bit of it, unlike most of the adult males in our lives, and don’t relish the idea of being filthy on Kilimanjaro?  I absolutely love the story in yesterday’s guest post about Rachael’s dreads.

I mentioned in the blog of 28th March about how Christine at Catching Lives was told as a child that washing her hair more than fortnightly could damage it.  Christine told me a bit more about this recently.  It seems that she was also advised that washing her hair during a period could be positively hazardous to her health. Better remember that girls!!!??!  Christine’s hair is a glorious deep reddish colour, and she says her aunt had similarly beautiful hair.  As her aunt got into her sixties, she became more and more concerned about the dangers of washing her hair: it seems that the family considered it a very risky undertaking.  So for the last twenty or so years of her life, her aunt never washed her hair at all, but just used dry shampoo.  Christine says that her aunt’s hair stayed the same wonderful reddish colour till the day she died – so maybe there is something in it.

Batiste dry shampoo

When I was a teenager, hot water wasn’t always easily available, and we did something called a dry shampoo, but what we used was talcum powder. We would simply sprinkle the talc out of the tin on to our hair, rub it around a bit and then brush it out.  It seemed to do the job.  However, Jae tells me that she has thought of a much better solution for when we are on the 3G climb – we’ll find out all about it tomorrow!

2 thoughts on “It’s Getting Hairy! – by Sheila”

  1. I really enjoyed Racheal’s blog about her dreadlocks, too – especially the bit about using lemon Jif on her scalp!
    My mother always said I shouldn’t wash my hair too often and I tend to go along with that – I only wash mine about every 5 days and it stays in good condition. My daughters wash theirs every day and their scalps tend to go overboard on producing grease. I think they should try dry shampoo instead.
    My mother also thought you shouldn’t take a bath during a period, which is even worse than not washing your hair! Menstruation was seen as a kind of unmentionable illness in those days and so the field was wide open for superstitions.

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