Esther's Frugal Hair Solution!

[lawfulevil]

Really? Like someone said before, bleach and developer at Sally really isn't that expensive... still easy to screw up (attaining bright pink hair with my natural hair color was like trying to get rid of the One Ring, including the flames of Mordor on my scalp), but more reliable than a bottle of peroxide. And my hair wasn't too fried even with double-processing.

I think coloring a kid's hair is a little screwy but I suppose it depends on the context, if there's any time to have pink hair it's childhood, or second childhood.

On the subject of hand soap, I'm trying to get the right mix of Dr. Bronner's/distilled water to foam in those foam dispensers (I love the foam coverage, we have such hard water bar soap won't lather). Trial and error, not what I'd like so far, I think maybe a little additional glycerin? Salt? Chemists?

[clarinetpower]

Peroxide works great for getting water out of your ears and helping loosen built up wax. Learned that from my husband, former swim team captain. (I am not a porn addict, but I do have a serious Qtip problem.) Pour in a small bit (like half a cap full) and keep your head tilted and let it bubble. It takes a while, but it works really well.

Rubbing alcohol, I found out this week, works great for getting non-washable marker out of a 4 year old's white shirt. This is one of the dangers of washable markers--when they have never used anything but, non-washables are treated the same (and somehow, she covered the entire front of her shirt with kelly green.) Came out with alcohol! Have also used it to remove Sharpie from a dry erase board (thank you to my idiot teaching partner, but more thank you to the student who spent 45 minutes with cotton pads and alcohol and lots of elbow grease to remove it.)

A feather, pink streak, etc. for a kid is fun, but lightening hair of a two year old? Um, no. That suggests to me that some priorities are a bit messed up. (Note, my 2 year olds = platinum blondes anyway, but I still wouldn't.)

[emilymea]

I could never imagine changing a small child's hair color. I started coloring mine when I was in 7th grade, but in my mom's defense I have to admit why: I was starting to go grey and was self consience about it. My mom suggested putting highlights in so the gray would be less noticable.

Although, unlike this woman, my mom took me to a professional hair dresser every two months and had him do it for us.

And when I got tired of coloring my hair and was more confident in myself, my mom just said "ok" and supported me as I stopped highlighting my hair.

[Kaylee]

I make flax seed gel for my hair. Its super easy and less expensive then buying real hair gel. It has also improved the texture of my semicurly hair.

Me too. It works great and is the only thing that will keep my hair in curls more than an hour or two, plus it's soft and not crunchy.

There's big difference between frugal and good for your hair/skin and cheap but will destroy it though. My hippie streak means my haircare and color routine consists of henna every 6 weeks or so, shampoo bars and weak cider vinegar rinses, and coconut oil on the ends, but I'd never use peroxide on mine, and especially not on a child.

[Clementine]

Ah, yes, good old peroxide. It may work if you already are blond and want to go blonder.

Everybody else will end up with "peroxide yellow Eastern Europe/Russian hair".

I guess that it was difficult to find real hair products during the communist era, so they had to use what they had. And ended up with yellow hair. It was actually a joke in the 90's when a hair bleach went wrong: "She looked like a /insert Eastern European country/ hooker."

Can't wait for the hair disaster reports on the fundie blogs.

[SamuraiKatz]

Frugal hair coloring is Nice & Easy or L'oreal. Or perhaps a trip to the beauty school....but peroxide on hair....just too big a risk...

[snarkbillie]

I was? :think:

I capitalized the word "peroxide" as in "aha! peroxide! Who would ever have thought of that?" (Sarcasm)

It's how I read it when you were on about it being undiluted and then it clearly said 3%...... maybe you meant she should dilute the 3%?

I don't know.

I'm never trying to be a bitch, btw. I'm just kinda that way naturally.

[AudreyE]

This is all kinds of no. If your hair is not already fairly light, it will turn in orange or red. And, sheesh, you can use a coupon and a sale to buy Clairol for $2.00.

[snickerz]

All the comments about dying the toddler's hair have been deleted, so somebody's been reading FJ! :D

[darkplumaged]

When my sister was a toddler, she had a thick head of gorgeous natural ringlets. This was in the late 80s, during the height of the big hair/perm era. At least one person asked my mom if she permed my sister's hair. Can you imagine PERMING the hair of a wiggly 2-year-old? And who would consider putting chemicals in a child's hair a reasonable thing to do?

[19BabyGerkins]

On 1/27/2012 at 4:34 PM, snarkbillie said:

Would it be better for me to keep a sealed bottle of water in my first aide kit?

Absolutely!! Saline is the best option for cleaning cuts so I buy cheap saline spray that can be used for stuffy noses , JUST SALINE though no added decongestant etc and keep that in my kit because it is sealed and easy to use and takes up less space.  Typically if you are home you will have already stored water for a power outage so no need to duplicate!

[HerNameIsBuffy]

When I first saw this thread I was expecting her hair coloring tip to be crayons.  

Am I the only one who would give zero fucks about my hair color if I was permanently exhausted from 1000 kiddos and endless pregnancy? 

Why doesn't she just pray?  I mean if God wanted her blonder wouldn't she be born that way?  Or he could gift it to her if she just prayed hard enough?

I'll try tonight and if I wake up looking like Suzanne Sommers circa 1978 I'll let you all know it worked.