Healthy Hair Treatment Tutorial

Hello everyone!

I thought I would film myself doing the hair treatment I talked about in January. Everyone seemed so interested and I thought this video would be a welcome help to those who wanted to try it. If you have any questions, want to try it, or have tried it please comment. I love to hear from all of you! I know I have not posted in over a month and I can't promise lots of posts, but I have some ideas in mind for future posts. I hope to be posting some more before the end of the month is out. Oh and big thanks to my sister Bethany for filming this! I could not have made the video without her.

God bless!
Rebecca

Hair Growth Tips

Hi everyone!

I had a question from a reader about my hair again. Thank you Hannah Elise for your good question on how to take care of your hair so it can grow longer. Her question was how do you get your hair to grow out and what tips do you have for doing this. I really have not been trying until a couple months back to grow my hair out. I decided over the summer I want to get my hair to be as long as it was when I donated it when I was 12 years old, which was down to my bottom.

My hair this past spring was only about shoulder length. 

My hair right now is half way down my back. So it grew a lot between last april and now. 

The first thing I would say for anyone even with straight or curly or wavy hair to eat well. If you don't eat so great all the time like me take supplements and a daily vitamin. Ever since I started doing this my hair has definitely felt healthier and looked healthier. The vitamins I take are raw vitamins from the brand Garden of life, which I buy from vitacost. Thank you to Mrs. Soderstrom for telling us about Vitacost! Its totally literally saved our lives and money. :) We buy all kinds of supplements and food products from them monthly for much cheaper than the health food store in our area.

Another thing I think works, I don't know quite yet, but I think not cutting my hair regularly has let it grow at a faster rate. I really do think that has let it grow faster. I cannot say for sure. But it sure it longer than it was last summer. When my curly hair is wet it is down to my bottom. When its curly its about half way down my back.

I would also say keeping your hair clean and moisturized helps. I always do a moisturizing treatment every 1-2 months. I use a recipe my sister found online somewhere. It includes oatstraw, olive oil, vinegar, and an egg. Ok I am pretty much into doing things natural so if you are not too keen on natural hair care then this method might not be for you. :) You can totally buy a hair moistureizing treatment from the grocery too. Its cheaper for me and better for my hair and body I think to use the raw foods to moisturize, but you be the judge of that.

My hair at the length it is currently at is half way down my back when its curly. When its wet its down to my rear end. 

Here is the recipe for this hair moisturizing treatment. I do it the evening before a day I am not going anywhere. I also do it when my family and I are not going anywhere and do not have company. The vinegar has a strong odor so its not too pleasant for people who are not used to smelling it. ;) The vinegar in this treatment makes hair shiny and darker. Lemon juice will make it lighter in color. The eggs add vitamins your hair needs to be healthy. The oils add moisture and the oat straw adds more nutrients for your hair.

Beautiful Hair Treatment
Recipe-

3/4 cup of lemon juice or vinegar ( use lemon for lighter highlights, or vinegar for red/darker highlights)
1/2 cup oat straw
2 beaten eggs
1 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil or mayonnaise (optional)

(I would only use olive oil on hair that is dry like curly hair. My sister Bethany does not use it because her hair tends to be oily and therefore it makes the oil worse. I have never tried mayonnaise on my hair and probably never will as its eggs too.)

Directions-

1. In a small pot, mix the lemon or vinegar with your oat straw. Heat the mixture on the stove for 5 minutes and don't let it boil.

2. Let the mixture cool for 5 minutes, and mix 2 beaten eggs. For those of you with dry hair, add the 2 tablespoons of olive oil or mayonnaise. a bit of lavender or rosemary ground into powder can also be added to the treatment at this time to give it a faint, pleasant scent.

3. Grab a plastic grocery bag and a damp warm towel first before you apply your treatment! I have made this mistake of forgetting to get them before my hands are covered in the goop. :) Apply the treatment to your hair, ensuring you cover the most damaged parts such as your ends. Keep mixture warm by placing a plastic baag over your hair, and wrapping a warm, damp towel around your head.

4. Leave it on for 45 minutes or so ( the longer the better). As the towel cools, you can warm it up again to get the most out of the treatment.

5. Without shampooing, rinse your hair, and let air dry. use shampoo the following day. However, if you added the oil or may, you may want to shampoo before bedtime to avoid staining your bedding. ( I always shampoo after doing the treatment.)

My treatment lasts me about 2 months, so I like to do it every other month.

I hope this post was helpful and informative. If you have any tips for how to keep your hair healthy and growing longer comment below.

God bless,
Rebecca

Updated Hair Washing Routine

Hi All! I forgot to post this new hair routine video to my blog after filming it. I hope its helpful to all the curly girls out there. I always condition my hair after I wash it and I use conditioner as leave in conditioner/moose. I find the conditioner does a better job than moose or leave-in conditioner for me personally. You can find my Giovanni brand conditioner here and my psoriasis home health shampoo here.

Photo source

Just for fun here is the character from the Adams Family I thought I looked like when I flipped my hair forward. lol :)

God bless and comment below if you have questions or remarks!
Rebecca

My Hair and Make Up Routine

Hi everyone!

I did this video the other day, I thought a change up would be great on my you-tube channel and blog from music to hair and make up. :) By the way if you do not have curly hair the hair part might not be that informative. But the hair style I show can be done with any type of hair! So do watch that part which is at the beginning of the video. The make up routine is the second half of the video. I am sorry its 18 minutes long! If you watch the whole thing brownie points for you. ;)

At the end I just share a little bit of what the Lord is teaching me from His WORD and my life right now. I also exhort you guys younger than me to pursue Christ even if He seems distant. So watch that young ladies if you get to the end or you can just fast forward to the end. ;)

God bless and I am going on vacation! So see you all next week.
In Christ,
Rebecca

Life and hair care video

Hi everyone! It took me 2 hours to upload this so I hope you love this video!! :) I am glad it finally worked. :) I am hoping this video is informative on natural hair care for curly girls and you are encouraged by my life update.
If you have any questions about my hair or the changes the Lord has brought forth in my life please comment below or email me at ra.stricker@gmail.com
God bless!
Rebecca

My Hair Care routine update and self sufficiency

Hello everyone!

I have been asked by a few friends in person and on the blog sphere what my hair care routine actually is. So I am going to try and answer that question in this post. There are so many different things on the internet, it did seem overwhelming and a little scary back in August 2010 when I took the plunge and decided to wash my hair with an egg and some baking soda and water. :) I first heard about the method from the Feelin Feminine website. You can find it here-http://feelinfeminine.com/ Jocelyn had also posted a lot of tutorials on her blog A Pondering Heart, that interested me and thats how I took the plunge and washed my hair with a fresh egg from some of our friends hens. :) I also rinsed with apple cider vinegar back then, but now I don't do that anymore and love the results much better.
Little did I realize that I would be changing the way I thought about taking care of my curls. :)

Now here is a recent photo from about a month ago of what hair looks like currently. I believe its much healthier to the touch, not so dry and brittle and much bouncier curls. :)

photo credit-http://www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/shopping-storing/food/storing-hard-cooked-eggs-10000000695687/index.html

I told you all that the first thing I tried was washing my hair with an egg. Now I do not wash my hair with an egg every day. My new routine that has been working for me is doing it once a week, but washing my hair with water and the egg yoke only. I use the egg white whisked for moose. Like I said I do not do this daily, just once a week. I highly recommend using fresh brown eggs from a farmer you may buy from or friends who have laying hens. But if you can't get that get brown organic, cage free eggs from your grocery store. The white eggs you do not know where they have been and they don't have as much protein and stuff that is good for you in them. Since most white eggs were processed in a plant and were from chickens who were ill treated and not fed good stuff they won't be so great for you. But anyway brown eggs are the best in my opinion! :)

photo credit-http://lifehackery.com/2008/07/22/home-4/

The next thing I use it baking soda, now many of you may be saying it has no smell really and you use that for baking, not washing?! Well baking soda actually is a very good for washing just about anything, hair included. My mom uses it to scrub our sinks and I scrub that sinks in the bathrooms and the bath tub with the stuff. It also works great on tile. I am not sure what is exactly in the stuff that makes it such a great thing to clean with, but it works well for hair as well. I only scrub my scalp with it. I don't dump it all over my hair. I talked about in this post putting a little in the bottom of a condiment/sqeeze bottle and adding water up to the top. I still do this, but I have cut back on how much baking soda I use. My hair is very dry usually and baking soda can dry out your hair. 


I have heard in the no shampoo world that gals like me with hair that tends to be dry use very little( I don't measure it when I put it in the bottle), but I probably use about a teaspoon and a half I am guessing. But definitely experiment yourself to see what is best for you. I have heard gals with hair that tends to get greasy should use more than what I would use, because it will keep there hair not so greasy. 

You may be wondering what do you do for conditioning your hair?! You said you don't use vinegar anymore. Well I stopped using the apple cider vinegar because my dad and sister and mother all said my hair smelled funny, not bad, just a little weird. :) That was before I had added essential oils to my routine. Maybe when you all experiment you could add some essential oils to your routine to cover up the vinegar. But instead of vinegar I have been using an organic conditioner we have that needs to be used up. But now that thats gone I am using egg whites again. But I don't put that in till after I have gotten out of the shower. I don't condition in the shower anymore. This works well for me. You just take one egg white from one egg and whisk it till its frothy and then put it through your hair just as you would a store bought moose or gel.  It works great for me!

I also have started using essential oils. I love to use orange or lavender. I add a few drops to my baking soda shampoo and I put some in my hair between washings when I don't need to wash it but I want some scent. I love the natural scent and I am never using store bought bath and body works sprays again either. I love essential oils instead. I have seen bottles of it at wegmans, which was the best buy for us when we first wanted some essential oils to try and at whole foods. Wholes food is really expensive, so I would recommend that as a last resort. We have now been getting them in bulk from a whole sale company. So that has been great! But definately research how you could make or buy them cheaper than at the regular grocery. I have been making rose oil this past week with yellow roses from my yellow rose bush in our yard. I plant to make some rose water as well. So you could do that as well instead of essential oils. I so very much want to be self sufficient and not need to go to a grocery all the time. We hardly go anymore, since we started growing some veges, going to the farmers markets, getting eggs from a local farmer, milk and meats and cheese as well from a local farmer. So we hardly go anymore! So start small and try and make your own maybe. I was inspired very much this month by the Devrae family.Here is a video about them below-

They are totally self sufficient, well dependent on the land the Lord has given them. I would love for my family and I to be able to be somewhat sufficient as that someday. We are hoping to get laying hens soon, but in our city it may not be aloud. Still seeing if we can though.:) 


well sorry for the rant off of hair care, but definately when you change your life style from buying off a shelf all the time to buying from farmers, etc. or growing it yourself you tend to appreciate and be more thankful for what the Lord has provided. I have found this to be true! No way am I sufficient on only the land the Lord has given my family, but we are trying to be more frugal with our purchases and buying fresh and natural foods and products instead of the massed produced stuff. This has really been on my mind lately after going to the food and farmers rights rally. 


Have a lovely rest of your monday!


In Christ,
Rebecca


I thought I better add a list of places where I found recipes and other encouragement and ideas about going without store bought shampoos and conditioners. 
http://ylcf.org/gotcurl/ - great place for curly girls!
http://aponderingheart.com/blog/?p=4749
http://aponderingheart.com/blog/?p=2201
http://feelinfeminine.com/?page_id=2 - I was featured with my no shampoo story in their e-book on feelin feminine, may be worth your money if you are new to it and want all the resources in one spot!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yF0hizHWghc&feature=related - this gal did a great video telling about what she uses to wash her hair! I got inspired by her in the first place when I found her on the feelin feminine site!

I hope all these links help you all out! :)

Natural hair care and a birthday

Hi everyone,

I thought I would show some pictures of my sister and I after the fact of using baking soda and apple cider vinegar only to wash our hair for about 2 months. We have been doing it since August and we love it! My hair never felt so healthy or curly! :)

 We went to D.C. 2 weeks ago for Bethanys 18th birthday along with my parents and 2 of our best friends. Once again I do not have a camera and my friend has an amazing camera as she a professional photographer. So we got a lot of photos! Below all four of us together. Picture taken by my father.

 As you can see my hair is a lot longer than it used to be and its a lot curlier! I believe that the apple cider vinegar has helped my hair as well as the baking soda along with rose mary has darkened my hair as well as Bethanys hair. She is using the same thing and her red hair has gotten darker because the rose mary is supposed to be used for brunettes, but we share our shampoo. So her auburn hair is even more auburn.

 You can see both of our types of hair here. We got to see the national gardens as well as their tropical indoor rain forest in this picture. If any of you have any questions about hair care or our trip to D.C. do comment. This post will be more about my family than hair. :)

Happy birthday dear Beth and I am so thankful for such a wonderful, God fearing sister. I love you and may God continue to develope our relationship even closer to Him.

Oh and you can see the bag Bethany is carrying in the photos. I do not have better pictures of it, but I made it for her birthday. Wish I had close ups. :)

I thought this painting below was amazing! Our whole group was amazed at this painting! My family just finished reading through the book of Joshua together in our family Bible study and this painting put things into perspective. Its hard to imagine armies around Jericho, but you can in this painting.

Look how small the brush had to be to paint the soldiers. Quite amazing we thought.

The two harpists with the harpist painting.

I want to recreate this dress above someday! I love the puff sleeves and bow around the waist. No I will not recreate the scarey rug!!! :)

A painting of a 1860s lady! We were pleased as this gal reminded us of Bethanys civil war wool dress and red plaid apron.

And yes my parents came along too for the fun. I am so thankful for their love and kind words as they have mentored me these 19 years. They are a great example of trusting the Lord for our family and going against the current of our culture even when its hard. Love you Dad and Mom!

Adventures in Hair care and His Creation

Hey everyone!
Last saturday my family and I along with friends went to see the Great Falls on the Potomac. It was amazing! I love seeing the Lords creation. Below is my family and I in front of the falls.
Well I have also been on an adventure for 2 weeks and its been working! Hallelujah! Praise the Lord for being able to use natural things to clean yourself with. :)

Ok so I read the Feelin feminine site often and I had seen their articles on natural shampoos that they call no poo. Yes its a funny word for not using store bought shampoos or going no poo. I started trying it sunday night when I washed my hair with an egg yoke and rinsed with vinegar.Yes I was a little skeptical. I thought it might be grose or not work. I have been also researching and came across this video below and that is the method I have been using for shampoo and conditioner. I also have been making my own hair mousse and it works so much better than what I buy usually from the store. I love it! IThe mousse is made from egg whites blended in the mixer. Its a nice foam when its done just like store bought mousse. It might sound weird or grose, but its great. So I thought I would share what my bottles look like and I will be posting pictures of my homemade mousse and my hair later next week. That way you can see my hair does not look grose and it does work.

Natural shampoo and conditioner video

So I have been using the above video method with rose mary and baking soda diluted with water to wash my hair. And then I rinse with water and conditon with apple cider vinegar. Here are my bottles to prove it below. Now it may look grose, but I love the smell of the rose mary in the shampoo and I added some lavendar essential oil. The Apple cider vinegar is on the left and the shampoo with water, rose mary, and baking soda is on the right. I had these full last sunday and now they are only half full. I use a lot to scrub my scalp. I have dry scalp so I have been using a lot. The lady in the video and other sites have said that rose mary and baking soda are supposed to help with dry scalp. So hopefully this natural shampoo will help with that. So far I have seen less dandruff on my cloths and coming out of the my scalp. So I am glad its helping so far!



I just found this article over at passionate homemaking today and she has other recipes that I have not tried yet. See the article below.

Natural shampoo atricle
So that has been one of my many adventures these past week. Its been fun and I love the way my hair feels and looks. If you want to learn more about hair care look at feelinfeminine as well as that video and passionate homemaking is great as well.

You can see the results of my new natural hair care below. My sister Bethany as also been using the rosemary and baking mixture along with apple cider vinegar to wash and condition her hair. We love it so far! You can also see more of our adventure seeing the Potomac falls and forest near by. It was great to hike again!

More of our latest adventures in sewing colonial frocks soon. My stays are coming along and many other jackets and stays for others as well have been being sewn by Bethany and I and friends. Its been fun and great to do a new era of history.

Have a lovely day!

In Christ,

Rebecca

Modified Molly Inspired Hair style

Hello everyone!
Yesterday I washed my hair and styled it again in a style I think represents Molly's hairstyle much better than my messier style. I was pleased. What do you all think? Better or not like it really at all?
I thought putting my curls higher on my head made the difference, conpared to yesterday's lower hair style.

I just wish I had someone to take pictures for me. I hate asking my sister to do it as she is very busy. Its hard for me to get pictures with the self timer of myself closer up. I do use the self timer for full length shots like yesterdays outfit.

I am have been so suprised at all the interest in my little blog the past few weeks! I have over 40 followers now and I can't believe it! hehe

I love hearing your comments and it makes me smile to hear from like minded ladies on here.

God bless and have a wonderful wednesday!

In Christ,

Rebecca

My outfit for today

Hey everyone!

I thought I would share with you all what my outfit is for today as well as my inspired hair style from Molly's hairstyle in the movie Wives and Daughters. I love Molly's hairstyle because it is done with the same type of hair I have. Having natural curls I don't get a lot of inspiration from movies usually because most actresses don't have natural curls. So I love her style and I have done this type of style for about a year now as a style I can do when I have not washed my hair that day. I can just pin the curls on top of my head. :)
Ok mine is not as neat as when I wash my hair and then put it up. The curls work better with this style when the hair has been washed that day. I will be posting pictures later this week of this done in a less messy style. But I am not a hollywood actress and this was inspired by Molly's hair style. :)

Also today and yesterday I wore my favorite and one and only blue shirt that I own!!! I do own some ice blue shirts, but this is my one and only true blue shirt I own. I love the sequins, which remind me of Lord of the Rings elvish style clothing for some reason. I feel like a princess in this top from another era. The shirt is about 6 years old! Yes I bought this shirt when I was 12 or 13! I am 18 years now respectfully, but I still love this shirt, it will be in my wardrobe until it wears out. :)
The grey long sleeve layering shirt was free from a friend. :)

I also wore one of my favorite skirts. I made this skirt this past september before my sister and I headed out to England with Jennie Chancey on her England tour of London and Bath. It was a great versatile skirt for the trip. I also bought the polyester grey striped fabric on sale at Joann and love it. A great find in the red tag section. I used one of my favorite patterns from Folkwear. Its called the 1910 walking skirt pattern. It is on there website here . My sister, mother, and I adore this pattern! It works so well with modern tops, blouses, and sweaters. I have posted before about another skirt I made out of the same pattern, except using a charcoal grey hairing bown flannel fabric also from Joann on sale.
God bless and I will be posting pictures of this hair style again later this week.
Oh and just a side! I am dreaming about making this riding skirt soon! I want the pattern for my birthday, which is in april. I also would love to receive a pair of regency shoes as well. My sister and I will be doing a 1812 reenactment in June Lord willing. So I would love to have proper shoes to go with my outfit.Here is the website, it also has some colonail shoes my sister and I both are planning to purchase for a fall reenactment where we will be doing revoluntionary war. I am so excited abaout these new era's to reenact!!
In Christ,
Rebecca

1915 inspired hair style

Hello everyone!

This past week I watched the movie Anne the Continuing Story, I had heard good and bad about this movie. I love the books as well as the first 2 movie adaptions. This was my first time watching the third in many years. I was not pleased with some of the movie, but really happy Anne and Gilbert get married and the costumes were gorgoeus!

I was inspired by Anne's hair in this movie adaption. So I tried something out for my own hair. I did it differently in the back so you could see my curls and I did part it on the side. The next day I tried another style that I also made up and liked it too. I wore this with my 1910 skirt with a yellow sweater and locket and my brown 1915 looking heels and I was set! I will take a picture when I wear the outfit again tomorrow. I will try and do my hair again too.

Here is my version.

I was quite happy with it and I just love my hair up when I have time. Its out of my way and is quite cool when you are running around doing errands, around the house getting things accomplished. More pictures coming soon later this week. I have a lot of school work and a reenactment to get ready for on wednesday, so I will probably not be posting till thursday.

God bless and may your week be productive and for His glory!

These two verses were the proverbs I focused on this past week and the preacher at a church my family attended yesterday even talked about them!

Proverbs 13:3 " Whoever guards his mouth preserves his life; he who opens his lips wide comes to ruin."

Proverbs 12 " The hand of the diligent will rule, but the slothful will be forced to labor."

I knew the Lord was speaking directly to me. I need to be productive and diligent and not slothful and speak wisdom and not foolishness. Hope that encourages you all to live for Him, not just sitting around waiting for Jesus to come back, but being diligent in all we do till that day.

In Christ,

Rebecca