DIY natural hair treatment- A wee experiment

Banana, egg and olive oil hair mask

My hair has been in the worst condition lately. I've been trying to dye it from dark red to platinum white (right now it is a light ginger blonde- before it was BRIGHT ORANGE). As I am sure many of you probably know, bleaching hair is extremely damaging and will leave you with thin, breaky and straw like strands.

***A little background on my hair- I have been dying it since I was about 9 and have had most colours. I've gone from the the whitest of white to the blackest of blacks and everything in between. I've been in the process growing it properly for about 3/4 years and it is just below waist length, but the longest it has been is below my belly button. My hair is probably the thing people most comment on about me.


So to save my poorly locks I did a bit of googling and came across a natural, cheap and nourishing concoction to put on my bonce consisting of bananas, eggs and olive oil.

My first thought was 'ewww, I don't like the idea of putting egg in my hair' but reading up on each ingredient and why it helps eventually changed my mind:

Banana- Full of potassium, iron and B vitamins that are great for your hair and will make it stronger and shinier.

Egg- The egg white is rich in protein which repairs the hair, fixes split ends and protects against damage. The egg yolk again is good for shine and smoothness.

Olive oil- I think you can use any oil, I actually used sunflower oil, but this just helps with shine.

HOW I DID IT

Step 1- Brush your hair to eliminate all knots and tangles.

Step 2- Get yourself a bowl and take your banana. Put the banana into the bowl *skin removed* and start mashing it with a fork. Do this until the mixture is as smooth as possible- you'll see why this is important in my review below.
Use common sense here; if your hair is longer or thicker then you'll probably need two bananas, if it's shorter or thinner then one should suffice.

Step 3- Break two eggs and add them to the the bowl and mix.

Step 4- Add roughly a tablespoon of olive oil to the mixture. You can add more if you want your hair to be shinier.

Step 5- Apply to hair. I would recommend doing this over the sink as it is a messy job! I just grabbed it with my hands and smeared all though my hair until it was covered.

Step 6- Wrap your hair up in a plastic bag to keep it out the way and also to allow the heat from your head to help the mixture nourish your hair further. If you want you could also wrap your head in a towel to keep it even warmer.

You can leave the mixture on for as long as you want but I'd say up to an hour will do.

To wash it off simply run under cool water (hot water might cook the egg) and then shampoo and condition as normal. Leave hair to dry naturally if possible.


WHAT I THOUGHT OF IT- REVIEW:

Now my hair has dried I can honestly say it feels a lot better than before!! It's super soft and feels really thick and healthy, before I had strands snapping off at shoulder length and my hair was uneven due to how much had snapped off. Once it had dried I tugged at it and nothing broke or fell off! The ends of my hair still looked flimsy and straggly (there were really really damaged and coarse) so I did chop them off and now my hair looks a lot healthier.

The negatives to this D.I.Y hair job is that even though I had tied a bag around my head, the mixture still dripped down onto my face and it was horrid! It is very oily and therefore very runny.Another thing about this hair mask is that the banana goes brown after about half an hour and you will smell the banana for the whole length of time you have it applied! If this isn't a problem for you then don't worry but I personally found this quite unpleasant. And finally when you come to wash it out the banana can be extremely difficult to get out! I assume this is because I didn't make it smooth enough but I had to pick chunks of brown old banana out my hair which was not nice at all.

Overall though I would definitely recommend this home-made hair mask to anyone with damaged hair or who just wants go give their locks a little treat. It's cheap, it's natural and it actually works so I will definitely be doing this again. Just next time I'll but the banana in a blender!

Thanks for reading!

Style Icons: Lydia Deetz

I want to tell you all about my fashion interests. As I expect everyone and their mother uncle on here says, fashion is a great love of mine, and I believe personal style is the best and most effective way to express who you are to other people. From how a person chooses to dress themselves you can generally get an idea of the kind of person they are and what their interests might be.
You are always going to be judged by your cover, so I say why not give the bastards something to really judge you for?

Anyway enough spiel, I will tell you all one of my most favourite ever style icons. Fictional character from Tim Burton's Beetlejuice; Lydia Deetz.


"Live people ignore the Strange and unusual; I myself am strange and unusual."- Lydia Deetz

Lydia Deetz in Beetlejuice 1988, portrayed by Winona Ryder

When I was a kid and I first saw Beetlejuice, I wanted to be Lydia Deetz. I was a grungy little tomboy at the time and I thought she just looked so cool with her kooky black hair, Victorian inspired dresses and chalk white skin. Lydia was the moody gothic teenager who wore black veils in the sunlight and carried a camera around her neck at all times. I knew that when I grew up, I would want to dress like Lydia from Beetlejuice.
She was quite the enigma on the screen. Saying little at first but still commanding your attention, her style and appearance was hard to miss. Love her or hate her, you'd see her.

The reasons I like Lydia's style is because I felt it was a true expression of her. She was a kid who liked the darker side of life, even referred to herself as 'strange and unusual'. From looking at her you'd be able to tell the kind of girl she was and what her interests probably were.

Whenever I go for a long black skirt and choose to then pair it with a dark black top, it'll remind me of Lydia. As sad as this will sound it then makes me feel a bit more encouraged to wear all black and allow my skin to look as pasty white and cold as it always does, without a cheeky bit of blusher or bronzer!

"My whole life is a dark room. One big dark room."- Lydia Deetz

Mr ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ-andman

They say the mind is more creative at night-time as opposed to day. So how's the old brain box gonna be working at 00:57 on a Monday morning, following 39 and a half hours without sleep?

I have had sleeping problems for as long as I can remember. When I was but a tiddly-wink I was afraid of sleep because I would suffer horrific nightmares every night, and I shamefully admit to creeping into my parents bedroom during the witching hours until a rather ridiculous age (I'm talking double figures).

I still have nightmares or extremely vivid dreams; but my nightmares now will probably involve some mortifying situation I could more than likely get myself into in my everyday life, and not a vampire walking up my bedroom walls or a killer who stole the faces of my parents to trick me. And rather than more vivid dreams being about mystical lands and mermaid cities, they tend to be so mundane and dull that I have actually asked my mum if she did pick me up those fish fingers I wanted the other day, then to find out she only promised me in a dream.

I have been known go through stages, months at a time, where I will sleep or snooze up to 16 hours in a day; only really getting up to go loo, make a sandwich or watch telly, and other periods where I will go as much as 3 days without sleeping, then kip for a mere 6 hours until the next 3 days. This happened a lot more frequently during my late adolescence.

I now strictly rely on sleeping tablets to get a good nights rest. It's terrible, I know, not to mention expensive, but it gets the job done and ensures I can lead a healthier and more human lifestyle.

Just every now and again I miss feeling sleep deprived and like I'm breaking free of the normal routine role that everyone does. I like stealing those precious hours taken up by sleep and directing them towards some space for reflection or to just to have some me time, knowing all those around me are in the land of nod; where their teeth are dropping out of their mouth or they're running to catch that last train but are moving so slow that they cannot keep up.

I can feel as though I am the only person conscious at this time, and that I am in some way more in control of life, or that I am being given a sneaky preview into the 'forbidden hours' when we must not be awake.


As lame as it sounds I try to take things like these as little blessings in life. I am a lover of the little things, because it is those I believe that make up the bigger picture...

...That and also staying up late is super rock 'n' roll and it sorta makes me a legit vampire.