Hello and welcome.

Hello and welcome! 
I too am one for over thinking everything!
I could probably write half a book on soap making now and I haven't even starting one batch of soap! Terrible! :mwaha:

Hi nice to meet you  :buttrf:

Wow, lots of replies! Thank you all.


Oh, I've done a little bit of this and a little bit of that, never growing particularly proficient before I jumped to next one. I have done some lindyhopping! for... like a year or so? before dropping out, heading towards Argentine tango. I've actually been to Herräng! That place has some magic feeling to it - although the dancing experience was not so good for me. I went as beginner, I had taken like six classes before going to Herräng. They gave beginner classes week 1, but there is better beginner classes than in Herräng. The classes are way too hugh, for starters. I think you should be a little bit more advanced for Herräng, probably.


The pricing is amazing, isn't it!

I'm not an actual chemist. The chemistry and biochemistry I took at university level amounts to something like 5-6 months, I think, if I add it together. Most of it is long time ago, and of course I have forgotten huge chunks of it. I do have some remaining understanding of concepts though, and I can read and understand chemical explanations - if not too advanced, of course. This background was great when I started reading the INCI on labels. For people who don't understand the chemistry terminology at all, that must be way hard!

I have some chemistry related questions to ask. Not sure if this forum is the right place or not? That will show, I guess. I semi-regularly pester the only real chemist I know and he answers to the best of his ability although his field is extremely far away from organic chemistry and he ends all his answers with "I think", "I guess" or "possibly". 


Do you know if we as redheads are more eczema prone than others? I never heard anyone saying so. But since our skin is generally considered sensitive if feels kind of logical. OTOH we might ascribe most of our hair and skin characteristic to the redheadedness, even when this has nothing to do with it. At least for me, my hair always was a big part of my identity and I might well exaggerate importance here.


I know the feeling!

When I first started out I wanted to make hair , shampoo, shower cream, lotion, body butter... pretty much everything (except for soap. I have grown kind of interested in soap making lately but I probably won't try in the near future). I bought so many ingredients - small packages, but many different kinds. I still probably haven't really used half of them. The way I have gone about it, making your own cosmetic/skin care product is not very cheap at all.  On the other hand, it's a hobby - if I think of it that way, it is not a terribly expensive one. And considering what I have learned about handling my ezcemas, it has been worth every dime/penny/cent/öre/etc.


Hehe. Well. Aikido is not about fighting, anyway. It's a really weird martial art. To me it was more of an art form, really.


Thanks a lot for the warm welcome!

Another eczema sufferer here (naturally brunette!).

Try mixing a few drops of white birch eo, vitamin e and bisabolol into some shea butter. This has done wonders for eczema on my face lately, though it has been harder to get it under control on my hands.

I've been using it all over my face and my skin looks better than it has for ages.

Hello, nice to hear all about you  :buttrf:

Hi  welcome !

My younger brother and I are the only natural redheads in the family (lots of cousins, none have the skin problems that we do). I too have often wondered if there is a connection, but working in Pharmacy for so long, and seeing all kinds of patients collect dermatological prescriptions, I can't say I have noticed a particular trend.

I am a typical fiery redhead (and I'm an Aries - makes a good combo - stubborn and fiery  :mwaha:) but I colour my hair. I got bullied so much throughout my school years, I really resent my natural hair colour. Shame really, black hair is hard to maintain as a redhead

Shea butter is nice.

White birch EO? I never heard of it. *googling* Are you refering to Betula papyrifera or something else? Is the EO made from the leaves or the bark? Another suggestion on essential oils for eczemas I've seen is sage.

Bisabolol is on my list of stuff I want to try! Or chamomile, but since bisabolol is supposed to be the major "active ingredient" in chamomile that might be the first priority. I do have a small portion of bisabolol at home, haven't used it yet. I'm planning to use it in a lotion.

Now let's see. I do know how to make Pubmed searches... no, I can't find anything. It could be that they haven't studied it but still. They have made some advances in the study of the genetics of redheadedness, though. We have a mutated receptor, apparently and we need more anaestetics than others - that's something anaesthetists always knew! one of them told me 20 years ago. But now they've actually checked it. Hey, what is this! http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2928047


The quote is not in the linked abstract, but in the full article. Regarding men that is probably true, unfortunately. But women? Hasn't that changed dramatically over the last 20-30 years?


A sad thing to hear. I was bullied in school for my hair, among many other things. But the things they said about my hair never got to me, like some of the other things they said. I wouldn't say I'm proud of my hair, although I do like it, but it's something I've never questioned. It just is. I tried bleaching it once, but that was a pure experiment! I wanted to see if I still was me if I wasn't a redhead and I was. The experiment was fun, though. People didn't recognise me!

For several years I used henna to improve my hair colour. I thought it was getting fader, needing some help. But I did not really like what the henna did to the feeling of my hair, and the more intense colour make me look so pale - I am pale, no need exaggerating. So I dropped that.

I was a little (a lot) on the large side through my childhood right up until I hit my early 20's, so I didn't have a lot going for me from a bully's perspective! I'm still really sensitive about some things, and I guess it has made me kinda vain, and made me desperate to be a 'pretty' and 'sexy' girl. I spend a lot of time infront of the mirror and took time to learn how to do my makeup well, and I am careful what clothes I choose and how they look on me. I can easily take a step back and look at myself objectively, try and see myself how others do.
In a way I guess I'm a bit OCD with how I look (I'm sure a couple of people on here can vouch for that..). Its likely that a lot of people think that I really must love myself, but it's not that way at all. I don't feel confident if I feel that I don't look my best.
It's bad in the sense that I feel I always have to check my hair and makeup frequently, and always have to carry a mirror and 'supplies' with me, but good in the sense that I take care of my appearance, and I like to think that other people see that and respect it. I'm really not down with the 'scruffy' look that a lot of younger people seem to 'wear' these days (is that me just sounding old?). I quite like being pale, I embrace it now and play on it (dark hair, dark makeup). Even now, people at work tell me that I need to spend a few weeks in the sun, but a) I don't tan and b) I'd just look weird I think. Plus I don't want to look like everyone else, or to just 'fit in'. I tried to do that in my teens and it wasn't me, so now I just do what I want.
Funny how childhood experiences can stay with you for the rest of your life.

I'm almost the opposite Alphya... I usually go without makeup. I have nothing against it, I'm just too lazy. I do try to keep my hair in order, but the time I'm willing to spend on it is limited. Since I quit shampoo (well almost at least) and usually conditioner wash, I feel I should be a good representative of the conditioner wash method and always have fabulous-looking hair  but I don't.

I guess I'm one of those women who make other women irritated because I don't spend enough time on my appearance.

I've met of couple of nicely tanned redheads - it's more golden, never really brown, but it matches the rest of their colours well. I guess you could be right that it wouldn't look right with black hair.

I have a friend who is just as pale as me, but she doesn't have the same colours. Her hair is brownish black and the skin tone is different - I can't say if it's more olive or blue, but not like mine. When we spend the first summer's afternoon together in the sun, my freckles that go pale in winter come back almost while you're looking at them - after a couple of hours they're back in full strength. The rest of my skin mostly go pink :p but in her, nothing happens. And still she's as pale as me. She needs mediterranean sun to make a difference. When I comment on it she smiles and says "desert genes" (she's of Jewish origin). But most peoples who has lived where it's sunny has dark skin... this is so weird.

Hm, it's the deliberately scruffy hair that looks completely unbrushed, and messed up makeup that I can't stand 

Conditioner wash? What's that? I'm curious  :buttrf:

When I was younger I had quite a lot of freckles (typical ginger kid) but as I've gotten older they've just disappeared apart from a few on my arms (which I quite like).
I went to Texas for a holiday a few years back, came home the same colour as the day I flew out  :mwaha:

Conditioner wash means using conditioner for washing your hair. It does work, but you have to rub the scalp more than when you use shampoo - and you can't use most styling products, since they contain things that stick to your hair and won't come out with just conditioner. You can't use just any kind of conditioner either - this is how I first learned to read the INCI labels!

The "gospel" of conditioner wash, especially for curly hair, was spread first by Lorraine Massey in her book "Curly Girl", and then by websites like http://www.naturallycurly.com and http://www.britishcurlies.co.uk/. Most people who talk about no 'poo - no shampoo methods of washing your hair - go "conditioner only", CO. But there's other versions as well.

Some people who put lots of wax etc in their hair use regular shampoo, and then sometimes they need an extra strong, so called "clarifying shampoo" to get all the styling product residue out. I'm very strict on styling products, but I do get some beeswax in my hair since I use creams with beeswax and probably touch my hair more than I'm aware of. I wash with conditioner and sometimes use a mild shampoo without SLS or SLES, to get beeswax and possible silicone/hair product polymers out. The difference in my hair is dramatic. My hairs used to want to be all by themselves, very frizzy - so dry, and nothing helped.  My  hairdressers always complained about the shape my hair was in - they sounded like they thought my hair had never seen a hair pack. But I did hair packs every time I washed it... it didn't help, as long as I dried the hair out with regular shampoo. Now they don't complain any more, although I cut it much more seldom.

I don't go around telling people I very rarely shampoo. Too many people would probably think I was disgusting. I assure you, those who have actually stuck their noses into my hair these last years have found nothing to complain about. If I got stuff like motor oil in my hair, then sure I need shampoo... but I really think most of us overwash our hair and skin. Thoroughly lather all over probably is needed if you bath once a week! but nobody does that these days, right? If your skin and hair is very dry, they benefit from cutting down on the washing. Washing with milder agents lets you wash often but still not dry out too much.

When I feel dirty, for some reason, I need the bubbles... plenty of soap, and shampoo with a good lather. But that's more of a ritual. I don't actually think I need all that to get myself clean. (Isn't this why the liquid SLS-based soaps and shower creams almost completely took over the market? Because they give more lather. And in our minds, more lather means we get more clean.)

I'm the same way.  I KNOW that something less bubbly can work just as well, but I can't quite believe it.  This week I made my first 'real' shampoos, but used really mild surfactants, and it didn't foam hardly at all.  My husband thought his hair didn't get clean because of that and then rewashed his hair with grocery store shampoo.  I was dubious that it cleaned my hair until I dried it, and it was fine!