Day 6: (DIY) Face And Hair Masks

Let me let you in on a little secret. My hair color is not natural. (I know, shocker for most of you isn’t it? ;) I dye my hair a lot. At least four times a year, you can find me in front of the mirror with my hands in gloves and my hair covered in black goo. I love dying my hair, but like everything in the world, it does not come with out a price. I pay for it with more hair damage and split ends than the average woman and faded, dull hair color every few months. I usually over-compensate for this with lots of hair conditioning masks (insert plug for Pantene Pro-V Revitalizing Hair Mask here) and de-frizzing hair serums.  Today, I decided I’d take it to the next level. Or what I thought was the next level. DIY hair masks are always said to be “so great and extra beneficial” because you can pick and choose all the raw vitamins and minerals you put in your hair. Well, if you had asked me yesterday I would have said I totally agree! Ask me now? Yea, that’s a lie.

I decided to finally try a DIY hair mask, and since I was taking that step, hey why not add a face mask too? If i’m going to jump into the pool, I might as well take a dive from the high board, right? So I went online and looked at different beauty sites to find masks that were good for dry and damaged hair, and anti-aging and hydrating for skin. Two of my sisters decided they’d jump in too and I was now getting really excited for this.

Here are the recipes I decided to use (there are so many variations of these, let alone a hundred other ones completely different):

Hair Mask: 1 banana, 1 egg, 3 tbs. honey, 3 tbs. milk, 5 tbs. olive oil  -for 2 people- leave on 15-30 minutes

Face Mask: 1 banana, 1 egg, 1 tsp. honey, 2-4 tbs. oat bran/ ground oats- for 2 people- leave on 15 minutes

We decided to do the hair mask first, and when my sister, Bec, finally stopped eating it (it did taste pretty good) we slopped it on our hair, anticipation of the results rising within us. The application process was very reminiscent of coating my hair with dye and I found myself taken in to my happy place…except the awful smell of banana unfortunately followed me there(I hate that smell). The hair mask was the easy part, we soon found out, as the face mask application was anything but fun (or graceful).  We mixed and applied the face mask while our hair was being “beautified”. I always envisioned a face mask as being creamy, smooth, and thick (kind of like the ones from the stores and spas- not that I’ve ever been to a spa). This definitely was not like that. Ever see the episode of Keeping Up With the Kardashians where Kim makes a face mask and lies on the kitchen counter while Khloe applies it? No? Well you’re pretty much about to read it. Except minus the lying on counter part- which come to think about it would probably have been a great help to us.

The mixture was chunky, somewhat runny, and just all around nasty. We couldn’t really get it thick enough because it was chunky, and it was running down our face because we didn’t think to lie down and have someone else do it. The pictures give you a pretty clear idea of the monsters we created. My nephew, Jake, was also here to watch the fun, which he apparently didn’t see any humor in as he started screaming when his own mother, my sister, Deb, picked him up. My mom had to carry him into the other room and shove toys in front of his face to erase the nightmare from his mind. The poor kid is going to forever be scarred.

We couldn’t wait to get the masks off. I had to walk around holding a paper towel under my face to catch all the banana and oat chunks that were sliding off. After rinsing and shampooing and re-conditioning, we were finally free of goop and our skin was soft and glowing. Our hair? It felt awful. I had to rinse, comb, and rinse a few extra times to get all the banana slime from my hair. And our hair felt like straw until we added all our extra post-shower beauty products. I am definitely not nominating that hair mask for mask of the year. Mask of the past to never be used again? Yes.  The hair mask, though was decent enough although I will probably try something new next time. Yes, there will be a next a time. Despite the not-so-glamorous results, the girl time spent together was wonderful and filled with laughter (but not too much- we couldn’t show much expression or our faces would slide off).

Tomorrow I’m going to learn how to knit.

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