the Blackthorn Orphans
  • B L O G
  • The Blackthorn Orphans: read it onsite
  • The Blackthorn Orphans TRANSLATIONS PAGE
  • Lovely R BLOG
  • PHOTOESSAYS
  • SELECTED RAVINGS: essays & opinion
  • RUBYHUE Lipstick Review
  • blackthorn ROSE REVIEW
  • KITCHEN BITCH: Recipes etc.
  • verse
  • Hostile Witness FILM REVIEW
  • ALOES & SUCCULENTS
  • Blackthorn Perfume Review
  • B I O
  • C O N T A C T

Curly Hair and Sabun Soap Public Service Announcement

12/7/2019

 
Picture
I'm going to say some shit about curly hair, for the benefit of other curly people, mainly, so the rest of you may not find this very edifying.  Personally, I have fine and relatively plentiful ringlet-y natural curls.  It can get quite a bit tighter than what you see in the pic at left, so I'd say it's probably the mmm... second-curliest type of Euro hair, behind coarse-spiral gingers etc.  It's the kind you can't straighten without chemical relaxant, since even hardcore ironing won't stop it boing-ing right back in twenty minutes.  The kind that can turn into a cloud of frizz and knots no matter how many buckets of gloopy shit I empty on it; believe me, I've spent half my lifetime disposable income doing just that.  And just to add a degree of difficulty, I am 90% grey/white under that supermarket dye job.  Did I mention that I also have mild psoriasis and a sensitive skin/scalp?  Good times.

​Only 15% of Eurotrash have any natural curl. You thought it was more than that, didn't you?  It sticks out, both literally and figuratively.
Though I might be white and therefore privileged beyond the average POC hair experience, the degree of policing and assumption I've personally encountered would probably surprise a centre-part Becky.  The suuuper-subtle inquiries about my background (they mean ethnicity) by that strange clade of people who are low-key preoccupied with one's precise degree of Anglo-Saxonicity; big hair and dark eyes get their pursuivant nostrils twitching.  Am I... something else?  The pervasive cultural insistence on curly (they mean mad) hair's link to certain kinds of personalities and conduct.  All those wilful, temperamentally incontinent and usually doomed literary heroines: they don't have flat lobs.​  Then there's the inquisitive strangers who feel entitled to physically touch your fucking hair (old ladies at bus stops: okay.  Jelly queens honking about your wig game: can deal.  Creepers in the seat behind you on the bus: not fucking okay).  And oh yes, the fetishisation from dipshits who think you're going to flip their penis for real with your feral, folicularly-driven sluttiness.  
​
And last but not least, the reason why I haven't been to a salon in twenty years- that look they give you.  As though your head was going to explode and infect theirs with your unruly aberrance.  The wistful yanking of your curls out to their real (they mean straight) length; it could be so much flatter and longer!  The clueless, disinterested butchering.  The completely unsolicited attempts to blow it straight.  The last peremptory ho to try this was astounded and dismayed that I preferred my natural texture and actually congratulated me on being able to 'come to terms with it'.  That was the very last time I paid someone with a fucking pixie cut on a homely-arse five-head to touch my shit.

So now I cut and dye my own damn hair, wash it once or twice a week, air dry and don't brush.  Recently I started using Deva Curl Let It Be finishing spray and I like it well enough; Deva products are fairly natural-ingredient based and non-irritant and I'm just grateful they don't make my hair situation more difficult.  I wouldn't boost them to anyone who wasn't interested in cutting down on synthetic nasties in their personal care regime as I don't think their performance is substantially better than anything else I've tried.
But it's shampoo and conditioner that are the root of our problems.  To cut a very long story short, I gave the fuck up and decided to wash it just with Sabun soap, a 3-ingredient Castile-style natural soap that was doing good things for the rest of my meat suit.  

If you're any kind of Gen X weirdo, you've probably washed your hair with random soap before.  What I'm advocating here is not the same thing as getting squeaky with the communal bar your casual piece shared with his 5 gross flatmates.

Sabun is an ancient concoction made in Syria from olive and bay oil; it is vegan and biodegradable.  The Wiki is worth a read.  It comes in huge rectangular blocks that you can easily chop into any increment you prefer.

The lewk in the hair pic above is my third-day, no-fucks hair, after an afternoon outside, blessed by high wind straight off the Southern Ocean, that ultimate disordered frizz-generator.  No serums, no gels, no pastes, no conditioner.  Yes, I said no. fucking. conditioner.
Picture
Washing your hair with Sabun soap is a bit of a trip, requiring you to let go of a few deep-core assumptions.  The dread of having to de-tangle non-conditioned hair is hard to understand unless you've held a fistful of your own crispy, broken frizz.  I've come to accept that the artificial shine furnished by conventional Eurocentric products just isn't in curly hair's best interest.  The softer natural lustre provided by organically-derived lipids is what curls need for texture stability and preservation.  This might be old news to people of colour, but curly white peeps just get pointed at white-people product and told we're not doing it right when that shit doesn't work. 

The Sabun lather feels rather unconventional on the head. It's important to get an even, all-over lather going, especially if you're longer, and to rinse thoroughly, working from back to front with warm water, to distribute the oils.  While still wet (don't even towel dry, just enough to stop it dripping), spray in your favourite anti-frizz product and either big-comb through or just work it down the length manually.  Scrunch gently to reinstate your curl shape.  Then leave it alone.  There's sometimes a slightly greasy feel while it's drying and it's hard to believe your hair won't feel heavy or dull, but I promise the finished product does not.  Allow an extra half an hour of air-dry time if you're on the clock.  

For me, the Sabun+spray allows my natural texture to reform peaceably without frizz, and doesn't bring on greasy-root syndrome by denaturing the scalp. It dispels that itchy product buildup that plagues us sensitive types and doesn't aggravate my psoriasis (it doesn't make it any better, but what does?).  It hasn't stripped my colour, which is a semi-permanent black.  And as a final blessing, the Sabun imparts a weirdly obedient cast to your hair; it stays placid and arrangeable.  The result is natural, snaky curl instead of morale-destroying fluff.  I am really pleased with how aggressively archaic it looks.

No one is paying me to say any of this.  I just want to share this rare positive experience with widely available, eco-friendly and inexpensive products.  The Sabun is about $7 per enormous bar in New Zealand; the Deva Curl spray is about $35 which is a lot, but for me it's lasted a long time and it replaces the $15 per bottle I dropped on shampoo and conditioner.  And both are so much better than tipping litres of industrial chemicals down the drain. Taking one damn product into the shower is incredibly liberating.  Give it a try if you have dry, frizz-prone hair and have lost patience with conventional shampoos and conditioners.
Picture


Comments are closed.

    RSS Feed

    Picture

    Independent Creativity
    Hi-Fi Introversion

    ORIGINAL CONTENT
    HONEST REVIEWS
    VELVETEEN VERBIAGE
    VISUAL LUXURY
    MORBID IDLING
    THE NATURAL WORLD
     
    ​photography  
    film
    flora  fauna  culinary
    ethnography  objet
    ​

    modest living
    ​vintage shit

    A U T H O R
    Picture
    K ✂︎ l l y
    congenital delinquent
    Human Durian
    celebrating
    glorious deviation in the land of
     the long white cloud

    -  New Zealand  -


    - T h e   B o o k -

    Picture
    T H E  
    B L A C K T H O R N
    O R P H A N S


    What is freedom, when it is
    all that remains to you?
    In exile two brothers pursue an anarchist's trajectory,  from an old world into the new, from East to West, subject always to the pleasures & horrors of an enduring flesh, to the ironies of karma & impunity. Love bears thorns, the lost return & the dead are haunted by the living. 
    ​

    E P I C   D A R K   F I C T I O N
    *   R E A D   *
    T H E
    B L A C K T H O R N 
    O R P H A N S
     O N S I T E  

    H e r e



    Picture

    Selected
    ​Ravings

    opinion essays observation private regret public 
    exaltation semicoherent speculation 

    Picture

    Photoessay​

    epic undertakings
    documented

    ​
    Picture

    Hostile Witness FilmReview

    Cruel but fair

    Picture

    RubyHue 
    ​
    Lipstick Review

    Lipstick: love it
    ​

    Picture

    Our Photography​

    we've seen worse
    ​

    Picture

    Port Chalmers​

    Dunedin, New Zealand
    ​

    Picture

    Blackthorn ​
    ​Rose Review

    Garden Hoe Wisdom
    Picture

    Verse​

    Loss, love, truth, beauty everything, everything
    ​
    Picture

    The  Lovely R's Blog​

    Likes photography  Knows a bit about it

    Picture

    We Liked This​

    Amazing things from other people
    ​

    Picture

    Cacti, Aloes
    ​&
     
    Flora​

    Our garden & general vegetal splendours
    ​

    Picture

    KitchenBitch

    Home cooking
    & raw ingredients
    ​
    Picture

    Ethnographic​

    Strange wonderful things from elsewhere
    ​

    Picture

    Jewellery
    ​

    Picture

    Tiny Little 
    Dinosaurs
    - a book for children -


    All images & text property of the authors 
    ​
    unless stated

    © us
    & original sources
    All Rights Reserved



    Picture

    Privacy Policy
    ​This is a noncommercial site.
    No ads. No shady data jacks. 
    No interest in your bizniz.

    ​We don't personally view, utilise or sell your data, apart from occasionally checking totally anonymous + super basic site view stats. We don't even know how to monetise that stuff, so don't worry.  Everyone's privacy is important to us.

    Our platform is probably harvesting your data, though, via their cookies. Look at their privacy page so you can see what they're up to.

    Please use Adblock or something similar.
    ​
    Google et al superimpose ads that we never see a penny from so fuck them.

    Picture

    Archives

    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    September 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013


    Picture

    Categories

    All
    A Thing Of Beauty
    Blackthorn Orphans
    Blackthorn Rose Review
    Cacti & Aloes
    Ethnographica
    Flora
    Hostile Witness Film Reviews
    Jewellery
    Kitchen Bitch
    Make Up Review
    Maximum Respect
    Perfume Reviews
    Photo Du Jour
    Photo Essay
    Places & Things: A Blackthorn Review
    Port Chalmers
    Remembering Dreams
    Roses
    Selected Ravings
    Softcore Rendition
    Sweetmeat
    Textiles
    The Lovely R
    Verse
    We Liked This

    Picture
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.