Allergic to 'Poo

You guys are already familiar with all the major health problems that I've experienced over the past half year, but guess what?  I got a new one for you, but this one has actually been resolved.

For a while now (months) I've been contending with swollen lips, swollen eyelids, and rashes around both as well as excessively dry skin on my face and I was losing hand fulls of hair a day.  The eyelid stuff aged me about 10 years or so and I got to where I was hiding in my house because I looked so awful.  Makeup only made everything worse because it looked all cakey when applied over the rashes and dried skin.  Now, as a general rule, Southern women don't leave the house without makeup.  So, me?  Go without makeup?  Not happenin'.  I was looking hideous.  To make things worse, we have an incredibly high deductible on our health insurance, so I couldn't afford to go to a doc to find out what the heck was wrong with me.

About a week ago, I went to a meeting and a woman looked at me and said  "You have exactly what my sister had.  She's allergic to hair products."    Wow!  An actual lead to what might be affecting me.  I rushed home and dove into the internet.  I love me some internetz! 

I did tons of research on what the most common allergens are in hair products that affect people. Whoa.  While searching I found quite a few pics online that showed the kind of rashes that I was having.  

The culprit?  Cocamidopropyl Betaine.  What is this mouthful?  A surfactant used in 99.9% of shampoos on the market. It's also used in hand soaps, face washes, dishwashing liquids, hair color etc.  Basically, if you look at the ingredients list of any type of liquid soap, you're going to find it in the list. 

I went up to my bathroom and went through every product that I had been using.  Face wash with it?  check.  Shampoo?  check.  Hand soap? check.  Bubble bath? check.   Hair color?  check.  It gets worse.  You know that oh so "gentle" baby wash that my kids still use?  Yep.  In there as well.

So I went cold turkey on all these products to see if my hunch was correct.  I noticed a huge difference immediately.  My face rash started clearing up.  I noticed less hair falling out.  My scalp itched less. 

If I had any wonder about whether this was really the problem or not, I found out last weekend.  My husband bathed our dog at my parents house and used Dove shampoo to do it.  I didn't think anything about this until after I had played with the dog.  Within a few hours my face started getting itchy and red and by the next morning my eyes were almost swollen shut.

Now I and my family have to undergo a lifestyle change.  For me, the shampoo issue is not a big deal.  I have coarse, really curly hair that thrives on just conditioner, but for everyone else?  Now I have to find an alternative for them which means more endless hours on the net trying to find something that doesn't have that chemical in it.  Right now, I can't even help the little one take a bath nor can I kiss them good night after they've taken a bath.  Not acceptable.  Anyone have any suggestions for a replacement?

I replaced the dish soap with Dr. Bronner's Castile Soap and will be using this to replace all the hand soap in the house and to wash the dog with.  All Free & Clear Laundry detergent doesn't seem to be bothering me, but I'll be changing it soon anyway just to be safe. The only ingredient listed on that bottle?  Surfactants.  Gee, thanks for the info.

So, I saved myself about $6000 on allergy tests, which is wonderful, but now anything liquid and soapy can cause me severe problems.  I'm starting to wonder if this issue isn't what caused many of the health problems that I've been having for the past half year.  I haven't felt this well in oh so long.  I'm thrilled to have finally pegged at least one of my health problems down. 

You'd have laughed at me last night.  I put on gloves ( I even considered renting a hasmat suit) and walked around the house throwing away anything that had either the Cocamidopropyl Betaine in it or anything that had Coca in the ingredients list.  Overkill?  Not in my book.  It will be at least a month before my skin gets all the way back to normal, maybe longer.  I'm taking no more chances.

Thanks Mr. Hair Dresser

I've been totally traumatized today.  I went to the hair dresser today to get a trim.  The operative word here folks is TRIM.    Not cut, TRIM.    Well.  Guess what happened?

When you tell a hair professional that you want a chin length angled bob, aren't you supposed to get that?  Where, for the most part, your hair is supposed to be more than three inches long?

So I went in expecting this:

And got this:

Except, it's shorter.  Not happy folks, not happy.  I'm about to go on a trip to Orlando and I'm feeling way insecure about my hair now.  Thanks hair dresser.

Why do hair people do this?  You tell them one thing and they decide to do something else.  I would pay extreme money for a good hair dresser that listens.

Happy Cinco de Mayo

Happy Cinco de Mayo Everyone!


Since I've been having the wrist pain while working on the cabled pullover, I took a break from it over the weekend. And since I get the fidgets when I don't have anything to do, I started yet another project.

I've been wanting to do the Hemlock Ring Blanket by Jared Flood, aka Brooklyntweed. Nobody does knitting ph0tography like Jared and I mean nobody. That's what suckered me into this project, his fantastic pics of his blanket. I picked a darker chocolate brown, #8087 of the Ecowool than his pattern calls for. I love dark chocolate. Mmm, dark chocolate.

Here it is so far:


It looks more like a beret than a blanket at this stage, but it's coming along.

And guess what? I worked for several hours on this on Saturday and didn't have one wrist pain. I'm guessing that it's definitely the cables that are causing the trouble.

I've also been working on my secret project that I can't show you until June which really sucks. It'll be done long before then. I'll probably post a Ravelry link to it when it's done. The recipient isn't a member there and can't get access to see it that way.

I found a site, Pursebuzz.com today while I was messing around on youtube. I was looking for new hairstyle stuff. This is the cutest girl. She has several cute how to hairstyle videos and I'm planning on doing a few of the ones that she demonstrates. Just thought I'd share. She's got beauty stuff as well, but I love the hair how to's.

On Hairdressers

Why is it so hard to find a good hairdresser? I mean, there are people who cut hair and there are people who cut hair. I want one of the latter.

I have very naturally curly hair which I sometimes style straight, sometimes curly. It's the best of both worlds, if it's cut right. To top it off, I'm blond. Evidently, thick curly hair is not the norm for us blondes, so most hairdressers just don't know what to do with it. They're used to thin, fine hair on blondes.

When I get my hair layered correctly, it's like the angels come out of the heavens and all sing a rousing chorus, "LLLLAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!". When it's not though, my hair turns into the envy of all poodles.

I live in a very affluent area. Notice I didn't say I was, just the area where I live. There are tons of great hair places around here if you have the moolah, which I don't at the moment. I've been to one that is fantastic, but they charge $55.00 just for the cut. not the style and blow dry, that's extra. If you decide to do anything with chemicals, expect to cough up a wad of cash.

So today I went somewhere else for a cut that was a bit cheaper. The cut was okay (barely), the style was horrendous. I told her I wanted it styled straight. Her idea of straight was a "late 80s" type of straight where she employed curling irons. Um. FAIL. She was amazingly out of date for today's styles. You wouldn't believe how many waves were still in my hair when she quit. She told me, "It's as straight as I can get it on a day like today." uh-huh. Humid, but normal for GA. At that point I just wanted her to quit so I could leave.

I ran home, and re-styled it. Perfectly straight. In 5 Minutes. It took her an hour to do everything that she did: cut, blowdry, style.

It will do for now, but I won't be going back there. I haven't tried letting it go curly with the cut she gave me and I'm a little scared to try. I'm sure it will be fine. I hope.