A few days ago, I was discussing hair treatments with my sister. (If you just snickered, bite me.) I’d recommended she try this conditioning treatment, and I was asking her if she’d had a chance to use it. And she said, yeah she had, but she just didn’t have time to use all these treatments, and who had the extra three minutes in the morning to do the deep conditioning anyway?
A day later (I’m slow) I thought, You don’t need three extra minutes. You put the treatment in when you first get into the shower, then you do all your washy showery stuff, and then you rinse your hair.
(Maybe my sister was kidding. Doesn’t matter.)
I thought everyone knew that. Or I never thought about it, even long enough to assume it (because it is, after all, just conditioning your hair and has very little effect on world peace). But if asked, I would have said well, yes, that’s how it’s done, that’s how everyone does it.
The grooming part here isn’t fascinating. What’s fascinating is how none of us truly know the private inner mind of another human being. We think everyone knows the stuff in our head, and we hope they don’t. We assume everyone is like us and we assume we are unique, and we never really know.
I think everyone conditions their hair the way I do. I also think everyone falls in love the way I do, gets angry the way I do, uses their turn signal the way I do. It’s as if the conversation in my head is so loud I assume others hear it too. Or hear the same one. The fundamental nature of misunderstanding is that we project the way we think onto the unknown thinking of other human beings.
At the same time, we think we’re perfectly unique. I have long thought that the essence of standup comedy is to say something that everyone thinks or does or wants or assumes, but that everyone thinks is unique about themselves. A comedian makes a joke about picking his nose, and everyone laughs, because everyone does it, but everyone laughs in embarrassment, because even hearing the joke, even knowing that everyone around them is also laughing, they still believe they’re the only one. Everyone else is laughing at, they think, only I am laughing in recognition.
Everyone is laughing in recognition.
And yet, not everyone conditions their hair the same way.
Larger philosophical issues aside,
1. I got a whole bunch of stuff to do before I can condition. Legitimate, face-based things. There is a sequence. So the three minutes come toward the end for me. Stick that in your drain and smoke it.
2. I’ve been meaning to call you or email for a few days on the topic of… deep conditioners. This is truly sad. But anyway, I have a bunch of those extra tubes of the amazing conditioner that comes with hair dye. I will never get through them all. Do you want them? I used to covet them; now I don’t use so much.
Oh yeah, okay, the insight is cool.
I do my facial stuff at the end, so that it comes as close as possible to moisturizing (which happens after I get out of the shower). I don’t like a washed-but-unmoist face.
Nah, I have 2 or 3 of the deep conditioners left and I don’t use them as much either. Maybe one or two would be good to have but not a huge batch.
A friend of mine once posted a lengthy exegesis about the instructions on a shampoo bottle. It was one of the most hilarious things I’ve ever read…I wish I could find a copy somewhere…
😉
I condition pretty much the way you do, but as Roberta says, there is a sequece (and I think everyone’s is different). I put on deep conditioners about half-way through, after shampoo and face, but before tooth-brushing (yes, I do that i nthe shower…no speckles on the mirror), hair removal, and body polishing. Those things can happen with conditioner in the hair.
I think my epiphany of “but that’s not how it’s done!” came when I moved in with my lover. Plates and cups were kept in what I felt were odd places, he keeps medicines in the kitchen, which struck me as bizzare. The process he goes through for cleaning the house astounds me, and he looks at me like I’m some kind of retard because I didn’t know that was “how it’s done”. (But I’m the one picking cobwebs off the walls. He doesn’t look there. ;D)
It’s interesting, isn’t it, how people ostensibly growing up in very similar environments, in the same society, can learn entirely different ways of doing the same thing? Now apply this concept to Craft training! Oy!
I had this roommate who would get furious when I’d wipe down counters and just knock the dirt onto the floor. But I always sweep right after!
Now apply this concept to Craft training! Oy!
Great point.
I think my epiphany of “but that’s not how it’s done!” came when I moved in with my lover. Plates and cups were kept in what I felt were odd places, he keeps medicines in the kitchen, which struck me as bizzare.
This may connect with the other thread on “Be My Everything”…. We’ve been together for 25 years, and my wife still doesn’t put dishes and utensils back where they’re “supposed to go”. 😉 I do 99% of the cooking, so when I find spatulas in the drawer where I keep spoons and spoons in the spatula drawer or she puts the microwave bacon dish in the lid of the roaster pan instead of standing next to the griddle and muffin tins it drives me a little bonkers, but if I try to tell her where to put them she looks at me like I’m nuts…. which I am. On the other hand I could use a micrometer to make sure the towels are hung evenly and she will still re-adjust them when she walks into the bathroom……. 😉
Deb,
I agree with you about the sequence. I start my toothbrush when I start the hot water, get in and soak my hair and by then I’m done brushing, wash hair and immediately condition, shave (for maximum time on the hair), shower, wash face, rinse hair and face, step out, dry body, apply deodorant, then toner and moisturizer, body lotion, deal with hair.
I have since elminated the conditioner and dealing with the hair part by cutting my hair to 1/2″.
Much faster.
Have a good time on your trip. Hi, Tom.
Seems like the grooming is the fascinating part. 😀
I brush my teeth. Then I turn on the water for the shower, and while I’m waiting for it to get hot, I brush my hair and tweeze my eyebrows. In the shower, it’s hair (if), body, then face. Out of the shower, it’s oil my skin, then towel, then moisturize my face and carry on with everything else.
It’s a system.
It’s tragic if I’ve been drinking and/or sleepless and I lose track of the system.
Sometimes I wish I wasn’t so anal, but I can be in and out with everything done in five minutes if needed. I have to admit I do a lot of thinking in the shower so sometimes it will take longer as I enjoy the hot water.
The only kind I like to be in.
[…] I’ve been learning new ways of doing my hair, and it’s brought up all sorts of stuff. Stuff about ethnicity and whiteness and childhood. This isn’t the first time I’ve found politics in the small things of daily life and it probably won’t be the last. At least this time, we’re not showering. […]