First my hair. I have not used the flax seed recipe again because that nasty sticky-ness on my hair was pretty gross and I am pretty sure it did come from the flax seed wash. My next hair washing I just rinsed with apple cider vinegar(ACV) and after that the nastiness was gone. I think there was just something with the way it interacted with my scalp or something. My roots were not that bad it was at about ear level that just had a ton of goop on it. My hair also got kinda frizzy and HUGE again afterwards. I would brush it and it would be like when I was using conventional shampoo. It's too bad because I really did like the mixture and it was pretty simple and more appealing to me than ACV. I think I might make another batch and use it just on the length of my hair and not near my scalp or roots and see what it does and then use an ACV rinse. I do think the flakiness of my hair was from the peppermint, which was also in my flax seed wash so no more peppermint for my head.
Currently I am cooking up a batch of sugar "wax" to try out on my armpits. My hair grows at a ridiculous rate to have lovely hair free pits I would need to shave twice a day and every time I have been shaving lately I have gotten annoying and a bit painful ingrown hairs so I do not want to shave my pits anymore. I know "sugaring" them will hurt but it will be a burst of pain versus a few days of an annoying ingrown. I wish I could just not shave but I do care too much what people would think of hairy pits. I was first intrigued by sugaring thanks to Crunchy Chicken, and also found a few more places with it. What I am doing right now is boiling up one cup of sugar, 2 tablespoons of water, and two tablespoons of lemon juice to hardball candy temp (250 F). I am having a bit of difficulties one because I just plain suck at cooking even if it is not food. I already had it boil over on me and two because the small amount I am making my candy thermometer doesn't actually immerse in the liquid. I don't want to make more than I will use especially since this is the first time I am trying it and I don't have much sugar on hand at the moment. So we will see how this goes.
Last night I was determined to clean my stainless steel coffee mug. I was not tasting any nastiness but it was awful to look at. The inside had all sorts of rings from levels of coffee where I apparently took breaks between drinking and the mug has a lid (that I never use) so coffee builds up on the part the rim snaps onto and it was just all around dingy. I had tried a lot, lemon peel with salt, vinegar, baking soda, in all sorts of combinations. It would get the same stuff that soap and sponge would get but still leave all the nasty stains from the coffee and tea. So I googled something like coffee stains in stainless steel mug and got a bunch of ideas. The first one I tried I did not think would work because it seemed too simple. Most were simple but included using products I did not want to use, bleach, oxy clean, other things I stopped using long ago, even though I still have all of them because I stopped right away not when the product was empty. So the first I tried was dishwasher detergent in cup with boiling water and let it sit. I don't currently have a working dishwasher but I do have a few different kinds of detergent under my cabinet. One store brand generic liquid detergent, one little sample pack of cascade that was in the dishwasher when we moved in and a box of Planet brand detergent. I used Planet of course and just tossed enough to coat the bottom and a bit of the sides of the mug and then poured in boiling water. I covered it with a random lid and went to bed in the morning I looked and the mug still had all the stains, I read that someone did this and when they woke up there was a brown film on the top of their mug because it had all come off overnight, I was a bit disappointed but I decided it might have loosened the stuff a little bit so I grab the toothbrush I keep at the sink for cleaning dishes and with barely any pressure all the stains started to come off. I probably could have dumped the soapy water and gotten all the stains off with just a quick rub of the sponge. I could not believe how clean the mug was. It was so shiny and spotless. I was amazed. I am currently trying this on a pot I use to make popcorn that has a bit of a stain from the oil. Just checked and the pot is already clean and shiny. I am going to have so much fun cleaning now. I get really excited about cleaning when I learn new and simple things. Now I just need to figure out how to get the rust stain out of my bathroom sink without using extremely harsh chemicals. I have tried all sorts with that too.
