u/laiiovlyvacuous

Hello! In a few days I am going to France for 10 days with my mom, her best friend, and her best friend’s daughter. We are starting in Bordeaux and ending in Paris.

We will be doing a mix of wine tours, culture/museums, and lots of urban walking w/ potential low-intensity hikes. Both the brown and black pants are hiking grade. I included the skirt in case we go to a nice restaurant and/or it ends up being warmer than I am preparing for.

We will be staying mostly in Airbnbs with access to washing machines.

Weather-wise, not sure what to expect for this time of year; it looked warmer than average w/rain but now the temps look like high 60s, and no rain, so I’m not sure how to plan for how warm or cold it will be, but hopefully what I have will be sufficient?

My hair journey is similar to many people on this sub; I hated my hair ever since it became curly during puberty and I genuinely thought it was like, a flaw I had to live with. So I spent the last 17 years blowing it out straight daily. After my divorce a couple of years ago, I decided to embrace my natural hair and have done a lot of experimenting, trying to find a routine that wasn’t crazy intensive or time consuming and could achieve consistent results.

I used to think that all my curls were completely random each time I wet my hair and it only occurred to me recently that your curl pattern is your curl pattern, and it grows fairly consistently. I’ve been able to identify certain chunks that still grow in the same exact pattern as when I was a teen. I think I’ve got mostly 2C with some 3A (I call these chunks my “mctwists”), but more importantly, it’s fine and HIGHLY non-porous. Even when I use my Dyson on high heat/medium power for twenty minutes, it still takes about 10 hours to fully dry to what it looks like here. Ugh.

Anyway. Last year I got like three cuts as I tried to find the right shape and layers and I’m pretty happy with how I’ve grown into it (cut was almost a year ago), tried a ton of products, and I’ve finally got a good routine down. I am surprised I can achieve this with this length (reaches mid back when wet), something I’ve historically never been able to do (always have had trouble getting the under pieces to look good).

Products used:
Davines 01 Shampoo/Conditioner
Davises curl builder cream
Davines gel oil
Davines curl mousse

I’m going to be trying some other, less expensive, products soon when I run out of my current products. I love them, but damn they’re pricey and I do need a lot of product for my long hair. But hopefully getting the routine down will help maintain consistency?

Routine:
- Wash with Davines 01 shampoo and conditioner. Sometimes I skip the shampoo on days where I need to use head and shoulders, which I’ll only apply to my scalp. I squish to condish the conditioner as I rinse it out.

- Before turning off the water, I do one last hair dunk so it’s sopping wet as I dry off

- using a quarter-sized amount of Davines Curl Builder, I glaze it over and lightly through my hair. At this step it’s important for me to scrunch my roots up with my palms bc if I don’t, it’s flat af

- use my denman brush to comb through, starting at the root and lifting chunks as as I work the comb out and away.

- once I’ve got separated chunks ready to be molded into their patterns, I tilt my head to the side and using a quarter-sized amount of Davines Gel Oil, I scrunch the gel straight up into all my hair (not just one side). Then, I tilt my head to the other side and repeat, with another quarter-sized amount of gel and repeat to all my hair. This is to help ensure both the under and outer layers all get the same treatment/product saturation.

- head still tilted, I then take half a golf ball’s worth of Davines curl mousse and scrunch it in just like the gel. Then I tilt my head to the other side and take the same amount of mouse and work it in on that side.

- take leftover mousse in between fingers and dab it along my crown. Give one final scrunch/lift with my palms

- alternate between diffusing each side, and while flipped over more towards the end for lift

I wash my hair every other day because I’ve got pretty oily skin/scalp. On day 2, I rewet like 40% of my hair, mostly the top and middle layers, and use a little Davines Sea Salt spray to give it some texture. Looks a lot more chaotic but sometimes it’s a look lol.

Finally finished this lovely scarf just time to not be able to wear it until December (if even then!)😅

Pattern is Nightshift by Andrea Mowry. I can't take credit for the beautiful color combination - I saw this knitter's project on ravelry and used the exact color combo she did to achieve a similar result (w/ dye lot variability) because I was so taken with the beautiful bright colors. Yarn used was Noro Ito in the Taksaki 54 and Usuki 20 colorways.

I was consistently surprised with how perfectly the yarn variegation lined up with the pattern, i.e. there was usually enough of the same color for each row, and it also serendipitously went so well with the contrasting yarn. The pattern is written so that you can either follow it continuously (such as in the case of using variegated yarn) or by section so that you can choose which colors to use in each section. I didn't plan out any of the row color combos, and just knit through the yarn cakes as is. The only intentional thing I did was reverse the main yarn/contrasting yarn about halfway through, because I realized that the 'main' yarn uses more than the contrasting yarn and I didn't want it to be imbalanced yardage-wise at the end.

I personally didn't quite achieve gauge with this; my final measurements were fairly off. Finished measurement for wingspan length was 65" and mine is 55", and my center depth was 35" when it's supposed to be 31". Overall a really fun, satisfying, easy knit! Can't wait to travel with this when visiting colder places.

I came in the room and found him sitting upright in the middle of the blanket, where the black cat character is positioned on the design. I couldn’t believe how perfect it was. When I grabbed my phone and came closer to take a photo, he got sweet and started rolling around