Seeing Red

Every time I look in the mirror, in fact!

I've always loved red hair.  I was never one of those kids who made fun of the gingers, I thought it was great.  And by the time I got to college, I really wished I myself was a redhead.  Didn't try it 'til much later, though.

Anyone who's been reading this blog for any length of time knows I favor the natural, safe, and healthy when it comes to things I put on my skin.

Well, the hair dye I've been using since my 20s didn't really jive with that.  Obviously.

I generally don't mess with my hair.  I see it as one of my best features, and so the color needs to be right and I get really upset if it's trimmed too short.

My sister was always more daring with hers, trying different styles over the years, cutting it short, trying Sun In (whoa, that was a disaster!), spiking it and bleaching out the tips, all sorts of things.  Not me.  Finally, I must have been in my early 30s when I first tried it.  My sister was getting bleach for me to do the tips of her spikes again, and I decided to try a nice auburn, so I went to the store with her and picked a box.  Well... the sample swatch and color shown in the photo on the box were not what I looked like.  My hair ended up nearly purple.  It was bad... unless, of course, you're looking for purple hair, in which case it'd be just fine.  I was an attorney, appearing in court, and decidedly not going for purple.  Whoops.

Once that color was headed out of my hair, though, I started to realize how much white I'd started to get.  Heck, that had started when I was 26, and my law school loan payments began.  For real.  But in my 30s, I realized how much it started to show on the surface.  So I started getting my hair dyed by my hairdresser.  Usually dark brown, which is my natural color, and sometimes a little more red when I was feeling like it.  At times, when I didn't have time to get to my hairdresser, I'd dye my hair from a box, but only dark brown.  I didn't trust the reds they carry at CVS.  Still don't.

Well, this past weekend was one of those times when I really needed color, didn't have time for the hairdresser, and didn't even have time for a box from CVS.  I was at Wicked Faire, face painting from basically 3 p.m. on Friday until 5 p.m. on Sunday.  In fact, on Sunday, I looked like this.

Please don't be scared by my terrible roots.

Well, as usual, as I have been for many years now at this event, I was situated right next to the henna artist, Robin of Henna Rising.  She's awesome.  She also hennas her hair.  And as it turns out, she sells hair henna.  So I decided to take a bit of a leap and buy a packet.  She told me how to do it (it's easy, albeit time consuming), and on Tuesday night, I finally had time.  It took five hours.  Yes, really.

My instructions were to put the henna powder in a bowl with enough water for the consistency of mud, and let it sit for two hours. Then, I had to take sections of my hair and plaster the paste on.  I made sure to wear an old cruddy t-shirt and put down an old raggedy towel first. Good thing, too, because this is not a neat process.  Also, I bought a box of vinyl gloves at the pharmacy, and ended up using two pairs - one when mixing the henna and another when applying it to my head, which I did by hand.

The nifty thing about henna, though, it turns out, is that while henna that stains the skin needs to be activated with lemon juice and various oils, hair henna is activated with water alone... which means a stain on the skin won't stay!  Handy, too, since I got it on my wrists above the gloves, my ears, neck, forehead, and even down my back.  No stains.  Also, unlike hair dye, which always admonishes the user to Stay Away From the Scalp!!!, with henna you actually massage it into your scalp.  Why not?  Unlike dye, it won't burn or do any damage.  and it won't stain your skin.

Once I was all plastered with henna "mud," I had Eric help me saran wrap my hair all in.  I looked like a doofus, I'll admit, but henna soaks in better (to both hair and skin) when it stays warm and wet, so sealing it in with plastic was the best bet.

And then I had to wait three hours.  Three hours.  A couple glasses of wine and several TV shows later, I was ready to hop in the shower and rinse it out.  By then it was 12:30 a.m. and took 20 minutes.  Good thing I'm a night owl.

Eric was already asleep & my hair was wet anyway, so I had to wait for tonight for him to get photos of my new look.  Personally, I love it!  This is the bright-light look.  In less light, it's actually a darker auburn, but in bright sun and light, the red highlights are crazy.

I actually feel taller with red hair.  My step is springier.  I think I look great, and I think it's so much fun!  And Eric says my hair already looks shinier and healthier.  No more dye for me.  I'm a henna girl now!

What on Earth is Aquaponics?

A  year ago, I'd have asked the same question.  In fact, when Eric first brought it up, I might have, in exactly that way.

Well, he got to setting up a system, and today we finished it.  So... aquaponics, day 1.

To answer my own question, aquaponics is the use of water and fish - with light - to grow plants.  Basically, it's a nearly self-sufficient ecosystem you can put anywhere.  Ours is in the basement.

We've got 8 goldfish in a 20 gallon tank of plain old water on the floor, with an air stone to oxygenate the water, and some goldfish food.

We've got a pump in with them, that spends half an hour sending water up a PVC pipe to a bed of rocks in a bin up on some cinderblocks, then an hour off to let the rock bed, which acts as the fish tank's filter, drain back into the tank and give the seeds/plants some time without being immersed.

And then the water drains back out through a PVC pipe in the bottom, back into the fish tank.

Above it all is a light fixture with two metal halide bulbs and two T5 bulbs in it.

Into the rock bed, we just sprinkled the seeds!  We've got spinach, mesclun, brussels sprouts, broccoli, yellow pear tomatoes, and kale so far.  We left space in the back to do some beans, peas, and cucumbers.  Apparently, because of how this system is set up, the plants don't need large root systems or a lot of space, and they should grow pretty quickly.

The waste from the fish acts as fertilizer for the plants, while the plants put oxygen and nutrients back into the water for the fish.  All that's needed after that is fish food.  The pump is already set up on a timer, and we'll get a timer for the light, and we'll see how things go.

I'll keep you posted, of course.

The prospect of year-round fresh veggies right in our own house, though... woohoo!

New Product & a Pre-Sale!

Reef Botanicals will soon be offering its own Buzz Off Insect Repellent!  It will come in 8 oz atomizer bottles, like these:

It also will, of course, be chock full of 100% natural goodness... that mosquitoes hate.  Fully of nifty essential oils like citronella, lemon, lavender, clove, basil, and cypress, together with several others, it'll smell great, be Deet-and-other-poison-free, and keep those little vampires we know as mosquitoes at bay!

I've been using 100% natural insect repellent for some time now, and love it.  It works well and I don't feel all dirty and slimy and like I need a shower because I've got poison on my skin.  I'm not afraid to use it on kids or even spray it straight into my face (eyes closed, of course) because I know it won't harm me.

So... because we've just ordered the additional essential oils and bottles, and because while we were at it we also had to order our scrub tubs that house the Purity Makeup Brush Soap, we've decided to host a pre-sale.  Through midnight EST on July 4, 2013, both Buzz Off and Purity tubs are 15% off!

Check 'em out & enjoy!

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Wanna see what they look like?

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Ready for our New Tenants

Bees!  Yeah, you read that right, real, honest-to-goodness bees.  Specifically, honeybees.  If you knew me in person, you'd know how huge this is.  I'm not generally a fan of anything with more than 5 legs.  Six legs... not a fan.  Six legs and wings... really not a fan.  Six legs, wings, and a stinger... well, I'm sure you get the point.

So this started with Eric, of course.  He's the daredevil in the family.  I've lived nearly 43 years happily mostly avoiding bees together with pretty much every other insect.  I'm not nervous about bees specifically; I've only ever been stung once and I don't remember it hurting all that much.  Plus, I know it was my own fault to an extent.  I scratched an itch without looking and it happened to be caused by a bee walking up my arm, which of course thought I was attacking.  Reasonable.

Eric, while he hasn't got my aversion to insects in general, has been scared of bees since he was a kid and stung repeatedly when a bumblebee hive funneled its way into his bedroom.  And he hates being scared of anything.  So it occurred to him that a good way to get over the fear would be to own bees.  That's my Eric.

He did a little reading, and what he read convinced me too.  Did you know that there's a honeybee shortage in the world these days?  Apparently, in China the bee population has been so decimated that humans are being employed - at a pittance, of course - to hand-pollinate the farms with little paintbrushes.  And the honeybee populations here in the states are dangerously low too.  Whole Foods released a picture of what its produce section would look like sans bees.  It wasn't pretty.  It was pretty empty, in fact.

The upshot is that we as a species, as a world, need bees.

Add to that the more selfish idea that we could have our own fresh, natural honey to eat, with which to bake, to sell, and to make our soaps and other honey-laden products.  And on top of that, there's the beeswax, perfect for our lip balms and candles.  And mead, since we both know Eric would be making mead from some of it.

The next thing I knew, he'd signed up for the Northeast NJ Beekeeper's Association, went to visit hives with a local beekeeper, and bought a book on beekeeping.  And nearly immediately after that, we both owned beekeeping gear.

How cute am I?

I've already used the gear too.  Check me out holding a frame full of bees!

I rock, I tell ya.

In addition to gear, Eric bought all the bits an pieces to put together a hive.  He put it all together, I primed and painted, and then we brainstormed so I could have some fun with it.  It wasn't hard to settle on a Winnie the Pooh theme.  So I painted some more.

As of yesterday morning, the whole hive was finished, sealed, and set up, ready for bees!  And since I've been asked by others, yes, although I obviously copied the characters, I did draw them freehand.  It's good to know I've still got my abilities.

We're hoping to still get some this season, though it's late in the year.  If we do, the bees will have to be left to produce whatever honey they can for their own survival, and we'll have to feed them over the winter.  We've already got the food for 'em.  Now we're just waiting for a viable "nuc" (nucleus hive of bees) to be ready for the move to our hive!

Fingers crossed that we get 'em soon.  And then?  We get a kid-sized suit for the nephews & kids' friends to come learn about bees!

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