Removing Toxins: Why I Quit Dying My Hair

December 16, 2024 Sarah

I loved dying my hair. The first time I did it, I was maybe 13, and I always had loud, proud hair through high school. Bright hair wasn’t as standard in the late 80s and early 90s as it is today, so I stood out. Just getting the hair dyes was hard enough. Not like today, where you can walk into Wal-Mart and pick up all the neon colors you could want, or go to a salon and get even more options. (Or go to a beauty supply store if you know what you are doing.)

If you read my post on why I quit using nail polish, you might be interested in why I stopped dying my hair a few years ago. I recently angered a few people by saying I prefer natural color now, and they were highly offended. If they want to dye their hair, their decision is their body. But I will continue to question how safe it is and that there are real reasons to stop. And embrace being natural.

If you want rainbow hair, that is your decision. Just know that it doesn’t come without side effects.

One other oddity to mention? The darker the color, the higher the apparent risk.

Hair dye, in general, is barely regulated in the United States. Only rarely is it forced to be removed from the shelves or its ingredients shaken up. For example, lead acetate was only banned in 2023. Lead. Let that sink in! It took years for the FDA ban to be fully enacted, and manufacturers fought back hard.

So, in true Wild West fashion, you have no idea if anything you use is safe for your skin—this is true for ALL cosmetics.

I was 16 in this photo, and I was wearing orange hair. I had pink, orange, blue, green, white, and many other colors.

In my 20s, I went to reds and was often auburn. In my 30s, I kept my hair brown or deep red, sometimes burgundy.

But during those times, I often ignored the warning signs I was seeing and feeling. Whether I dyed my hair or went to a salon didn’t matter.

The scariest encounter was my roommate when I was maybe 19 or 20. She would often dye her hair jet black. One day, she dyed her hair and started having an allergic reaction. She was having anaphylaxis, but we didn’t know what that was back then. She ended up in the ER on steroids. Her entire face swelled up, her eyebrow area was so swollen that it drooped over her eyes! She had to sleep sitting up, and it took a week before she looked somewhat normal. She was told not to come to work (she was a waitress) because “you will scare customers.” Good times, then.

A few years later, at 24, when I was pregnant with my oldest, I dyed my hair. My entire scalp felt on fire, and I had hives there. It itched for days, and I’d think now I had a chemical reaction, and my scalp got a good chemical burn. My skin was weeping even.

After that, I stopped dying my hair for a few years, but I started again once my son was about 3. I did the “allergic reaction” test on my arm and passed it, so I decided I was okay.

Usually, it didn’t bother me too much. The most common side effects were eye-watering ammonia and similar, which made you feel like your lungs were on fire. If I were doing my hair, I’d often go outside to apply the dyes so I could breathe.

You might think that would be a wake-up call, but I have to think that, like most people, I was — it was the cost of beauty in our minds. Somehow, people used to flock in to get perms, which were horrible compared to hair dye!

As a teen, I remember bleaching my hair and then coloring it. The bleach stung and choked my lungs. But then dyeing my hair after? My scalp just ached. And my hair would feel like plastic after. While the color would pop, it wasn’t worth the feeling. But in 1989, no one really talked about wether these chemicals were safe.

I mean…I loved burgundy shades in 2017.

But homesteading started to change me. As with my nails, I started noticing a trend. My head started feeling off every time I had my hair done. My scalp would be tender to the touch – even brushing was painful to do, for a few days every dye session. I would get miagraines after. The smell of the dyes got stronger, no matter the brand I used. My hair is thick and absorbs like a sponge. I often have had to use 2 boxes to get full coverage. Salons would ignore when I’d tell them this, then halfway through, would run back to make more.

I was soaking my skin in strong chemicals and feeling the effects.

Somewhere around the start of the pandemic, I quit dying my hair. I had no idea if I had grey or silver hair. I just let it grow, trimming it here and there, until one day, it was nothing but my natural color.

Which, honestly? I like my natural color, varying shades of brown (it’s lighter now than it was as a child when it was almost black).

Do I have grey? Yes. And I am OK with that. I don’t feel the need to dye my hair anymore.

Once I stopped doing it, my scalp felt so much better. My hair is strong and often vibrant on its own. I am not exposing my skin to strong chemicals through my scalp or inhaling them.

I have had to adjust my perception of what is cool, pretty, and such, but now I prefer natural-colored hair to others. When I look at brightly colored hair, I can only think, “What damage are they doing to their bodies?” And that is something we cannot say is safe. Hair dye isn’t safe by any means.

But, it is your decision to make. You might want to still pop with color.

~Sarah

Gardening · Homesteading · Urban Homesteading

Garlic Crop Planted

October 31, 2024 Sarah

Getting focused in the fall to garden can be challenging, but knowing that your garlic is in the ground is worth it. Then you can walk inside for the year and forget about it, till next spring.

I wrote about our garlic harvest back in the summer. I had a lot of garlic to harvest, and the boys were the reason it happened this year. Once we pulled it, we spread it out on our farm tables, undercover, and walked off for a couple of months. And it was just fine once I went up to get it. Garlic is an easy crop – all it needs is to be kept in the shade, with lots of fresh air, and it cures on its own. You want to ensure it doesn’t get rained on, and before the temperatures chill in fall, you want it trimmed and packed up.

Some of the bulbs were very large.

Last week, the boys had 3 days off of school, so I asked them to help me. One weeded the bed, and both brought in new compost to bring the bed back up to level. The other one used our garlic dibbler to make holes, and we got the crop in the ground.The bed we used was a chicken coop up till 2 years ago. It’s awkwardly placed for sure, in the middle of the area, but it grows well.

It’s not a big crop this fall. We only sowed maybe 90 cloves at most.

Alistaire helped me install a quick fence. It isn’t that any animals will eat it, but rather to keep the chickens out of bed. If left to themselves, they will dig it up, so a quick four-foot-high fence tells them to stay out.

This weekend, I will have them help me bring down maple leaves from under the big tree and smother the bed for the winter to protect it from potential snow and freezes.

I have a bit more seed to plant, held back from sales and eating, but overall, I am not planting as much as in years before. I want to condense what I am growing next year.

Garlic sells well, though, so it is worth growing more than we use.

As a homestead, selling seed garlic in the fall can help pay for the other seeds you will plant in spring.

Especially when buying it in store, it’s is running $23 to 24 a pound! I was shocked at the prices this year, it was bad last year, but this is even higher.

And their bulbs? Are the sizes of the medium-small I sell (the ones I apologize for being “small”).

I am also starting this week a number of trays worth of garlic, potted into 4″ pots, that I will sell or trade in spring. It is the same as planting and selling flower bulbs. Other gardeners can plant them in spring, and they are at the same pace as fall planted (you can plant garlic from seed in spring, but it often doesn’t get as big as fall planted does; garlic requires cold weather to grow its biggest potential).

My advice is: Get out this week and plant your garlic! It is time to do it!

~Sarah

Gardening · Herbalism · Homesteading · Urban Homesteading

How To Grow And Make Paprika

October 15, 2024 Sarah

Paprika is a spice that isn’t used enough these days. In the mid-century decades, it was the go-to garnishment for your meals. Deviled Eggs without a sprinkle of the orange-red delight? What kind of heathen are you? Of course, back in the 1930s to 70s, it was cutting edge to use paprika. Food wasn’t quite as exciting as it is now. But it was a start.

But I digress; there is a complicated history behind how paprika became a staple of Eastern Europe.

The Hungarian Pepper (capsicum annuum) came out of the Americas after it was “discovered” by the Spanish, while they were destroying central Mexico, and Christopher Columbus himself brought back a ship laden with spices, and the peppers made it on that sailing.

The peppers are in the nightshade family, so like tomatoes, potatoes, eggplants they all were brought to Europe, and then wound their way back the Americas, showing up in North America for the first time.

It eventually came to Hungary due to the Turks, in the 1500’s. It only came to the United States via Europe in the 1930s (though you have to know it was here long before, tucked into immigrant’s things. Seeds always came with them, so they could grow the food they loved.)

But there is an odd side note in it all. Hungary loved peppers. They didn’t have the best land for farming mono-crops, but they could grow peppers well. They mostly raised livestock and used paprika to flavor their meat stews (goulash).

Under the Soviet Union’s rule, every state and satellite state (Hungary was a satellite state) had to grow something, so they became excellent farmers.

If left to grow in a nice warm environment, they are yellow at first, then turn orange, and finally a deep red.

I grew ours in buckets in the greenhouse. In early summer, I had them outside with the tomatoes and brought them inside in August. I noted they were not doing well this year. This summer, it was below 60* every night. There were no warm summer evenings this year.

Once in the greenhouse, they started producing in large quantities. Peppers are still growing on the plants, even midway through October.

There are many paprikas one can purchase. The most common is sweet or mild paprika, made with peppers that have no heat.

There is smoked paprika, where the peppers are smoked before dehydrating, over wood smoke.

Then there are the spicier paprikas. These are often labeled “Hungarian Paprika. ” They can be mild to quite spicy. You can be as hot as a Jalapeno using a Hungarian Wax Pepper! There are so many choices.

Once the peppers were fully ripe, I picked them and let them air dry in a wire basket in our kitchen.

You can also split the peppers, remove the seeds, cut them into strips, and dehydrate them.

Once dehydrated, process in a coffee grinder or small mill, or, for authenticity, use a tiny mortar and pestle. Dried peppers are best kept whole and processed to powder as needed. They will be that much fresher and more vibrant in aroma and flavor.And enjoy adding it to your dishes, especially a good beef stroganoff.

Commercially processed paprika quickly loses its potency in aroma, taste, and even color. Within a month of opening, the color often fades into a light brick red.

So next year, consider growing some, either from the start (they do exist if one searches the fun growers) or one of the many varieties online in seed form—a nice spicy/hot one or this one, a sweet paprika.

~Sarah

Gardening · Homesteading · Urban Homesteading

Developing A Kitchen Garden

October 14, 2024 Sarah

This summer, as I worked on the patios around our house, I decided I wanted a kitchen garden—one close to the house, where I’d be more likely to come out and enjoy it and grab produce for dinner.

When we moved here in 2018, I had a small kitchen garden, all in large pots, on the lower patio that first year.

After I developed the lower gardens, which are 2 acres below the house, I quit growing food by the house because I had large in-ground beds to grow in.

My arm injury taught me a lesson. Even if the distance doesn’t seem long, you won’t go down there enough, especially if you need a lot of help.

While the gardens did grow this year, I couldn’t water or weed enough. The central bed I had the tomatoes in was overrun by Voles, which destroyed ¾ of the crop by chewing the plants at the base. It stayed alive for the first ten weeks, only for the kids to water it here and there for me. Even now, as I clean up for winter, I can only do so much by myself. There are only so many hours I have help from them, with school going on.

But up by the house, that I can work on. By myself. Thoough help is appreciated of course.

Off of the lower patio, there is “grass,” which is flat and then goes downhill. There is a major retaining wall, and I don’t want to use that part. I will put in a low fence to keep the deer away from wandering in. I see them once a week, on average, on the cameras, but all they do is eat grass. They leave the bed and greenhouse alone, though they are nearby on the grassy area.

But I want to lock off their access to the lower patio area (they use the steps near the red building to get up to the grass). Putting in a fence with 3-foot-high metal fencing and lightweight U posts will be quick and easy.

The pop-up greenhouse sits on the patio. It will stay. With two carts getting full of soil, I am going to reuse as much of it as I can and finish breaking down the bed. Waste not, want not.

I think I am going to lay down farm fabric across the flat areas to smother the weeds and “grass.” I picked up six small 4-foot raised beds and am considering putting them with a couple more beds made of the stones I am pulling apart.

With walking paths between the beds and wood chips put down. I need to of course measure it all, and plot it out on paper, before I start building beds.

I can fit two beds along the house, with a strip behind, for access on all four sides. It is an area we have never used, in nearly seven years here.

The biggest issue was waiting for the growing season to wind down, so I could start tearing down this 8-foot raised bed, The boys stacked many of the paver bricks, to the side, and started digging out the soil.

My first goal will be to get the first fabric down, build the beds, and fill them under the window along the house. Then, I will finish breaking down this bed. Any leftover soil will be spread out onto the land to even it out a bit more. Then, I will cover it with fabric and make new beds over it.

I aim to have ten raised beds, each one for a different vegetable. Depending on placement, I might be able to have more. We shall see!

Today, the rain returns for the next week, but I hope to get outside between storms (and windy days often blow the rain away, and I have time to work) and start building the new beds this week.

I will update once it is all built. But for now? I feel like I can see it, and I will soon have it done.

~Sarah

Herbalism · Homesteading

Removing Toxins: Nail Polish and Nail Polish Removers

September 22, 2024September 22, 2024 Sarah

When I was young, I was known for my natural nails (and I still can grow them!). Even in elementary school, I carried a real nail file in my backpack. I’d often be filing my nails in class. Being Gen X, no one blinked. My fundamental Christian parents didn’t allow me to wear makeup, but my nails? My Mom had no issues with that.

As a teenager, I often wore inch-long nails buried under 5 to 20 layers of nail polish. On the very long bus ride to school, I’d often sit in the back and paint my nails before school. It gave them time to dry and not wreck the manicure. And yeah, I was not using high-quality polish. I lived off of Wet n’ Wild back in the late 80s and early 90s. That stuff was so nasty.

18, and I was styling.

Even though I rarely wore makeup or heavily styled my hair, my nails were my constant. I’d spend once a week doing them. I almost went to beauty college to do nails for a living, but I couldn’t stand the smell of the gel and acrylic nails, so that kept me from doing it as a career choice.

Even as I got older, once the growing/gardening season was over, my nail polish came out, and my nails were gorgeous all off-season. My nails were often short and dirt-stained in spring and summer but not in fall and winter.

(The weekly manicure in winter – a frosty teal that week.)

Last year, I started noticing how gross I felt inside, internally, after I would paint my nails. My fingers felt “off.” While I used supposedly “better” brands for the fumes, I’d have a headache every time, especially as I prefer bold, metallic colors.

But the real issue was the removal of the nail polish.

When I used more “traditional” brands, I could use non-acetone polish removers, but because they didn’t work well, I would have to soak cotton balls in the remover and then let them sit on my nails for a long time to soften up the polish so that I could scrub the softened polish off. Frustrated, I would get out the acetone polish remover, which would quickly remove dark colors (anything red, burgundy, black, metallic, or with glitter, you have to use acetone).

After I used the removers, acetone, or other, but especially acetone, my nail beds would throb for an hour or so. I would get a migraine within hours of doing it. I started noticing this quickly and realized I was poisoning myself. Then, the nail damage started. My normally very healthy nail beds were peeling, looking distressed, and with noticeable ridges. So, I started a cycle of painting my nails to hide my ugly nails. Wash, rinse, and repeat. And my nails looked awful plain, and hurt. So I’d do it again.

Then I stopped. I had had enough.

A year ago, I stopped painting my nails. I let them go natural, kept trimming them until they grew out, and finally, they recovered.

As I entered the last day of summer yesterday, my mind wandered that I hadn’t started painting my nails for the off-season. A year of being free? That taught me something. My nails have been strong. There is no peeling; I need to shape it with a nail file and maybe a gentle buffing to give it a shine if I want to. My nails look amazing, even when short. I recently had them in an inch-long natural (because of my arm injury, I could have long nails this summer).

So am I being all woo-woo? I don’t think so. Even the US government agrees the removers are bad for us. And the non-acetone removers are not great either.

I do miss painting my nails. I miss how pretty they made me feel.

I have looked into various “natural” options, where the nail paint is water-based, and the removers are presented as being safe. However, research says that while they are less toxic, they still have issues. Even natural companies can’t quite say their items are risk-free:

Toxin Free Nail Polish / Products:
Lengthy exposure has not been shown to pose any harm to humans.

Non-Toxic Nail Polish / Products:
When used as directed and in the amounts in our products, it is not harmful to humans
with daily “chronic exposure” (i.e., nail salon workers) to amounts used in the
product.

I have reached a point where I don’t feel it is worth the risk anymore. Because…what is exactly “lengthy exposure”? That would depend on the person using it. One person might handle it better than the next.

I started back up my herbalism studies this past year, and I am finding that so much isn’t worth it. Maybe it is just enough to be natural? Maybe I need to accept that. And that it’s mother nature’s plan for me.

~Sarah