DRY SHAMPOO DIY and another trick!

So...here is the post you ALL have been waiting for: my go to DIY dry shampoo recipe. Before I share this ingeniousness, let me give you a little background on why a dry shampoo is a necessity in my life. First off, I have two kids. A boy that just barely turned 3 and a girl that is almost 14 months old, so I don't have time to shower everyday, let alone wash, blow dry and straighten my hair. Second of all, I am a pretty active person. Besides running after the two little ones and sitting in the yard with them while they play in the sweat-inducing Arizona sun, I also workout several times a week. Thirdly, I tend to sweat while I sleep, (TMI??) which means I wake up in the morning with greasy, sweaty, oily, curly-ish, ugly hair. So, due to my time constraints and the oiliness of my hair, a dry shampoo has really come in handy the last few months. 

Here is some more background for you, just because I wish to share my entire dry shampoo journey with you. ;) When I first heard of dry shampoo, it sounded great, but I am super cheap and don't like to buy expensive hair/make-up products. So, I have never even tried the commercial dry shampoos. I did hear that baby powder was a good dry shampoo. And since I have had two babies in the last 3 years, I had plenty of baby powder. Baby powder does work. It gets rid of that greasy look and adds a little volume. But, it is WHITE and my hair is definitely BROWN, so I had to be careful about not using too much, otherwise it was pretty obvious I had powder in my hair. And, the other issue I had with baby powder is that it SMELLS like baby powder. I didn't like my hair smelling like that, so I was eager to find something else...

I was browsing pinterest when I stumbled upon someone's blog post all about washing their hair with no shampoo or conditioner and using DIY hair cleaners. (Something I haven't tried yet, but am definitely going to do!!) You can read all about that here: http://livinginanotherlanguage.com/blog/2013/03/17/i-dont-use-shampoo/ 

In her blog post she mentions using plain cornstarch or cocoa powder, depending on your hair color, as a dry shampoo. When I read this, I was like OH MY GOSH, THIS IS AMAZING!! I HAVE THAT STUFF IN MY PANTRY!! Seriously, I was ecstatic to try this, so I got out the ingredients (see picture below).

 My hair is brown, but it isn't a super dark brown (at least in my opinion), so I used 1 part cornstarch and 1 part cocoa powder. 

 I took 1/4 cup of each and mixed them together in a little container. To apply it to my hair, I used a small make up brush. I would dip the brush in my DIY dry shampoo and rub the brush in the areas of my hair that looked greasy. Then, I would give it a good hair brushing and straighten a few sections as needed. I tried ripping the top off of the baby powder bottle, so that I could use it for my dry shampoo, but I could not figure out how to get the top off! 

So, I did the make up brush thing for a few weeks until I ran out of cumin in my kitchen. I was about to throw the spice container into the recycling when I was like, WAIT, this has the perfect top for sprinkling my dry shampoo!! I just needed to figure out a way to get rid of the cumin smell in the container and take off the labels. Getting rid of the smell was easy! I filled it with vinegar and let it sit overnight. Then I rinsed it out and let it dry. The smell was TOTALLY GONE!! Getting the labels off took some trial and error. First, I tried soaking the labels in vinegar. That took off the paper, but left the glue, so I looked online and ehow.com suggested soaking it in oil. I used vegetable oil and rubbed it all over the labels and let it sit for a few hours. Then I rubbed some more oil on and let it sit over night. The next morning the labels slipped right off, taking the glue with them! I gave the bottle a good wash with some soap, let it dry, and it was good to go!

 Here is my finished product! Thank you McCormick for the bottle! Now I can shake, shake, shake dry shampoo all over my hair!

 And here are some pictures to show just how well the dry shampoo works! Here is me just after waking up. My hair is a mess and all curly and greasy.

 I applied some of my dry shampoo, gave my hair a good brushing and re-straightened a few areas.

 No grease showing on the top!

Now I am ready to take my kids to the park! 

Why a blog?

So, I have decided to start a blog. Actually, I already have a blog. BUT, it is all about my kids. It is just picture upon picture of my beautiful children. I love it! I think about them being preteens or even adults, and looking back at the blog posts and seeing themselves as children. I hope that one day, they will appreciate having a chronicle of their childhood. And, I know I will appreciate it too. When they are grown and gone, I will be able to look back and see my little ones whenever I want. That is, as long as the internet is still around. I certainly hope it is, but just in case, I do keep photos in the old school photo albums too. ;) Plus, the blog about the kids is great for all of our extended family. We don't have any family that lives close by, but with the blog, they still get to see them often.
So, why this blog? I wanted a way to share more about me. I want to be able to share the things that I find interesting or cool or exciting with other people that might like them or find them interesting. Lots of people blog about what they like, why not me? So, what will this blog cover, you ask? Whatever I want...maybe some recipes, maybe some crafts or sewing stuff, workout routines, anything I want! That is the beauty of this, it will chronicle all of my favorite things. And hopefully along the way, I will find some other people who like some of those things too. I also waned a way to express myself. This is a blog all about me, so I can share as little or as much of what I feeling as I want. It gives me a way to open up in a different setting than the "family/kids' blog.
So now I have a reason to start a blog. The next step was figuring out what to call it. I must admit, a lot of the first names I came up with were unoriginal because blogger was quick to let me know they were taken. They were general blog names that weren't specific to me. So, I put some thought into it and came up with a blog name that is specific to me, while also alluding to the purpose of the blog: Sunshine and Dry Shampoo. What about it is specific to me? Sunshine is one of my favorite things. I love being able to lay in the sun and feel the heat on my face! It is a good thing that I like Sunshine because I live in Arizona and it is sunny 95% of the year or something like that. (I made up that statistic, but I'm sure it is in the ballpark. I have lived in the Valley of the Sun for 4+ years now). So, the word "sunshine" represents one of my favorite things, which is what this blog is all about. Next we come to "dry shampoo", this is also one of my favorite things, and it is a NEW favorite thing. With a 3 year old and a 1 year old, dry shampoo is a wonderful discovery that allows me to go a couple days without doing the whole wash, dry, and straighten hair routine. On dry shampoo days, I can do my hair in 5-10 minutes instead of the 30 minutes it takes on washing hair days. Dry shampoo is a new discovery for me and I recently stumbled across a DIY recipe for it, which gives even more meaning to the blog name. I love trying new things, especially DIY things. I also like the idea of having Dry Shampoo in the name because it gives me a launching point. My next post will be about my Dry Shampoo experience and my new DIY recipe!  I hope you come back to hear about it!