The Curly Girl Handbook by Lorraine Massey by Lorraine Massey
Published On: January 13, 2011
Genres: Non-fiction
Source: Purchased

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The Short, Sweet, and Spoiler-Free Blurb:

Lorraine Massey, a professional hairstylist and passionate proponent of curly hair, celebrates the curly girl way of life, from hair care to carefree attitude. Beginning with The Curly Girl’s Twelve-Step Program (Step Three: I will accept that the scalp and hair are two different entities with completely different needs, and I will treat them accordingly), "Curly Girl" is an illustrated how-to, support group, and tongue-in-cheek manifesto all in one.

The Curly Girl Handbook is all about how to properly take care of naturally curly or wavy hair.  I found some great insights while reading the first chapter like the preference for straight hair is a subtle form of racism and that 65% of women have curly hair. Yet most hair products are made for women with straight hair and thousands of hair straighteners are sold every year. I felt a big shift in attitude as I was reading about my own curly hair and how I should accept my hair (and ultimately me) for who I am and stop trying to change myself. I related a lot to the stories of women throughout the book that felt different and ugly. There’s a quiz at the beginning of the book to help you find out if you need a paradigm shift in your life. I answered yes to half of the questions. I didn’t think it would be that many. I answered yes to things like almost always being unhappy with the way my hair looks, having constant frizz, and blow-drying my hair then not washing it for a week. I dog-eared so many pages of this library book and referred to it so much that I went ahead and bought it. I refer a lot to the homemade hair product recipes and I want to try them all.  So far, I’ve only made the Lavender Water to spritz your hair to recurl it and I love it.

The book helps you identify your curl type and the specific hair-care routine that goes along with it. I have wavy hair! I have always wanted wavy hair like Megan Fox and I have wished for the longest time to find some way to harness my pretty waves.  I’m going to grow my hair out again and I’m feeling more pretty and confident every day. I thought it was so funny how she describes hair stylists straightening girl’s hair for a special occasion and then curling it with a curling iron. That’s how my hair was done for my wedding!

The writing is kind of cheesy. The author sticks in the words “curl” “mane” and “hair” in lots of places that they don’t belong. And there was a lot of focus on long curly hair – not a lot of extra tips for short curly hair. But other than that I love this book.   I’ve stuck to this hair-care method for 4 months now.  I love that I don’t have to worry so much about my hair.   It’s looking better and better every day.

The before picture was taken in May 2012.  The after picture was taken 4 months later in September 2012.  I took a lot more photos and kept daily updates on tumblr if you want to see them.  It took a lot of time and some adjustment to get it like this!

The thing I get asked the most is what products I use.  The book is pretty specific about it’s requirements for shampoo, conditioner and gel.

These are the products that I use and love:

• Shampoo – L’Oreal EverSleek Sulfate-Free Reparative Smoothing Shampoo
• Conditioner – L’Oreal EverSleek Sulfate-Free Reparative Smoothing Conditioner
• Gel – L’Oreal EverStyle Alcohol-Free Strong Hold Defining Gel

Major changes I made from reading this book:

• No brushing.  I go through my hair with my fingers while it has conditioner in while I’m showering instead of brushing.
• Use a t-shirt instead of a towel to dry my hair.  A towel will catch and pull your curls apart and make it frizzy and dry.
• No shampoo. I used conditioner instead of shampoo for a month.  I use sulfate free shampoo now because my hair type does well with it.
• Use gobs of conditioner.  Curly hair is dry and that’s why it will frizz out – it’s trying to get moisture.  Use lots of conditioner to moisturize it and your hair will be curly instead of frizzy.
• Use the right products.  I use alcohol free gel in my hair, silicone-free conditioner and sulfate-free shampoo.

If you have naturally curly hair, you need to read this book!

Content Rating: None.

 

A Preface to Paradise Lost by C.S. Lewis
Published On: 1961
Genres: Non-fiction
Source: Purchased

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The Short, Sweet, and Spoiler-Free Blurb:

An interpretation of Milton’s purpose in writing the epic from the Ballard Matthews Lectures Delivered at University College, North Wales in 1941.

If you have, like me, tried to read Paradise Lost but couldn’t finish it, then this book is a great resource to help you get through it. I learned a lot from this book. Literally on page one C.S. Lewis talks about how people misread narrative poetry (like Paradise Lost) all the time because used bookstores are full of  books of narrative poetry whose first few pages are underlined in random places and the rest of the book is blank. This made me laugh because that’s EXACTLY what my copy of Paradise Lost looks like. C.S Lewis points out that you can’t read it like lyrics looking for little nuggets of good lines. That’s what I did the first time and I quit reading Paradise Lost after 20 pages.

Stuff I learned from this Preface in case you don’t really want to read it:

• The form of poetry is important and the rules add to it’s beauty, not take away from it.
• Epic poetry comes from the court so it is meant to be oral. (Good to know – I will try to read it like a speaker instead of a drone voice in my head).  Since its traditionally oral, there is a lot of repetition because if you have to think too much while you are listening to a poem you can get lost very easily.
• Epic poetry tends to be about men, historically true and tragic.
• The beauty of the poetry is in the paragraph or the whole. Looking for good lines is like looking for good stones in a cathedral.
• The language is repetitive but not commonplace, like having pumpkin pie every year for Christmas. This also makes it feel ceremonial.
• Everything we need to know is in the poem itself.  Another reason I got stuck in Paradise Lost was the massive amount of details. I was delighted when C.S. Lewis said that we don’t need to look up all the places in the notes.  The feeling that Milton is trying to achieve is the important part. Yay for that.
• Milton purposefully made it feel like you are listening to a never ending voice go on and on. There aren’t many stopping points in the poem.
• One of the techniques that Lewis suggests in reading Paradise Lost is to immerse yourself in the poem and feel like you are living it yourself instead of trying to strip away all the “exterior stuff.”
• The idea of hierarchy is seen a lot in Paradise Lost. Everything has a superior (except God) and an inferior.

Then Lewis talks a lot about heresy and whether or not it’s there in Paradise Lost (which I didn’t much care about).

So there you have it. I feel properly prepared to read Paradise Lost and actually finish it this time.

Content Rating: None

Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen
Published On: 1937
Genres: Memoir, Non-fiction
Source: Library

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The Short, Sweet, and Spoiler-Free Blurb:

Out of Africa is Isak Dinesen’s memoir of her years in Africa, from 1914 to 1931, on a four-thousand-acre coffee plantation in the hills near Nairobi. She had come to Kenya from Denmark with her husband, and when they separated she stayed on to manage the farm by herself, visited frequently by her lover, the big-game hunter Denys Finch-Hatton, for whom she would make up stories "like Scheherazade." In Africa, "I learned how to tell tales," she recalled many years later.

This reads more like a collection of short stories of things she remembers from having a coffee farm in Africa. They are true stories which makes it more interesting to me. It can get a little dry since there is no overall plot, but it’s still a fascinating look at a different life and times. Isak Dinesen was a pen name for Karen Blixen and she was an inspiring and independent woman.  The book is pretty similar to the movie.  I really liked it.

Content Rating: None