Hair 101: The Science of Hair

Several months ago I got an email from the stake relief society presidency.  They were putting together a big Stake Women's Conference Saturday.  Last year they had a bunch of awesome spiritual classes but they had one class on makeup techniques, and it was a hit.  So this year they wanted another class like that to include in the program.  They asked if I would like to teach a class on fashion or hair.  At first I laughed out loud: me, fashion?!?  haha!  I am the worst at clothes!  I only wear screen print shirts and sweats, except for the things that my mom buys for me.  haha!  After the laughter ended I thought, maybe I could do a hair class.  Maybe?!  I know I'm not a cosmetologist but maybe I could teach a few things I've picked up over the years of doing my own hair and my friend's hair.

I spent the next six weeks learning sooooo much about hair.  Oh my goodness I can't even begin to tell you how many articles, books, pinterest boards, tutorials, and websites I read preparing for this presentation.  I decided since I was not a professional stylist, I would teach the class with a Jenni spin.  I decided to teach the "Hair 101: Science of Hair".  How to approach hair styling with a very methodical and scientific solution.   I also designed all the slides, layout, signs, handout, and graphic art that I used.  I really had fun putting it all together, but it consumed my life for several weeks.  From 7-10pm every night (or 11pm or 12am....) I was on my computer in the office working on this class.  Can I just say, there is so much more to hair than I imagined.  And the more I learned, the more I realized I didn't know anything!  haha!

I decided to give a 20 min lesson with ppt slides.  Then I set up science labs around the classroom and had everyone learn about their own hair.  There are a lot of things I didn't know about hair typing: porosity, elasticity, density, etc.   And once you know about your hair you can treat, style, and take care of it with the proper techniques.

Here's the handout I made for the labs:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1pPDlamFsBRet08AW0T7NQb66G-BD_-hF

Here are the slides that I taught with and they explain most of the labs (in case you're interested in learning about them yourself).
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1HNQxo9FprEqDKCD0hVdpbthJ_ceVawU4

One the day of the actual presentation I recruited several of my friends to stand at different stations during the lab portion and help people do that specific experiment.  It made it so smooth!  And I spent my time during the labs answering random questions.  Thank you Ashley, Whitney, Berlyn, & Summer!

One thing that I remember, I was talking about how my round brush has tourmaline crystals embedded in the bristles that release negative ionic charge to de-frizz your hair.  One of the women squealed with excitement!  She is a geologist and was so unexpectedly thrilled that rocks were helping hair!  Science rocks!  haha!

I taught the first 2 sessions.  Then during the last session I was able to get all my stuff packed up in the car.  I went by the kitchen to see if they needed any help before the luncheon began.  They were soooo behind!!!!  I ended up making like 7 HUGE bowls of salad.  The chef lady was like "here are the ingredients, you're just going to need to make it to taste".  Romaine lettuce, black beans, avocado, onions, pico de gallo, broccoli, cauliflower, peppers, etc.  It was delicious and totally up my alley.  I thought it was ironic that I wore an apron during my hair class but didn't need it, then I took it off before I helped in the kitchen and got covered in food!  But it all worked out.  The food was all so amazing.  Then I helped clean up and even mopped the kitchen.  It was such a busy day.  The chef lady sent me home with a BUNCH of chopped veggies and left over salad.

After the stake women's conference Laura asked me to come teach the young women my hair class.  They were great, but it was definitely a different energy teaching the youth.  They were so quiet and didn't laugh at all my hilarious jokes.  In their defense, I had lost my voice and I sounded terrible that night.

I got to join the YW again to do hair for the multi-stake formal dance.

One of the YW asked if I would do her hair for prom.  So she came over and we had a little hair styling session.

The day after I taught the big stake class I got to play the piano while the primary sang "Gethsemane" for Easter. It all went great. I got a ton of positive feedback from the hair class and from playing the piano. I was feeling so positive about myself. My self esteem got a boost that weekend. Then seriously less than 2 hours after the primary sang, a lady in my ward came up and asked me if I was prego. CRASH AND BURN! I started crying! Which made me feel so mad at myself for crying in public. Self esteem squashed! I have had people ask me this question so many times in my life when I was not pregnant. Many of those times was before I was ever married! It makes me so mad. Why does it matter if I am or am not? You should NEVER ASK! It helped that during the week I vented to several of my friends and many of them have recently had similar experiences, even my super athletic friends! It made me think of this hilarious Jennifer Garner video that Snort shared with me:

Guess what, I have 4 kids. Including a set of twins. For the rest of my life I will always look like I'm pregnant. Cause that's what happens. So let's stop asking people! Unless you're going to offer to watch my kids all day long and bring me dinner, then why do you need to know anyways?! Just promise me that no one reading this blog will make the same mistake.

Now pluck out a hair from your head and go float it in a cup of water!  Porosity is no joke people!  :-)  (side note, the first time I check my porosity my hair sank to the bottom immediately - it was so mad at me from all the bleaching, but after a few weeks of using my It's a 10 protein conditioner, my hair started to float in the middle!  YAY for science!!!)