Ficcare, a Versatile Hair Toy

About a year ago, I joined the Long Hair Community (LHC). LHC embraced - you guessed it - long hair, and all manners of methods on taking care of it, styling it, and just generally enjoying it. My hair had reached the longest it had ever been, and I wanted tips on how to take care of it and fun ways to put it up.

One of the first things I learned at LHC was about Ficcare hair clips. So many people in this community adore their ficcares. Usually, this refers to the Maximas, Signature, or Innovation style of clips, but the Maximas seemed to be the most popular. A lot of people sought out what they called fakkares, or knockoffs that could be had cheaper than original ficcares.

Here is a fakkare I found at Target, for instance.

It is an innovative little tool and does a great job of holding a lot of hair very securely, and that is the reason behind its popularity. The real ficcares are known for their high quality, strength, and not snagging hair. This sounded like a dream come true to me - I have to admit that I have broken my fair share of hair toys in my hair, and some not poorly made hair toys have broken my hair in return.

Of course, I had to check them out. The only place local to me that carried them was Nordstrom, and the sales lady there was very helpful. She gave me a pamphlet on a few different ways to use the clip, and helped me figure out which style and size would be best for my hair. I ended up with a silver Maximas clip in size medium, which ended up costing around $30.

I love this bad boy. It is my go-to toy on bad hair days when I just want it all up and out of the way. It also gets used sometimes when I work out - the hold is that good.

I have stuck it through buns in my hair.

I have stuck it over buns in my hair.

I even used my ficcare to pull back the top half of my hair during a wedding in which I was a bridesmaid.

By far my favorite way to use it is in a bun. But I have been meaning to experiment with other ways to use the ficcare for some time now, so maybe I will put that on my to do list of experiments.

What's your favorite hair toy?

Pin Curl Twist updo

Sometimes an experiment may not turn out the way you might have planned or hoped, but it turns out all right in spite of those seeming failures. That is pretty much how I feel about my most recent hair experiment.

I wanted to do the Pin Curl Twist featured on Total Beauty's "17 Hairstyles That Take Less than 10 Minutes."

For reference, it should have come out looking like this:

Image from TotalBeauty.com

Except that I forgot I am a curly girl, so no way is my hair going to come out even close to resembling that. Then I forgot that I'm not actually all that adept at doing updos, so that's strike #2. But, I perservere! And this is what I came up with:

I like it. It does not look like the picture, but I am good with that. I was working with length a little bit longer than what you see in this picture. Hooray for a new updo!

The above picture was taken in my office. You can see a little bit of my gray trackball with its red ball in the lower left-hand corner of the picture. My love of trackballs is not easily explained as I can only say that I've been using them since I was about 11 or 12, when our family computer was upgraded from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95. Whenever guests want to use my computer, they find themselves absolutely befuddled my the trackball. I might be a bad person because I have to admit this amuses me endlessly.

Wedding hair trial

My wedding hair trial run went great a couple of days ago. My stylist has been doing my hair for four or five years now, and she is a curly girl herself so she gets my hair.

She's also crazy pregnant! As in, due next Monday. So I was cutting it close with this hair trial. And she isn't even officially supposed to be back to work by the time of the wedding, but she is going to come in especially to do my hair. Lisa at Salon Salon in Lake Buena Vista, Florida rocks. Tell her Victoria sent you!

Lisa and I sat down at the start of my appointment to chat about what I wanted. I brought along pictures of styles that I liked, although none of them were "it." The only thing I knew for certain was that I wanted a half-up, half-down curly style. My hair has been growing out for years, and I want to take advantage of the length by showcasing it down. However, since I do not want it to get in the way, I also want the half-up so it will stay out of my face. The Boy enjoys my hair straight (easier to touch, he says), but he is marrying a curly girl, so I am walking down that aisle curly.

We discussed curling iron curls versus my own curls, and decided to go with my own curls. They will stay nicer throughout the day since we won't be fighting my natural hair, and they are pretty nice to begin with, if I do say so myself. The plan is to wash it, throw in some styling products, diffuse it dry, and then put it into a half-up. All in all, since I am keeping it so simple, it won't take Lisa long at all to make my hair wedding-ready.

Super pregnant Lisa had to sit down while having me lean over so she could blow dry my hair. Hilarious!

Good grief, I have a lot of hair.

The finished result. The bit of orange in there is a hair toy Lisa had handy. She wants me to buy a two shiny hair toys that we can put on either side of the little twist she did in the back. Now the hunt is on to find two hair toys that will suit my hair and my dress.

And from the back.

Exciting stuff. It is very nice to have one more thing checked off the list, even if this one did create an addition to do item (find hair toys). We also confirmed my mom and maid of honor's hair appointments for the day of the wedding. Lisa will not be working on them, but two other highly recommended stylists will be instead. One is great with curly hair so she will be doing my mom's hair, and the other is known for her updos, half-updos, and so on so she will style my maid of honor.

So many other things to do... Really need to write out an updated to do list.

My Curly Hair.

I am a curly girl.

If you are not a curly girl, then you will not understand the agony that curly girls go through. Yes, I am judging your ability to empathize with me and my mess of frizzy tangles. Granted, I will not understand a straight haired person's obsession with getting a bump-free ponytail. That just isn't a possibility for me, so I could never be bothered to obsess. I aim lower, like hoping my hair bumps look less like a rat's nest and more like I actually tried to pay a little attention to my hair. So let us agree that we are both in agony and this is why the hair care industry is such a bustling business.

My hair has been curly since it grew long enough to curl. It was fine and blonde until I was about five, then it turned into thick brown waves. Once I was into my teenage years, it had thinned out a bit and was back to being curly. I didn't know how to deal with it, I didn't know how to deal with it, I didn't know what I wanted it to look like, I only knew I didn't like it. the result was a few years of bad hair.

At some point, I figured out what I wanted from my hair - long, flowing curls - and I've been working toward it ever since. Now my hair is quite long, falling about halfway down my back.

But - of course there's a but - I get sick of it. Every time I grow out my hair, I get positively sick of it. It gets tangled, frizzy, and full of knots. It gets to be less than and more of a chore, even if I love how the final result looks. I have that love/hate relationship so many women seem to have with their hair.

A few years ago I switched to the Conditioner-Only (CO) method of washing my hair. Shampoos make my hair squeak, which means it has been completely stripped of its natural oils. My hair ends up dry and prone to breakage. My shower routine for my hair usually starts with a clarifying conditioner (such as Alberto VO5 Tea Therapy Clarifying Conditioner in Vanilla Mint Tea) which I then follow up with a heavier, more moisturizing conditioner (such as Biolage Conditioning Balm) When I do shampoo (which is very infrequently, maybe once or twice a month), I tend to only shampoo the roots.

So, where does this get me? With this:


That's some long hair, people! And it's grown a bit longer since I took this several months ago.

Anyway, it is a lot of hair to take care of, and washing - even CO-washing - causes damage. I wash my hair every few days, and tinker with my hairstyles on the days I don't wash. So expect to see some posts of different updos and other experiments on my hair.