Hair...

Hair is one of those body parts that I do not spend a lot of time thinking about. For most of my life I have kept my hair short although there was a time that my locks were longer ... due to peer pressure or the time(circa 1973)... but considering the density and abundance or, in my case, lack thereof, short hair has been my norm. It's easier to handle.


There have been a couple of events - usually Halloween is involved - where I have made some tactical errors concerning hair products. 


A hazard of the job as a lab technologist is constantly being called a 'vampire' so, on that note, I decided to suit up as Dracula one year. Having short hair I figured that slicking it into place would be easy. The tactical error was that I did not have any Brylcreem at hand...hmmm, no problema... Vaseline sort of rhymes with Brylcreem...a perfect substitute, I thought. I could, indeed, sculpt my coiff into the reverse ducktail that Bela Lugosi wore and I looked the part. Unfortunately, as the evening progressed, the Vaseline melted and oozed down my face...but that wasn't the worst of it. Vaseline does not wash out. Even after 7 washes and a very sore scalp my hairs were still sticky to touch. Aaargh!!


Another Halloween I decided to dress up as a werewolf. I had all the right stuff - pointy wolf nose, pointy ears, pointy teeth, suitable werewolf attire - but my face wasn't 'fuzzy' enough. Hmmm, if I cut some hairs from an old red wig and attach them to my face...??? This time I had the right product - spirit gum - for gluing hairs. Painstakingly I applied hundreds of little bits of wig hair to the spirit gum on my face and gradually the wolf appeared. I thought it looked great. The downside was that the hair/gum mixture itched a lot...but that wasn't the worst of it. The spirit gum/hair did not come off with rubbing alcohol as per the instructions. Soap didn't help much either... It took a couple of hours of picking the patches of hair/gum/skin from my own peach fuzz.  Aaarghh!!






M
This week Meg and I were fortunate to inherit some tanks of spray foam insulation from some neighbours in the park. We still had areas to insulate, the main one being the floor under our new addition. We suited up in our white Tyvek suits and booties, donned our safely glasses, masks and entered the crawl space. The instructions state that the spray nozzle would have to be replaced with a new one if spraying stops for 30 seconds so a speedy application was critical. 


Meg had the gun...I was moving cords, hoses and tanks. Although we had planned our attack, things happen when cramped into a 3-foot high space with incredibly sticky foam flying through the air. We got the job done without any obvious incidents and crawled out to fresh air and sunshine. 


Meg, being the gunner, was covered with big clots of foam, looking as if she had been in a losing battle with a giant spitbug, but relatively none the worse for wear. My suit was clean...but what was on the back of my head? Sometime during our operation the protective hood came off my head and clots of foam had attached to my hair. Foam insulation hardens to a rigid, basically impermeable mass in 30 seconds.  Aarrgh!!  Acetone was suggested as a nozzle cleaner on the spray foam directions, ergo I concluded that nail polish remover ( I believe it's acetone) should work to remove it from our hair (Meg had a few small blobs). After much scubbing and squealing the foam blobs began to shrink in size. My hair started to turn pink from the colouring (strawberry) nail polish remover and seemed to be breaking off in bits. Aaargh!! That may be the worst of it although I may still have to get a buzz cut.