Forum Secret Santa 2022

[dreki]

It's from the new Mary Poppins movie.

There's a longer version earlier on, which I think the quote is from, but I find the kids singing it way more moving. (for context they're singing about their dead mother)

Can't say that I've ever had braids of any length, but as long as you keep the braid-eating threat in front of you, I'd guess that you can always stick a Reynir-length braid through your belt behind your back on short notice to have it temporarily mostly restrained ...

That's wasted time.  First you have to get a hold of it (when it tends to whip around), be wearing clothes that reliably do that, and it's seconds you could be spending doing anything else.

And if anything approaches from behind you're screwed. 

It's a helluva lot safer to just not have a giant dangling thing sticking out the back of your head.

[Róisín]

Lovely poem, dreki!

And in my experience the safest way to wear very long hair is to braid it and then pin the braid up around your head. I have kept mine long for most of my life, mostly because I am not especially beautiful of face, but my hair is quite nice, and sometimes I enjoy dressing up and looking like a woman, even though most of my life is occupied with tasks for which long loose hair would be a detriment. My grandmother used to call that style ‘the pioneer woman’s braid’, and she liked it because one can braid and tie it, if necessary, in the dark without a mirror, and it is a way to keep your hair free of burrs, splinters, dirt and dust. And to keep your hair out of the food if you do a lot of food preparation, which I do. Hair in braids generally stays far cleaner than loose hair. You can just wash your whole head, braids and all, though it is nice to open the braids and wash it thoroughly. And as for cleaning long hair in a freezing winter: one of my aunts, who had long, very fine hair that came to her knees when she loosed it used to make orris root powder and if she wanted to clean her hair when it was cold and snowy she used to rub the powder through her hair, let it sit for half an hour, then brush it out. This process left it clean and smelling delicious.

Nowadays my plaits come to a little below my shoulders. My hair grows slowly, and although I have been growing it all my life I have twice lost it to chemotherapy and twice had it shaved or severely cut back for surgery on head injuries. My avatar picture is a good cartoon of what I actually look like, though Haiz made it a bit prettier than I am, and people seeing it have certainly recognised me from it.

[dreki]

it is a way to keep your hair free of burrs, splinters, dirt and dust.

This right here. Realistically, Reynir's dangling braid would have been catching on branches and collecting allll manner of forest nonsense in Saimaa. With no showers for weeks.

The other comic I mentioned, with the black smith - he at least lived in a small city and a stone house so the most it was likely to catch on was when his friend intentionally yanked it (which happened). Farms and forests? It'd be secured to his head.

And as for cleaning long hair in a freezing winter: one of my aunts, who had long, very fine hair that came to her knees when she loosed it used to make orris root powder and if she wanted to clean her hair when it was cold and snowy she used to rub the powder through her hair, let it sit for half an hour, then brush it out. This process left it clean and smelling delicious.

The powder is basically dry shampoo - which you can get cans that are basically starch with, i believe, aerosol but more people are remembering to just put various powders on like this.

Mmm gosh the discussion of hair cleanliness, I only just remembered how many people wash their hair fairly often. So to them this might seem particularly baffling.  I stopped using shampoo in 2014 and my partner never has, conditioner only. We also have curly hair so it takes a lot of special attention.

Brushing alone moves a lot of the oils through the hair and keeps the scalp fairly clean. And hair that long, you *need* those oils to get as far through it as possible.  It'd get pretty dry and brittle if it was wet too often.

Reynir doesn't necessarily ever need to shampoo/soap his hair, and wetting it doesn't necessarily need to happen more than once a week or so. Less if he's got access to a starch powder (like the orris root mentioned).  When he has the luxury, so not in the silent world, he may need to work oil into the tips at minimum.

How often it needs to be brushed depends on how oily his scalp is, and if you aren't overwashing that tends to settle down. 

And Emil - he has short, straight hair so that tends to be lower care needs. Yes it's not unlikely that with a comb/brush and the rare times they wash his hair would stay lovely looking.

My 5yo has hair a lot like Emil and honestly we wrestle her into a bath less than once a month.  Her hair is gorgeous as long as she lets me brush it. And honestly is somewhat similar to Emil's but with curls (most of it looks straight as it's chin length, but the hair framing her face curls)  I know kids have better hair than adults but still - those genetically lucky people have hair that can be quite low maintenance and still look good.

Lucky bastards.

(For more info you can look up the "no shampoo" movement. It's not for everyone, but it also includes a lot of natural hair care that may be similar to what SSSS-verse uses so is interesting.

Also, Tuuri is the smartest of all for just shaving the damn stuff off!)

Nowadays my plaits come to a little below my shoulders. My hair grows slowly, and although I have been growing it all my life I have twice lost it to chemotherapy and twice had it shaved or severely cut back for surgery on head injuries. My avatar picture is a good cartoon of what I actually look like, though Haiz made it a bit prettier than I am, and people seeing it have certainly recognised me from it.

You sound like you've been through a lot. And I suspect are a bit harsh on your looks, too, especially if people can recognize you from the art.

[Róisín]

I am probably one of the older people here, and yeah, I’ve lived very hard at times. Farming, prospecting and mining, and many years of work as a field botanist, including several seed and specimen collecting expeditions and mineralogical surveys in some quite wild places. Plus I have volunteered for some archæological expeditions being run by friends, mostly as camp cook and first aider. I enjoyed doing that. In those contexts too it probably helps that I am one of those weird people who actually enjoys doing tiny fiddly tasks that most people find mind-numbingly boring - I don’t at all mind spending hours unearthing some minute fragile object with a tiny probe and a brush. One of the tasks I do as a volunteer in our small town’s community garden is the collecting, sorting and packaging of seeds from our plant collection for distribution through our free seed library. Members of the public can come by the Recreate project and get seeds of everything from garden vegetables to now-rare native plants that used to be common in this region, as we try to encourage people both to revegetate and provide habitat for native wildlife and to grow some of their own food. I try to be useful.

[Keep Looking]

I would certainly have wished to avoid what happened to a friend who was using a lathe with their long hair loose, and had one side of their scalp snatched bald when the hair got caught in the lathe.

At times when I have taught blacksmithing I have encouraged people to braid up their hair, because a forge, like any workshop, is a very dangerous place to have loose bits of anything, be it hair or clothing, floating about in the path of tools or fire.

I remember when I had woodworking and metalworking classes in high school on the very first class we'd all get taken around the workshop and told all the different stories of various gruesome injuries that either had or could occur if you did not obey the safety precautions. This certainly included the consequences of getting your hair caught in the lathe! Also the rather unfortunate tale of some kid a few years above us who crushed his fingertips off in the magnabender.

I've got wavy dark brown hair I pretty much always keep at just below shoulder length (I like it long enough to look pretty sometimes but any longer and it starts to get annoying for me). My mum used to braid my hair for school every day and I have on occasion given myself two plaits when doing physical activities as it is a very practical hairstyle and better for your hair than a ponytail (although currently I am lazy and mostly just tie a ponytail anyway). I like to plait my girlfriend's hair and occasionally do more complex braids on her although I cannot say I am amazingly good at it as I lack experience.

I occasionally watch videos about historical fashion by people who are passionate about researching this area and braided hair that is pinned up seems to be the most common way of wearing long hair when you need to do work throughout a lot of history! For all the reasons you folks have stated before.

[dreki]

I remember when I had woodworking and metalworking classes in high school on the very first class we'd all get taken around the workshop and told all the different stories of various gruesome injuries that either had or could occur if you did not obey the safety precautions. This certainly included the consequences of getting your hair caught in the lathe! Also the rather unfortunate tale of some kid a few years above us who crushed his fingertips off in the magnabender.

Those talks worked a bit too well for me and I was slightly traumatized away from wanting to use them.  Still get a bit nervous around power saws and the like.

The hilarious thing to me was, later on, the difference in how the university art department approached safety.  Which is.... "incredibly lax".

Razor blades just lying around. A ladder leaned up against a door that said 'nothing can be left within three feet of this door'(or something)

So many OSHA violations.  (OSHA is the american Occupational Safety and Health Administration)

[Róisín]

I remember when Star used to work for DCA just before small computers became a thing and he got deeply into those, hearing him repeat the lecture he had got in an electronics workshop about letting anything hot or sharp that got knocked down complete its fall rather than trying to catch it, no matter how expensive or fragile it was, and how one should never ever ever wear a wedding ring while dealing with anything that involved microwaves, shortwave/electronic transmissions, or anything else that might cook your finger before you could get the ring off. This in a workshop with regularly changed photos of interesting ways that careless people in workshops had killed themselves or lost body parts. It certainly instilled caution in the trainees!