Mod cons 3: hair conditioner

Here's another thing the marketing people persuade us to buy: hair conditioner, or all-in-one shampoo with the conditioner in.

Conditioner is a kind of sticky stuff that adheres to the hair and doesn't wash out when you rinse it. It adds bulk to the hair, because it's a kind of gunk, and because it attracts or retains moisture it makes the hair less prone to frizz and a little bit glossy. Unfortunately as well as attracting moisture, it attracts dirt and smoke. And because it forms a film over the hair it prevents the natural conditioning oils that the head produces from travelling along the hair properly, so you end up with very greasy bits near the head.

So the result is that you have dirty hair with greasy tops, and so you have to wash your hair after a day or two. And because you keep washing the natural oils away the hair gets thin and dry and fragile. So you have to put conditioner on it to make it look at all decent. But then it gets greasy and dirty and full of gunk. So you have to wash it. And so on.

This is good business for the manufacturers of stuff for washing your hair and rectifying problem hair, because you always have problem hair and it gets to be more of a problem the more you use their gunk.

Once you've got into this cycle it's very difficult to break out of it. Which is doubtless how the people who market the products like it to be.

It's much better never to get into it. It's a mod con, and once your conned into using it, you'll find it hard to stop. Without it, it's easy to look good by washing your hair just once a week—probably less if you don't live in a city— no conditioner, no fancy shampoo, nothing to paste on afterwards, just the natural gloss of your own hair oils.

Mod cons

Are there some things that we have been too readily persuaded that we need, when really the supposed "need" is created by our use of the thing we now think we need? I mean, companies advertise something as though it will make our life better, but actually it makes life no better. Meanwhile we come to think that we can't do without it.

The thing is a con, which makes us go on buying the thing that is making things worse.

I don't mean things that we could live without (with some minor discomfort). I mean things which we would be happier and more comfortable without, if only we could resist the pressure to have the thing we've been conned into having.

Here's an example: deodorant.

When I was a teenager I thought that there were some people who were lucky enough not to need to use deodorant (my younger brother for instance) but the rest of us were smelly and would be very smelly indeed if we didn't use deodorant every day.

Then I met a man who didn't use deodorant, and he persuaded me that all you need to do is wash your armpits at the end of each day. So I tried it, and sure enough, once you've washed off the weeks of bad chemicals from the deodorant, you become fresh and sweet smelling and you don't generate so much perspiration. Nor do your clothes get messed up by the deodorant, and they breathe better as a result, so you don't get hot and sweaty from wearing the clothes that had become non-porous from the nasty things you were applying to your armpits. And you don't need to wash your clothes so often, nor do you find that you need to buy new garments because the old ones have bad marks under the arms.

Perhaps it may be true that there are a few people who have some kind of illness or malfunctioning sweat glands, and maybe they might get a bit smelly. But it's my belief that most of us are fine with a bar of soap, a washbasin with warm water, a good flannel to wash with, and some well-chosen clothes...

I mean, obviously you don't want to be wearing clothes that cut in too tight under the armpits, or clothes made of nylon or polyester or acrylic. But such clothes are uncomfortable and look horrid anyway, and are another mod con, only suited to chavs.

I haven't used a deodorant for thirty years now.

Paper handkerchiefs

I apologise for the long silence which was due to being ill (the flu) and then being so behind with my work (and so weak after being ill) that I haven't had any time left for time-wasting activities like the Blogs.

It seemed appropriate after being ill to make some remarks on illness. This time it's about how to blow your nose in an environmentally friendly way.

At Norwich I used to have a box of 3-ply man size tissues (that is, paper handkerchiefs, Kleenex in american speak) which had been on my bathroom shelf for some years. In the Autumn I loaned out my cottage to a couple we know from Church (this was part of an auction of promises to raise money for the new organ, and I offered a weekend break in Norwich).

When I returned, the cottage had been well cared for, all was in order, except for one thing: the tissue box was empty. Now that's interesting, because I'd had it from before I moved to Norwich, maybe three years. I don't remember it being very near to empty. It made me wonder whether other people use such things rather more than I do.

It's not that I don't ever have a runny nose. Of course I do, and I had a terrible one last week, one of those that runs like a tap. The Professor also has an allergy of some sort which means that he sometimes has a runny nose for days at a time. But we don't use former trees to mop our noses, for the most part.

Here is a list of four kinds of things I use for runny noses:

1. Elegant ladies' handkerchiefs in pure cotton. These are small and usually embroidered or trimmed with lace. I use these for everyday use and for going to a weepy movie. They fit in a pocket without causing any ugly distortion.

2. Larger hankies, man size. These are useful for the after-a-cold period, when there's quite a lot of catarrh and a small hankie would be quickly used up. One dozen pure cotton white hankies costs £5 on Norwich market.

3. Bits of old sheet. These are the best thing for a seriously runny cold when you're in bed at home. The sheet needs to have been made of pure cotton (brushed cotton is especially soft and comforting) and should have worn thin and ripped. The result is unbelievably soft and absorbent. You tear off a piece the size you need (very large if the cold is seriously streaming) and when it's a bit damp you can either throw it away or put it aside to be washed and used again (the edges fray but that really doesn't matter). These cost nothing of course, and the laundry is normally just a minor addition to the usual load of white washing.

4. Muslin nappies. An excellent use for the nappies so little used by newborn babies. They are soft and extremely absorbent (you'd probably get through a whole box of tissues before one muslin nappy is too wet to use). The professor (who has some kind of rhinitis allergy) generally carries several muslin nappies in his briefcase in case of an attack of the runny nose—on a bad day he gets through two or three. In fact the muslins our girls had when they were newborn have all now worn out and become disreputable, so a new pack had to be purchased recently. 20 muslin squares cost £22.99 from Mothercare.

Here's a list of the advantages of using these real cotton products over the disposable wood fibre products that they call "handkerchiefs" or "tissues".

1) the cotton ones are much more absorbent than woodchips

2) they cause less soreness than woodchips,

3) they're always there even if you're too ill to go to the shops

4) they don't end up in the landfill (or, if eventually you throw away the rags, they were going to waste anyway and have had a useful recycled life first).

5) BEST OF ALL they don't deposit a white fuzz all over everything in the washing machine if you accidentally leave one in your pocket!

The smell of baby

Another thing that was mentioned on Radio Norfolk was the wonderful smell that a baby has— natural baby smell, so to speak.

Do you suppose we are naturally wired up to respond well to the smell of a baby? Or is it imprinting from our early years? Or is that the same thing?

And does nature give baby a special smell so that that happens? And if so, doesn't that also fit with the more general idea that, on the whole, it is best not to do too much to mask the natural smells that enable us to find our children and our mates and so on.

This (by the way) is connected to thoughts sparked off by a theory my mother has about matters to do with bathing, aftershave and the divorce rate. I think dotty theories probably run in the family.