Weekend Open Thread: Nutriplenish Leave-In Conditioner

47 Comments

1. I use this too and love it.

   1. What exactly does leave in conditioner for you? I’m a hair product novice. Do you need something like this if you also use regular conditioner?

      1. I use both regular conditioner and this Aveda leave-in conditioner. Leave-in conditioner works as a detangler and smoother and makes styling easier. I really like this one in the pink bottle because it’s light and doesn’t weigh down my fine hair.

      2. I sometimes swap leave in for regular conditioner when I’m short on time and skip one rinsing step. I also feel like it’s more hydrating because half of it doesn’t wash out. This became relevant for me when peri made my hair change from tending-towards-greasy to always-very-dry, and I had to switch my hair product routine to putting a lot more product on it than what I did before.

         1. Your logic is good.

            I have simple thick straight fine hair, and have a lot of it. My hairdresser has told me for years to not use any conditioner in the shower because it is just a waste of money (and benefit). Often we use too much and in the wrong places, and then rinse it all out. So he always favors not using conditioner in the shower and recommends adding your leave in conditioner after you get out.

            The price on this product is a bit high, no?

2. I’m a big fan of Not Your Mother’s Curl Cream

   1. I’ve used both (Irish curls over here) and that curl cream and this spray serve very different purposes in my mind. The spray is extra conditioning/detangling. The curl cream is a styler.

   2. Same!

   3. I can’t stand the smell of NYM curl cream

      1. I feel the same way about nym dry shampoo

3. What do you do when you wake up and can’t fall back asleep in the middle of the night? It’s been happening to me constantly

   1. When it happens, ideally I get up and read a physical book by lamplight until I start feeling sleepy again (no screens! no blue light!) and then go back to bed.

      To prevent it, I need to figure out why I’m waking up (histamine dump, blood sugar drop, needing to pee, whatever it is that I can work on).

      1. I don’t think it’s as common to sleep through the night as we like to pretend.

         1. I don’t care if I wake up if I can easily fall back asleep. If I never fall back asleep at all or not until around the time I’d ordinarily be waking up, that doesn’t work for me.

            My doctor said I should be able to get through the night without having to pee specifically. So far that’s been true for me except when I’ve had blood sugar issues or pelvic floor issues, both of which could be addressed (and were good to address).

   2. Put on a podcast/sleep story.

   3. Any increased stress lately, or are you reaching mid life? If so, these awakenings in the middle of the night are more common. So the usual stress reduction techniques, and HRT helped me.

      But when I wake up in the middle of the night, I write down anything that is making my mind racing that I am worried about or think I will forget to do the next day (like, just a couple words). And then I put on a podcast to distract me from my thoughts, and try to fall back asleep. I often start doing slow breathing techniques, counting backwards from 25. These usually work for me. If I don’t fall asleep in 20-30 minutes, they say to get out of bed, keep the lights low, and do something relaxing like reading, then go back to bed.

   4. Wake up my husband.

   5. I put on an audiobook and set it to turn off after 30 minutes so it doesn’t wake me back up. I have audiobooks that I listen to while I’m actually awake and doing other tasks, and audiobooks that I use to fall asleep. Mostly, I like to fall asleep to men with good accents reading personal essays. Right now, I’m listening to Rick Bragg’s The Best Cook in the World, and it’s taken me a couple of weeks to actually make it through a full hour.

   6. I use a nodpod weighted eye mask. Works like a charm.

   7. I think of something that requires enough concentration that my mind doesn’t wander, but not so much that it stresses me out. So, I might count backwards from 100 by 3s or try to think of all the lyrics to a particular song.

      1. Similarly, and I know this is super weird, I sing “The Twelve Days of Christmas” in my head and I very rarely make it to the twelve drummers drumming before I’m back to sleep.

   8. I have a mental running fan fiction for a specific TV show. I “write” the next scene and visualize the action and dialogue. It always puts me right back out.

      1. I do this too. I maintain that I could have written far better scenes for the show than the writers did :)

   9. Never, ever look at a clock or my phone so I can believe I still have 6 hours left to sleep. Repeat a sound like “om” or count backwards.

   10. Kindle. I have one of the new ones with a warm screen setting and white letters on a black page so that it’s not too much light for my eyes (and my husband).

   11. Eat a banana and take a child’s dose of melatonin.

4. I want to make my own bath salts and want the end product to go with a blueberry or lavender theme. Any ideas for what essential oils I should mix? I am planning to use a mix of Epsom salts and Himalayan.

   1. There are many websites (and real books!) with make-your-own bath product recipes. I’ve used Martha Stewart, and I’ve got a book with recipes for everything from face masks to bath soaks. It’s a lot of fun.

5. Help! Need a cocktail appropriate dress for a wedding. Dress code is “dusty blues and neutrals”. I am a size 10ish but like a sleeve or wider strap and like to accentuate the ‘v’ of my chest (not a lot but I know it helps elongate my body). Budget maybe $150?

   1. What about navy? It’s easy to find, and you can likely get more use out of it than a color that screams bought for a wedding.

      1. Right. This is a silly dress code. HOWEVER, if a smoky/dusty blue is your color, use the Nordstrom suggestion below. Otherwise I’d shoot for a navy option.

   2. go to nordstrom. go to guest at wedding. click cocktail.filter for blue, vneck and price. there are lots of options…

   3. Not a fan of forcing people to wear certain colors to begin with, but if you’re going to do so, why would you want “dusty” to be the theme of your wedding? Not really the the way I’d want everyone thinking of my wedding, but it’s definitely what would stick in my head if I got this request.

      1. It’s just the name of a color. You’re overthinking it.

      2. It’s just a way to differentiate from royal, navy, turquoise, etc. I don’t see what’s wrong with calling it that, especially when there are so many shades of blue.

         OP-I have a gala I have to attend and just wanted to pass along that the online for TJ Maxx had some AMAZING deals. I have two (returnable) Mac Duggal dresses headed my way for a steal. Might be worth a peek.

6. Great pick. I love some of the Aveda products. I also don’t like chemical scents. But find some natural scents really overwhelming. Aveda hits the right note for me. I have an intensive conditioning mask from them I use once a week, and use the Smooth Infusion spray to tame some of the unruly grey.

7. This is a what-would-you-do

   I’m 35, single (would prefer not to be; but, not so much I’d be non-single with the wrong guy), MHCOL city. I moved a ton when I was younger, pursuing my career, but I’ve been in my city for 5 years, and it’s starting to feel like home.
   Annual income = 90k guaranteed + ~30% in reliable bonus. Just started a new job after a layoff + rough job search. New job is a terrible commute from where I live – 2-3 hours/day commute time; but I can be remote 3 days/week (at my discretion; my job requires really strong relationships across a lot of teams, so I’ve been coming in 4 days/week)
   Emotionally, the last couple of years, I’ve found myself really, really longing for more stability, and especially having my own home, and I’ve been saving aggressively towards that – could put $150k to a down payment comfortably. If it hadn’t been for the layoff, my plan had been to buy last year.
   Options I see are:
   – Buy where I live, deal with the commute or find a new job closer in a few years
   – Rent a small apartment close to the new job: trade the better commute for having to find new social circles (I would drive the 1hr for close friends; but I’ve finally started to feel embedded in the community in more casual ways – the people I play pickup sports with, my church, neighbors, etc – and “starting over” again doesn’t seem appealing). The dating pool in new-job-town is weird, but not absolutely terrible. This town is much more expensive than where I live; so I can afford to rent there, but would have to give up on the idea of my own home for the foreseeable future.
   – Rent a nicer place where I am. Have been living in a pretty minimalist situation (roommates; landlord who doesn’t get repairs done) to save for that down payment. Especially if I’m not worried about continuing to increase the down payment fund; I can afford a nicer place. It would buy me time to immediately improve my QOL, while giving myself a few years to make sure new job works out, etc. But, it just feels like stacking more “temporariness” on top of temporariness, and I’d really like to feel more settled.

   What would you be thinking about making this decision?

   1. Personally, I’d let things settle a bit before I decided anything. You’ve just started a new job after a layoff and a rough job search. That was a lot of instability, and I’d probably not want to add loneliness to the mix while I learned a new job and tried to make new friends in a new location.

      I’d rent a nice place right now, so you get out of that unappetizing rental with all the roommates. Get your own home, even if you’re renting it. Stay with your friends, church, neighbors, pick-up sports friends. Then you can let the job settle and see how much you actually end up working in the office, how much the commute bothers you, how much you like/dislike New Job town, etc. You can start casually looking for someplace to buy.

   2. I’d probably rent a nicer place where you are, provided you can truly deal with the commute or you expect to be able to start working remotely more frequently in the future. That commute sounds awful, but I wouldn’t underestimate the value of feeling settled in your current community. This might also buy you time to find another job closer to your current location. One thing you didn’t mention – how’s the dating scene where you are?

      Anecdotally, I bought a house when I was single, and it worked out really well for me. But I was living in my hometown at the time and had no plans to leave, even though I did change jobs a few years later. My husband, whom I met years after I bought that house, was living in a higher-cost of living area and is glad he didn’t buy there (though he considered it), because it would likely have prevented him from taking a job transfer that brought him to my area (and meeting me!).

      1. +1. I wouldn’t take on a mortgage while the job is so new (and it might affect qualification anyway).

         Any chance you could pay cash for a 1-bed condo? Have your own space, have equity (and flexibility in when you move on), feel settled at least in that you can decorate how you want and leave on your own timeline?

   3. I would be thinking:

      1. It doesn’t sound like you want to move closer to your current job.

      2. Financially would a third option be to buy a place that has 2 or 3 bedrooms and rent the excess bedrooms out should you struggle financially. I would look at returns for 2, 3 and 4 bed homes and consider what works best for your budget and risk tolerance.

      3. Maintenance and property taxes. Be realistic about costs. You need to be able to absorb a 20% increase in property taxes. Don’t buy a home with fancy features like pools and manicured landscaping if you can’t afford the upkeep.

      I’m so thankful for my roof being a simple shape. Cost to replace was $16k and my neighbors home is the same size but has dormers and multiple mini roofs around the bigger roof. Their replacement was $29k. Same thing applies to windows. You want a standard number and nothing custom. Dont be my ex husband and insist on buying a 2500sqft home with 29 drafty windows.

   4. I would only commute 2 days a week as a starting point.

   5. What is your likely timeline for this job? How new is new and are you enjoying it so far?

      1. New = 2 months; and it seems good so far – both that I’m enjoying it; I think I can see a real impact on the company from my work; and I’m getting signals that the work is valued – both that I’ve been asked to take on projects that are financially significant to the company; and that my boss’ boss has explicitly passed on that he’s really happy with the choice to hire me/is hearing good things from other departments. Everything I can see suggests the company really truly is financially stable; although that doesn’t mean much for individual role security. The health insurance is the best I’ve ever had. The commute is the one really bad thing.

   6. The issue I see is that the long term job opportunities in your work city might be much better than in your current city. Your setup sounds like Providence RI, commuting into Boston; Philadelphia, commuting into NYC; or Milwaukee, commuting into Chicago.

      It could be commuting from one side of Atlanta to the other, or something like that.

      Regardless, consider the long term trajectory of your career where you are versus in the new city and plan for that.

      1. Yeah, it’s a good question! I actually don’t think this is a huge factor – I’m commuting from a large city (ie. with other job opportunities) to a mid-size city that punches above its weight in my industry. I guess there’s nothing so sensitive about this question that I’m super concerned about the low chance someone recognizes me: it’s a Denver –> Boulder commute. And I’m in tech, so Denver/Boulder both have a good chunk of employers; but it’s not San Francisco/Seattle type of situation.

8. More about cyclosporiasis:

   https://www.theatlantic.com/health/2026/07/cyclosporiasis-parasite-diarrhea-outbreak/687888/?gift=qsjuTE89eBpernkDBUBeMtl_YURWimhg_TKSqUsGXJw&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

Comments are closed.