Do shaver blades get worse when the next number of blades come out?

Last night, as i shave in  the bath, i binned my worn out Gillette Ultra Max Man Trio Blade head or whatever its called, and reached for a new one. But with my new pack of 5 blades, that for some reason now costs £7, came a 6 Blade head.

Which needless to say annoyed me.

And reminded me of a thought i had back in  the late '80s that i should patent 5, 6 ,7 ,8 ,9 10 blade heads before they made them and if any company asked for patent i could then say: 'No, make better 1 or 2 blade shavers'.

Because it was really starting  to annoy me that as they brought out the 3 blade shaver the 2 blade seemed to get worse as had the 1 blade before it.

Now the manufacturer will say that that's because the 3 blade was so much better. But i am not sure that that's true. I suspect they also made the single blades slightly worse.

And now we are on 6 blades and i imagine that the 3 blades will start to be made blunter.


So, each year i look at my grandfather's cut-throat razors and think: will i start using  them?

Its just the name: Cut Throat. Couldn't they have named them 'You  will definitely die using  these?' or something slightly plainer.

Anyway, If i can  work out how to sharpen  them (if they need it) i may give them a go.

I guess this could be my last post. But the walls of the bathroom are red so there's no need to worry about redecorating.

What thats coming over the hill - is it a hairline!

The title is maybe a bit ambitious. But its roughly six weeks since i began rubbing  cat killer on  my head so it's time for an update.



And the update is: well maybe.

I think the big point here is to set some rules before you  start. My early photos are no help.So,

1. If you  have a bald area - is it smooth or are there fine hairs?
2. Get a haircut! It will make it easier to note whats where before you  begin.
3. In  areas of slight hair - just how slight is it?

Because that is my problem at the moment:

1. My Bald patch is fuzzy?? is it new hair
2. I had a haircut (my first in   babers  for 30 years i reckon) and now i can see a slight hairline appearing  beyond my bald area - was it always there?
3.  Betwen my non-existent widows peak and the bald area are patches that grow in  from my Caesar sides - are the growing  thicker and is that new growth of dark hair?

So you  see my problem. And my photography does not help.

So, this is the new shot of my head. Does it look fuzzier to you? Compared to the old shot below.

 Wishful thinking hey?

Well, we'll see - i have another 6-10 weeks to go before i give up. And i am very curious about the bum fluff and the new short hair i can see in  amongst the lone grass.

I have not been perfectly regular. I often forget the evening mousse. It does sting on  cuts (in  my case, a distasteful rash i had before this began. i think caused by hats??).

I want to Drive Hair Cycling!

Who would have known? Well, i guess anybody who has witnessed my pathetic attempts to rub cat killer into my head.

Still i am very excited by this news, as first read on  Slashdot about this possible scientific breakthrough: Adipocyte Lineage Cells Contribute to the Skin Stem Cell Niche to Drive Hair Cycling.

Sadly i have no idea what that says, but according  to slashdot the gist is:

"According to an article published in the journal Cell, molecular signals from fat cell (adipocyte) precursors under the skin are necessary to spur hair growth in mice. Yale researchers report in the paper that these cells produce molecules called PDGF (platelet derived growth factors), which are necessary to produce hair growth. The discovery of the source of signals that trigger hair growth may lead to new treatments for baldness. The trick is in getting adipocyte precursors under the skin to talk to stem cells at the base of the hair follicles."

Which, i think, is a big up  for stem cells.


Not sure what to sell here, seems you  can't be live mice on  amazon so here's a nice wig instead.

28 days later: Zombie or Vegan, or both? Carol Vorderman's Detox for Life: The 28 Day Detox Diet and Beyond

I just lost three quarters of a stone in 4 weeks. I was 13 and a quarter stone and now I am 12 and a half. Though I have to say our weighing machine is rubbish and can vary a quarter of a stone depending on where you put it and how you stand on it! Leaning back while still being able to see the dial is worth a couple of pounds.


It was a Sunday and Nikki said she was starting Carol Vorderman's Detox for Life: The 28 Day Detox Diet and Beyond the next day – did I want to do it too? I said OK.

I am not sure if I have ever been on an official diet before, so this is probably a first. And, it was pretty easy.

What I gave up
I think this diet is pretty hard-core vegan, vegan++, or perhaps vegan+gm-free. Enough name calling. What I didn't eat was:

• meat and fish
• dairy – cow or any other
• high gluten  foods, aka the white stuff – wheat, sugar, potatoes, white rice
• booze
• caffeine – tea, coffee

As my favourite meal would be (french) bread, wine and cheese and probably grapes, I would have thought this diet would be pretty difficult. Caffeine-wise I don't drink tea very often and I grind one cup of coffee a day. But we quite often end up in cafes, especially the Butterfly cafe at St Giles (cheap but great and roomy – a place children can run riot indoors when it rains ((and in scotland that's most of the time)) otherwise its the Pavilion in the Meadows – cheapish, very organic and outdoors so children can run riot – there's a theme there isn't there).

What I ate
Chickpeas. Actually it was much better then that, though maybe not really. Here goes:

Breakfast: porridge with raisons and flax seeds, soya milk instead of milk – not much change there. Almond milk though is even better, expensive but lovely (very mild almond flavour)

Lunch: on the whole, salads plus ryvita and Nairns (rough) oat biscuits (so many, especially the expensive thick handmade oat cakes/biscuits are disgusting – it seems because they have wheat in them, which I find inexplicable), various types of hummus (laterly home made) falafels (shop bought). Sometimes a vegetable and bean fry up.

Supper: sometimes a return to lunch and at others a proper cooked vegan meal. It turns out that a lot of mediteranean, indian, morroccan, mexican stuff fit the bill. 

Nibbles: bombay mix (its all chickpeas and nuts), maize/corn tortillas (you may think Dorittos wouldn't be able to achieve this but actually they have plain tortillas that are just corn, oil and salt. The only problem being that they are not as nice as other plain tortillas we discovered in an organic food shop.) nuts, dried fruits and fruit.

Slips
I ate a flapjack that I thought was ok but turned out to have a lot of sugar in it. I also went to my sisters 50th birthday party - I drank, I ate a lot of lovely food – crisps, potatoes, meat, fish, cake, and the following morning coffee bread and salami and cheese. I weighed myself the monday after that weekend an I had still lost weight the same as the first week ( a quarter of a stone).

There were times, making tuna mayonnaise for the children, throwing out an uneaten sausage, seeing if the pasta was cooked – that off-menu food almost made it to my lips, but mainly by accident, though the tuna was very tempting. On the whole it was pretty easy – going to cafes was a bit dull – so we went a lot less.

Side effects?
The first side effect was very bad aching calf muscles. I never really worked out why this was. I ate a couple of bananas in case it was potassium, but it had no effect. It got really painful at night, but not actual cramps. I suspect it was milk – lactic acid build up?? Not even Google could help me here. Luckily it went away after four days.

The worst side-effect, that seems to get played down on vegetarian and vegan forums is wind. Terrible constant solid walls of noxious farts. Loud and dangerous. Shopping was nightmare of carefully chosen emergency dumping grounds in empty aisles followed by gentle yet swift ( as the fumes seem to stick to you of you move away too fast – suctions and void theory?) escape before some luckless assistant walks into the cloud.

The only way of dealing with this was to always be near, or carrying at least one child, as naturally they are the default blamee. One day I will apologise to my children for this.

I think we spent much less money. Less on meat (the children ate normally throughout this), less dairy, far fewer visits to cafes (and therefore less spent on coffee and cakey-breads), and no alcohol.

Yearnings – Dreams
I did have a dream, my Breakfast with Mogwai dream, where I ate a croissant. But I didn't have any major yearnings. On the fourth saturday I really felt like having a drink. But the main one was looking forward to having a coffee again.

Maybe my sister's party made it all too easy – only two fortnight sections to get through.

Discoveries

• Almond milk – i'll let you know how the coffee goes later, 
• PureSoya spread – much nicer than any margerine – sort of cool cold and tasteless, and you can fry with it. 
• Chickpea in general actually. I mean frying up some veg and pouring in a tin of checkpeas and adding a few herb and spices, it was lovely and less than 5 minutes to make 
• bombay mix, 
• hummus - i can make great Moroccan Hummus now!
• falafels (cant make them yet - some packet mixes are better than others)
• gram flower for onion bhajis and I suspect popadoms (yet to explore this theory but I think I can see how that works)

Exercise - did I take any?
Well, I do. This will come as a surprise to almost everyone I know. But maybe less so when I say that its not much. It is, to be exact: 100 sit ups, 25 press ups and a 1 mile run, 3 times a week. This seems to last about 9 or 10 months a year – christmas and summer holidays being a bit problematic. This has gone on for nearly 3 years (though it began as twice a week and 25 sit ups with a ¾ mile run). I don't think it had any effect on my weight loss as it hadn't for the previous 2 years (!?@*&^!5!$ to quote Captain Haddock).

Will i continue it?
After my sister's birthday I began to suspect that you can eat the 'good stuff' without putting on wieght, or even feeling bad, as long as you dont have it every day, or maybe not even every week.

So yes, I will. I'll probably eat meat and fish on occasion, but less than once a week. I certainly will drink. But I wont eat bread or butter or cheese or milk, or dairy at all really. And just see how it goes.

This all happened over a month ago now. More to follow. I have now lost a stone.


Conclusion
This was not a diet about eating less. I ate loads and felt very full.
What kind of veganism is this – faux-vegan? Vegan + (as there is no wheat or potatoes or white rice) or Vegan +- as there is meat?? Or maybe just eating like a european? What do you think?

Trying Regaine / Rogaine Foamwith Minoxidil - an attempt to regrow my hair

This what the top of my head looks like. It does seem to be getting worse slowly. And you are right, it is very shiny.

 


Here is a silly photo of me and another of me with my brother's hair. Its true he brushes his hair, and maybe thats where i went wrong, but it doesn't improve things much for me does it? Still i can have dreams can't i? This could be me. With Rogaine!

With this in mind i went and bought some Regaine, online. Though actually its now called Rogaine. Name changes always annoy me but thats another story. In fact i bought Rogaine/Regaine for Men Extra Strength Scalp Foam 5% w/w Cutaneous Foam - 3 months supply. The three small tubes of foam that i have to rub into my head twice a day.


Regaine used to be a liquid  but, so the PR goes, that only worked for 3 in 10 people. This foam stuff is said to work for 9 out of 10. In which case why are any stars of film and TV bald? But they are bald stars so i suspect this will not work. Oh and being the super-effetive foam it costs more: this lot cost me £46 from Home Naturals Inc. On the Regaine site (http://www.regaine.co.uk/hair-loss-products) its recommended price is £70.


The Rogaine site says:

9 out of 10 men say the kept or regrew their hair with New Regaine Extra Strength Foam

So i guess that means that in  the study most people are unable to notice any hairloss over a 3 or 4 month period and but that a small (otherwise they would have said!) number did notice that their hair regrew a bit. Thats enough of a chance for me!

It also says:

Minoxidil is the only over the counter medicinal treatment clinically proven to regrow hair

According  to Wikipedia Minoxidil is:

Minoxidil (trade names Rogaine, Regaine, Avacor, Loniten (orally), and Mintop among others ) is an antihypertensive vasodilator medication which also slows or stops hair loss and promotes hair regrowth. Now off-patent, it is available over the counter for treatment of androgenic alopecia, among other baldness treatments. However, measurable changes, if experienced, disappear within months after discontinuation of treatment...

Minoxidil was first used exclusively as an oral drug (trade name Loniten) to treat high blood pressure. However, it was discovered to have an interesting side-effect:Minoxidil may cause increased growth or darkening of fine body hairs, or in some cases, significant hair growth. When the medication is discontinued, the hair loss will return to normal rate within 30 to 60 days. ...

In addition, its effectiveness has largely been demonstrated in younger men (18 to 41 years of age). Minoxidil use is indicated for central (vertex), or top of head, balding only.

 So, as a 47 year old with a huge area of baldness things are not looking  good.

I particularly like, in Side Effects:

Ironically, hair loss is a common side effect of minoxidil treatment. Manufacturers note that minoxidil-induced hair loss is a common side effect and describe the process as 'shedding'. Although this phenomenon demonstrates that minoxidil is indeed affecting hair follicles, manufacturers offer no guarantee that the new hair loss will be replaced with hair growth.

The speculated reason for this "shedding" is the encouragement of hairs already in the telogen phase to shed early, before often beginning a fresh, healthier anagen phase...

Minoxidil is highly toxic to cats and rats and may cause death.

Though i have many curious genes, and i have been accused on  occasion of being  a rat, though sadly never a cat, i pretend to be not too bothered by that last side effect. But i am a bit depressed by the possible 'shedding'.

So, here is a film of me applying Regaine to my head.

I will, in a month maybe, revisit my head and see how its been going and whether there is any visible difference yet.