Last night I was unable to prepare a blog for Friday because I was washing my hair. No, I really was actually washing my hair. It’s not easy, you know. The taps on the basin are too small to take the shower hose. The taps on the bath will fit but the loo extends halfway down the bath which involves significant contortions in order to reach the shower head. This means that I have to wash my hair in the bath. However, if the dishwasher or the washing machine are on, there is not enough hot water to have a bath as the water is heated by an immersion tank and is therefore finite.
There is no shower and no radiator in the bathroom and it is cold and damp. There is a heater on the wall but it costs £45 per second to run. Therefore a bath has to be planned so that no other watery appliances are running and I can put the heater on for a bit before my bath to avoid hypothermia and bronchial spasm. Tonight’s the night!
I have to keep my hair going between baths with dry shampoo, which is a complete life saver. I have tried many brands but my favourite is Batiste which is effective and sensibly priced. Also, they do a little handbag-sized one in case you get caught out. Which I often do.
Roll on the warmer weather.
Wartime Housewife 
Sending you warm thoughts…
We had a towel rail with integral radiator put into our previously unheated bathroom a couple of years ago. Bliss. You appreciate things like that when you’ve been without.
Ahh, dry shampoo. Memories of long-forgotten camping holidays in France when we were kids come flooding back! None of that walking to the shower block nonsense for us (and, also, my parents made a habit of camping sauvage, so there weren’t any facilities anywhere).
Dry shampoo only works if you have long, sleek hair…otherwise you end up looking like you’ve just taken off a motorcycle helmet. I do remember liking the smell of Batiste though.
Your bathroom sounds a real pain, roll on summer when it warms up a bit. I do the dry shampoo thing as well, only I don’t go much on the concoction of chemicals that emit from Batiste…. I use a dash of the old Johnson’s baby powder sprinkled through my hairbrush and then brushed through my hair. I’m dark so it might make me look slightly grannyish till I’ve brushed it all out and it goes static ‘au Jedward’ but what the heck, does the trick! I seem to remember you saying you were blonde so it probably wouldn’t show up on yours at all.
Yes, this is all very well, but what about those of us without any hair? Come on WH, you must know of a soothing unguent.
Mr Sheen.
Or a hat.
Have you tried the Boots own ‘Expert dry shampoo’. I had forgotten all about the existence of dry shampoo until it was suggested to me a few months ago by a kind, if over-groomed, friend. My mind was dragged back to the experiences of forty years ago when an inadvertent scratch of the head would lead to a fingernail full of compacted powder the colour of old chewing gum. God I was gorgeous in the seventies!
However, twenty-first century methods of procrastination are much better. No more instant ageing until the product has soaked in – and no embarrassing trips to the loo to empty out your fingernails!
Sue: I AM blonde and used to use Baby Powder until Sister the Second told me off and said I must use dry shampoo.
Myrtle: I tried the Boots own on the advice of Sister the Second who told me that Sister the First used it. I must have greasier hair than she, because it didn’t do the trick at all. Also Batiste do a really groovy version that delivers a gold mist to make your hair sparkle. Didn’t the 70s dry shampoo come in a bottle with a nozzle that you had to squirt the powder in blasts?
Do you know I think it did!
You’re right – my hair isn’t very greasy but is very fine, so wehn it gets a bit grubby, it goes very lank*. I find that the Boots version works better, but you have to make sure you don’t breathe for a few minutes after spraying it in your hair (or leave the room very quickly). The Batiste one (which, by the way I pinched a bit from you last weekend!) does smell better and is less likely to induce asthmatic gasping.
The old one from the 70s was in a small plastic bottle that you puffed into your hair – there’s progress for you.
* Isn’t the word “lank” onomatopoeic !
It was called ‘Aero’ do you remember!!?