Squish to Ridic-sh

If you’re kicking yourself because we’re 10 days into January and your New Year’s Resolutions are quickly becoming the microphone for your inadequacies, let me throw you a Get-Out-of-Jail-Free card. I almost died this morning during my new “self care” routine. Maybe we all need to calm the f* down.

It happens every year. I tell everyone to love themselves the way they are, then I secretly start sneaking more bran and protein powder into our baked goods. “Sure, let’s go on gentle walks,” I tell my husband. “No pressure workouts are better for our mental health.” Unbeknownst to him, I ordered a pair of ankle weights and have been wearing them non-stop for the past two days. So what if I can’t lay on my left side because my hip is screaming, but I’m fairly certain that I’ve just invented the single best way to trick yourself into working out.

So when my friend popped up on my Insta stories with a head of near perfect hair, I was absolutely hooked.

“Squish to Condish” or “S2C” is the latest hair beauty trend making the rounds. Or maybe it is old. I don’t know because I don’t go looking for this stuff. I believe a trend is worth trying when it falls into my lap. Isn’t that shiitake mushroom powder that I accidentally knocked off of the shelf at Whole Foods actually The Universe trying to tell me I needed more vitality? Thought so! Melissa appearing with hair that was cherub-in-a-Renaissance-painting beautiful was simply another way that the Higher Powers That Be are looking out for me.

I should have known when I googled the term that something was up since the first suggestion to appear was an article in Cosmopolitan. At the time I thought this made the method more credible. There is a key factor I was forgetting (see below*). I watched several videos on the technique—women with wet heads hanging over their tubs, beaming as they crushed their hair in their hands—and knew this would be a piece of cake.

The First Rule of Squish to Condish: You’re going to need a lot of conditioner.
When The Universe told me that I definitely needed to buy all of Jonathan Van Ness’ (from Queer Eye) hair products, I was hesitant to spend the equivalent of a really good French Cabernet on shampoo, conditioner and some sort of cream I had no idea how to use. To save money, I purchased the product then chopped off my hair. So frugal! So practical! I also have been using about a dime-sized amount in my hair. Less as the bottle gets close to empty. The S2C method requires you to use enough conditioner in your hair to “make it feel like seaweed”. Two handfuls later, I finished the bottle.

The Second Rule of Squish to Condish: There’s going to be some cramping.
Getting the conditioner into the hair was easy and, spending anxieties aside, kind of fun watching my desperately thirsty hair rebound into wavy spirals. I squished and imagined long ringlets cascading down my back, looks of admiration and even jealousy from my friends as I told them this was natural. After a few minutes of force feeding conditioner into my upside down head, my neck started to cramp, then my lower back. For the record, naked back bends in the shower aren’t recommended.

The Third Rule of Squish to Condish: Protect the knees.
Amidst the rest of my shower routine, I was able to swing my head around like a tether ball to keep my hair free flowing and out of the shower stream. God forbid I lose an ounce of that $20 conditioner. Finished, I climbed out of the shower with my seaweed hair and, while it dripped into my eyes, I haphazardly slapped on lotion and underwear as there was no way I was going to do this wet and freezing. I prepped my large bowl of water and cup and sacrificed my clean towel to the bathroom floor at the tub’s edge to protect my 51 year old knees.

The Fourth Rule of Squish to Condish: If you don’t do Pilates, you don’t deserve good hair.
With my dripping slimy head hung over the bowl of water in the tub, it dawned on me what I had failed to notice about the videos on Cosmos and the magazine in general. The largest age group that reads Cosmopolitan magazine is 25-34 years old. The women in all those videos still had their stomach muscles speaking to them. Here I was, already a bit crampy from bending upside down in the shower, needing to rinse a quart of conditioner out of my hair while still hanging upside down and on previously shattered knees. I began furiously scooping and squishing in an effort to get through as much of the rinse cycle as my back could handle. It wasn’t until THAT MOMENT that I remembered just two months ago I seized my back while flipping my wet hair around and ended up on the couch for three days. Faster and faster I squished and rinsed, squished and rinsed. I shouldn’t have been so worred about being cold because this triggered a hot flash and I began sweating and cursing that I now needed another shower. At one point I tried to rise up straighter which only caused me to pour water outside the tub, swamping the floor. My Pilates teacher Nicole’s voice screamed “Scoop and curl! Scoop and curl!” in my ears. Glutes quivering, back wailing, I leaned forward, After a few more furious passes with the water, I slipped and came down head first inside the tub. For the second time in my adult life, I almost chipped my front tooth.

Ultimately I was able to finish rinsing my hair, teeth in tact. My back was sore, my eyes stung, but once dry, my hair swirled itself into beautiful waves that lasted a full 3 hours. My husband was even impressed. Perhaps next time I’ll take the ankle weights off before showering.