Sunday, November 23, 2008

Winter hair care

Around here it is way too cold to bath your horse in the winter.
But sometimes you just have to spend some "beauty parlour" time on the ponies.
Today was pretty mild so Kimfer and I took advantage of it and washed tails. Kimfer washed, conditioned and bagged Baron's & Isis's tails. I washed and conditioned Applejack's and Princess's.
OOPS. No tail bags for me. I forgot to bring them to the barn.
Washing tails in winter takes some practice. You don't want to slop too much water on the barn floor - ice patches, or on the horse - frozen ponies.
Or on yourself. Somehow the colder it is the more likely I am to soak myself. lol
We use pails of warm water. Dunk the tail, shampoo, dunk again a few times to rinse. Condition tails. Dunk in some clean water to rinse.
Then we towel dry as much as possible. Comb through and whip out the old blow dryer.
When tail is dry, braid into the nice polar-fleece tail bags.
IF you remember to have a clean one handy. :p

8 comments:

  1. Sounds like a good thing to get done for the horses. Rusty could sure use a tail wash and condition - do you girls travel? hahaha - a travelling horse salon - that could be interesting!

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  2. We do get freezing weather here in North Texas, but those days are few and it never lasts more than a few days at a time. You can always count on a day soon with temps warm enough for a pony bath. I'm not sure how they'd feel about the blow dryer, though.

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  3. Please see my blog for a feel better card for Lisa... Shhhhhhh!!! Don't tell!!!

    Lydia
    www.stewylydia.blogspot.com

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  4. Laura
    Now there's an idea! Kimfer can clip, I'll bath and if we can convince Denise to join us she can clean the ummm... boy bits.
    (just saying that because she suggested she go into that kind of business when she posted about that awhile ago!)

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  5. Leah Fry
    Kimfer & I were talking about the blow dryer yesterday. All of our horses have gotten over the blow dryer very quickly and with little fuss, even those that don't like clippers.

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  6. Ahhh memories... I used to have a gelding that i would wash his tail like that. Only I would for go the practice during the winter and just keep it braided and bagged most of the time. Occasionally I would take it out rebag it and then rebraid it. I had one of those bags where you split the hair into groups of 3, then put each group into separate tubes of fabric then braided it.

    It was nice because the hair wouldn't rub that way. Also I would occasional add some baby oil to the ends of the hair, so that it wouldn't freeze and break off.

    Before winter and during the first washing in spring I would always do a V05 Hot Oil treatment to super condition it.

    What products do you prefer?

    I just washed doggies this weekend though - similar...though not as cold. We have spoiled ass dogs.

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  7. Steph
    Our tail bags are made of polar-fleece. There are 3 "tubes" that you put the hair in and then you braid the tubes.

    For product I've been using something new. Oster brought out shampoo and conditioner. I used the strawberry conditioner and the vanilla shampoo. Smells great!
    Rinsed nicely and their tails felt very soft. Left a good shine too.

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  8. Lythia at A Horse Crazy American in Germany told me about Quik Silver to whiten tails. I bathed my horses tails the other day and I intend to do so again soon to get them really white!

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Wordless Wednesday ~ new trailer!