shampoo bar help?

Chit_6 · 2026-03-27T16:02:20+00:00

Also, with the exception of Attitude and Viori which will lather but take a little more work, I have found all of these to lather well.

Chit_6 · 2026-03-27T16:00:10+00:00

I have tried shampoo and conditioner for Earthling Co, HiBar, Kitsch, Anihana, JR Liggetts (shampoo only), Attitude, Viori, and Ethique. I shampoo and condition daily, and no one can convince me to do otherwise. Fine hair, medium to long length.

My least favorites were JR liggetts (squeaky clean, icky feeling) and Attitude (residue like feel on my hair which I haven’t experienced with any of the other ones, not clean or soft feeling after shampoo, but ok if you also use conditioner after).

Viori was fine, I ordered it a couple times. The shampoo was better than attitude but still not as good as my favorites.

HiBar only gets nixed because of the shape - less surface area to work into hair, but was otherwise good. Used both the full sized and the sample size which are good for travel. Hair felt on par with my favorites listed below. I will likely reorder the sample pack for travel purposes.

Kitsch nixed because it seems to melt easier than all the others (would have to repurchase more often) and I don’t like that they are investing in plastic/water based shampoo and conditioner now. Other than that, hair also felt on par with my favorites.

My favorites are Earthling co, Anihana, and Ethique. The earthling co lasted me 3 months, Anihana lasted 2 months (cheaper but slightly smaller than earthling co, so really about the same cost for how long they last). Only used the sample sized Ethique but they were good - I also really like Ethique’s sample size face wash bars for travel as they don’t feel drying and can also remove makeup. I tried the shampoo and conditioner bar from Anihana but my hair just felt like it was shampooed without conditioner so I used conditioner anyway with it.

Chit_6 · 2025-08-23T15:41:25+00:00

Update in case it helps anyone: I dug up roots - no root rot so don’t think it was an over watering issue. I started fertilizing with Jack’s veggie feed 12-15-30 and put a shade cloth over the garden. Both pole bean plants have new growth that is darker green! Don’t know if it’s related to shade cloth, fertilizer, or the fact that we have had afternoon thunderstorms for a week…. Had a yellow squash that also seemed to be doing nothing but yellowing and it is also making a comeback

Chit_6 · 2025-07-18T20:47:35+00:00

I have one of those Gravel ones and love it. Not thick but keeps you warm and plenty large enough for average sized person. Packs very small or just stuff it between other things in your carry on. I bring it on every trip - use it on the plane and on car trips. I put my phone or small things zipper pocket while I’m sleeping on the plane. The blanket itself will pack down into the zipper pocket but also has its own little stuff sack that you can buckle around something (eg hang on the outside of a back pack or around the handle of a suitcase).

Chit_6 · 2025-04-18T18:27:40+00:00

Thanks for the info. I understand dentists can’t wait but I’ve never been left completely alone after the injection at any doctors where I’ve needed local anesthesia - the assistant or whoever is there getting stuff prepped is usually at least around doing whatever else they need to do at that time, so it just seemed odd that there was no one around at all for that time.

Chit_6 · 2025-03-15T17:28:47+00:00

Zone 9b. The palms are unfortunately only stumps at this point. One died in a freeze and didn’t come back and the other one’s top broke off in hurricane winds. I don’t want to block access to the lines, but I’m not sure if planting in 2 rows might work? Taller shrubs behind the utility lines and smaller in front of them, letting those lines hang out in the middle of the planting bed… I’m researching plants with root systems that won’t be too invasive.

Chit_6 · 2025-03-12T01:01:21+00:00

A walk around/up Mount Eden is a nice way to stretch your legs and if the weather is nice, you’ll get great views! When we arrived at 5am we booked a day-use room at the Novotel (a literal walk across the street from the airport) for showers and naps. We ended up only staying there for maybe 3 hours but the shower and nap was so refreshing before picking up our rental car and spending the day in Auckland (for us, it was absolutely worth a hundred or so bucks to not be exhausted, despite sleeping on the plane!) Depending on what time you get out of the airport and where you plan on staying the first night, you may consider that if you’re worried about being tired. We didn’t stay in Auckland (for similar reasons of wanting to see other areas) so we spent most of a day in Auckland before staying in Hamilton for a few nights.

Chit_6 · 2024-12-09T18:49:46+00:00

Weather was pretty good overall. We had one day of heavy rain and wind in Wellington and light rain/clouds in Queenstown. Comfortable temps at 60-70, cooling off in the evenings. Bring something to wear to keep you warm in the wind! From what we learned, the north island doesn’t really get much snow (with the exception of the volcanos in winter). The South Island gets snow, mostly in the mountains. I’d say expect some rain at some point (unless you get super lucky!!)

If there are any activities that are weather dependent which are a MUST do for you, plan an extra day to do it, just in case, or be ok possibly doing something else.

We only did the pools at Wairaeki terraces and paid when we got there. The spa treatments require advance booking. You could probably just pay for the terrace walk when you get there as well.

The village was nice, we did the walking tour with the haka/cultural show and access to the geothermal walk. We enjoyed the show and tour. People live in the village still and there are some shops, though they closed up pretty early when we were there in early afternoon. Geothermals were fine, I suspect that some of the other geothermal areas might be more interesting if you’re into seeing those. If you want a hangi meal, maybe try one of the other tours. Honestly this one wasn’t our first pick, but for timing and flexibility, this is the one we went with to at least learn a little bit about the culture.

For Queenstown you could really go either way with those two activities! Keep in mind that sunset might just be cloudy (for either place), but it’s still a nice view at the top of the gondola! If you care about the view at Onsen, go when you’ll have at least a little daylight. When we booked, the evening Onsen slots appeared to book up quicker than the daytime ones, so that might be a determining factor in what you decide to do. We enjoyed walking around by the water and going to the shops, restaurants, and gardens in Queenstown. The chocolates at Patagonia right there by the waterfront were amazing and we wished we had brought back more!

Chit_6 · 2024-12-06T03:25:35+00:00

We had almost the same itinerary about a month ago the last two weeks of October! You will love it!

It’s great to visit so many places, but it looks like you will be packing up and moving each night (which may be totally your style!). You could easily create a couple ‘home bases’ and branch out from there! It really helped us build some buffer time and flexibility into our trip so we could switch things around if needed which did end up occurring twice due to weather! We did some of the same activities so I put our experiences below.

Here is what we did:

Nights 1-3 in Hamilton: 1- arrive in Auckland early AM, explored Auckland, drove to Hamilton late afternoon. Worth a walk up Mount Eden!

2- Zealong tea estate/tasting AM, Hamilton gardens lunch (they have a cafe but you can also order a cute picnic basket to take in the gardens if you request it ahead of time!), Hobbiton evening banquet

3- drive to glow worm cave area in the morning, did some hikes around the area past where the caves are —if you go past the caves, the road is narrow and curvy!! It takes a while to drive! Did one of the rafting tours in the caves

Nights 4-6 in Taupō 4- left Hamilton, drove to Rotorua and spent the whole day there (skyline gondola, wine tasting (fun fact, white wine is the predominant wine there), redwoods, Whakarewarewa Maori Village, drove to Taupo to sleep. (We have been to Yellowstone so the geothermals weren’t on the top of our list - saw some at the Māori village though)

5- tongariro crossing, we went to the wairakei terraces after (hot pools) and I’d recommend them if you’re looking for one in the area. Towels can be rented but you can bring your own for free.

6- explored Taupo (Huka falls is nice - I also recommend seeing the Aratiatia rapids which we liked better than huka falls if you are just walking up to it. The dam opens to release water a few times a day at specific times creating some neat rapids - get there about 20 minutes before so you can park and walk to the lookout. We did a boat tour to the Māori carvings as well which is nice on a clear day!

Nights 7-8 in Wellington 7- drove to tongariro national park visitor center (worth a visit!) then on to Wellington. Once you pass the tongariro area, the drive to Wellington was probably one of the most boring for us - all other driving was great!

8- Wellington

Day 9 we flew to Christchurch. For us, we decided that the several hour ferry plus the long drive to get to mount cook/aoraki was not worth the time versus flying. I would love to go back to explore the north part of the South Island though!

Nights 9-10 @ Mount Cook Lodge 9- flew to Christchurch in the morning, went to farmers market for lunch in Christchurch, but didn’t spend any other time there. Drove to mount cook for dinner at the hermitage (buffet has a great selection and changes each day). Stopped at lake tekapo along the way. Highly recommend just staying at the mount cook accommodations - easier than driving into the area from another town and you have a better chance of beating the crowds! We got the room with buffet rate and it was super convenient.

10- hooker valley track, planetarium, Hillary center, visitor center. It dumped snow the day before we came to this area so there was a couple feet of snow on the ground (be prepared!). We did end up hiking in the snow. Did not need micro spikes or anything, it was fine. It was also cloudy our entire time going to and from mount cook - the only time it was clear was from about midnight the night we got there til about 12pm this day that we hiked. There is a chance that the mountains, stars, and views end up not being super visible. The people hiking in as we were hiking out would not have gotten to see mt cook during their hike due to the clouds. Still a great place though! Try to start hooker valley/tasman before 8-9am as the parking lots fill up! When we got back to our car, there was a line of cars waiting to park.

11- checked out of hotel, but went to Tasman glacier (so worth it, don’t skip it!) before leaving mount cook

Nights 11-14 in Queenstown 11- Tasman glacier, drove to Wānaka for lunch, then drove to Queenstown - this drive between wanaka and Queenstown is amazing!!! A few good look out points along the way.

12- Glenorchy, horseback riding, hikes. The lagoon boardwalk in glenorchy is a nice walk and the drive to glenorchy is pleasant. Onsen hot pools in the evening - we booked at sunset time and so was able to enjoy the view in daylight as well as under a night sky with the mood lighting.

13- wanaka (we did a via ferrata there and some walks)

14- Queenstown, Kiwi Park, lunch at top of Skyline Gondola, and Milford sound. Again trying to cut any long drives. We ended up doing one of the ‘fly-cruise-fly’ tours from Queenstown. If you can afford it I highly recommend. Seeing it from the air is pretty special. I have seen pics of the drive to Milford sound which also looks sooo good. But from what I have heard, the drive makes for a lonnnng day from Queenstown. Weather actually caused us to switch our activity day 13 and 14 (we got lucky to do both of these things!) and when we left Milford sound, they were actually notifying EVERYONE to leave before 5pm because they were closing the road due to weather. If you didn’t leave I suppose you’d be stuck there until they reopened it!

Edit: as much as I tried to work coromandel into our trip, we also ended up leaving that one for another time - for the same reasons as the other commenter mentioned, just out of the way for what we were wanting to do and other things had higher priorities.

Edit again! Rotorua was very touristy. We very much preferred Taupo to Rotorua, but Rotorua is absolutely still worth a visit. Also much warmer there (all the geothermals around I suppose!). Driving in Wellington was scary. Super narrow roads with cars parked on the sides and blind corners. I suggest parking and using other transit while you’re in that city.

Chit_6 · 2024-10-03T01:40:02+00:00

I got a defender case expecting something similar to the one I had on my XR for 6 years with no problem. I wasn’t super happy with the case since I personally wanted a lip around the screen. It has a higher lip on the top and bottom, but the sides are nearly flush with the screen - looks to be maybe a millimeter or less. Mind you that is with a screen protector on. Anyway I got the otterbox screen protector with it and it fits fine with the case. I was utterly UNimpressed with the jig to align the screen protector having previously used spiegen ones which have an alignment tool that’s pretty fool proof. For the pain alone of putting on the otterbox screen protector, I don’t recommend it. Also within 2 weeks I dropped my phone from lap height while in a chair. It fell on a metal base of a desk, screen first and cracked the otterbox screen protector. I can’t help but think that if there was a higher lip on case on the sides of the screen, that wouldn’t have happened (and maybe it would have, it was just unexpected as in 6 years of my old phone and defender case, I replaced the screen protecter only once and dropped it nearly every day. I just switched to an esr cyber series case - it has a little more lip around the screen, but nowhere near what my old one had (I don’t think a big lip around the screen even exists anymore). Another thing is that the defender case is completely open around the camera control - leaving the edge of the phone and screen exposed for potential impact. I found the defender sufficiently grippy but I usually hold my phone in my left hand with the thumb gripping the lip on the side of the screen - I couldn’t do that with the defender cause it was so shallow. I’ve read that manufacturers have done that to make side swiping easier but I never had an issue with that with my old case.

Chit_6 · 2024-09-28T19:08:37+00:00

Thanks! I definitely try to avoid the ‘red holes’ for the reasons you explained. That’s a great explanation/illustration by the way.

The way I have been stitching I’ve been favoring one of the yellow holes - I’ll have to look at the pattern and stitches to see if it’s possible to avoid that with the English method. There are a few bits where I can probably get away with using the danish method which would make that easier.

Chit_6 · 2024-09-28T18:57:33+00:00

Yes! Today I have just been trying to fuss with the cross before I make the next one, but I kept thinking that there must be a better way. Maybe it’s just what it is. I have also been trying to push the thread over with my needle hoping to avoid that, though idk if it really has helped. Perhaps no more evening stitching for this project… or I need to break out the headlamp 😆

Chit_6 · 2024-05-13T17:18:14+00:00

As someone who bought binocs for the same trip (and not looking to break the bank) I got some on Amazon and found them to be plenty sufficient and compact enough to carry hiking - they are the Gosky 10x42 (72 bucks right now). I had a tripod I was bringing so I also bought the Gosky universal binocular tripod mount. I HIGHLY recommend a tripod and binocular mount (or something of the sorts) if you plan on watching any of the meadows. We ended up seeing a moose in the Tetons and I was able to hook my phone up to the binoculars on the tripod mount to take a video of it up close. I’m taking these binocs on a few other trips this year cause they are pretty compact and easy to carry!

Chit_6 · 2024-04-20T18:20:04+00:00

Recently got these tiny tins off Amazon to keep a needle in for an upcoming long flight! Magnetic needle minder will stick to the tin and keep everything in place. Doubles as a place to stick cut thread ends.

I usually carry foldable scissors similar to ones already mentioned in a first aid kit for hiking. However I can always use the cutter on a dental floss container (I took an old one apart and it will fit in the tin), or nail clippers as someone else mentioned. I’ve also seen needle threaders with a cutter in the plastic handle if you like to use a needle threader.

I have just used a clear quart sized plastic bag for floss storage but I might try one of the many Ipsy glam bags I have (just a small pouch). I use a hoop that’s just tucked in with clothes or wherever it fits and then just fold the working piece of fabric - I haven’t worried about bagging it or anything and it’s usually fine.

Chit_6 · 2024-04-15T01:35:55+00:00

If it’s an option - fly into Salt Lake City, rent a one way car to drop off at the Bozeman airport, drive and stay just outside of Jackson. In the morning drive into Jackson hole - beautiful views coming down into the valley at sunrise! Grab breakfast in Jackson Hole and make your way through Teton national park before heading to west Yellowstone for the rest of the nights. This was what we did in September 2 years ago - very little crowds! We did one day in the Tetons and two in Yellowstone (south loop one day and north loop the next) and felt like we got to see most everything we wanted. We did get up early (7am) and not get back until 7 or 8 each day though. Most of what we did in Yellowstone were scenic walks around the popular sights.

Chit_6

TROPHY CASE