Teach Me Tuesday: Products for Perfect Tails

Full disclosure: my shampoo at home cost $4/bottle and I don't use conditioner. And I think my hair care routine is excessive. 

BUT. I am a big proponent of perfect tails, especially since I have a horse with kick ass tail genetics. I mean, let's be real, that's 90% of the tail battle anyways. 

#hairgoals #lifegoals #tarraisbadass

I've been picking Tarra's brain about hair products lately because let's face it: she deals with more hair than possibly anyone else in the blogosphere. I never thought this would happen, but she's actually changed me from my all-vetrolin all the time stance. Now I religiously follow her recommendations--wash tail, use Equifuse CitraCreme deep conditioner, let sit, rinse out, then finish with Equifuse Gleam. THEN put a squeeze of each into a spray bottle, mix with water, and use it as a daily conditioner for tails. 

You guys. 

This is magic. Courage's tail has never felt so amazing. I washed it ONE TIME in March and it's still just perfect. 

So tell me. What are your hair care secrets? 

Hair Update

thick(er) sexy neck

Noted: I wish I had something insightful to say about Lauren's situation. She is really one of the nicest people I've met through the blogging community and my heart is with her at this time.

I know I blogged earlier last fall about how I'm trying something new with Courage's mane--letting it be a little longer and thicker just to experiment with a new aesthetic. Honestly, I've been on the fence about it. I couldn't take the thickness, so I pulled it, but I couldn't get a really pretty pull job without going too short. I was about to just say screw it and go back to a thin, short little eventer mane, but it's hot and I'm lazy.

And then we had dressage braids practice day.

 And I realized that the biggest hinderance to my pretty braids was a pulled mane.

scissored. he's really excited.

So before our last show-prep lesson, I steeled my nerves, got my scissors, and turned Courage into a dressage horse.

Not gonna lie. It physically hurt me (and not because I caught myself with the scissors) (which I didn't, for the record). I've never been a scissors girl and I've definitely made fun of dressage divas with cut manes for being too lazy/useless to pull a mane properly.

like this

Buuuuuut.

That is how we make nice braids. And if we have to braid, dammit, they're going to be nice.

Sexy Weekend Pics

um yeah. Also he has great hair.

Can we all just start by appreciating how ridiculously sexy my horse is right now? His weight is perfect, his hair is great, and yeah, totally loving my clip job.

Anyways. It's been a doozie of a week/weekend and I am not exactly in fighting shape here, so when S showed up to teach us on Saturday I sort of whimpered and whined and then she rode C-rage instead of me.

We meet again upside down neck

Given the shenanigans lately, I just wanted another perspective on what I was even supposed to be doing with one fit, good looking, arrogant thoroughbred.

S honed in on our problems right away. She also said Courage is a nice horse to sit on. I'm a sucker for compliments, so I'll take it.

Anyways.


The red circle on the picture is where Courage holds all his tension. He has a short neck and the moment he un-relaxes, that spot gets tense and blocks up all his energy.

Cool fall pic to make up for no lesson pics

And that is no bueno.

It happens in the walk and trot some, but a lot in the canter. Because S was in the saddle, I had her work on it and talk me through what I needed to do to take the next step forward.

The essence of it is that we need to do 3 things:
1) LOTS OF CANTER. He can't improve a gait he isn't working in.

2) Longer neck. Courage has a short neck, but that's not the problem. He needs to carry it a little lower and longer especially in the canter and build the muscles that allow him to be strong in that frame.

ogilvy doesn't match pad. it hurts me.

3) Ribcage control. To this point, when I've asked Courage to shorten his frame, he's compensated for himself by popping his ribs out one way or another. That isn't useful.

Oof. After watching S work Courage for a while (a long while), I hopped on and got a feel for what she was doing. My favorite thing she said was when we were talking about teaching a skill to a horse. She pointed out that at first we reward the horse for a correct response by walking and releasing pressure, but "horses don't get motor memory by not doing something". (It's a double negative, but the point stands.)

Which is to say, it's time to canter and canter and canter and build strength, stamina, and correct muscle memory.

He was REALLY in to selfies. Like more than me.

I crawled into the saddle on Sunday and was presently surprised by how willing Courage was to rehash the things from our lesson. It's not perfect by any means, but I could definitely see the progress both in my riding and his responses.

So here's to a new era of rolling forward in the canter with effective legs (me) and improved straightness (Courage).

And all the things.

I know I sound a little more incoherent than usual. It's probably because I'm so excited for our longtime friend and photographer Ellie buying a mare from my barn and starting her own blog! Go CHECK THEM OUT!!

Hair Products in the Wild, Wild West

He is the best at trying out products

Beka over at The Owls Approve got me thinking about my hair care routine for Courage the other day. I usually just spray his tail down with water when it looks dirty and put showsheen in about once a week to keep it brushable. He has a nice barbie tail coming in, so I like to play with it and keep it tidy.

The routine works for me, but I'll be the first to admit that it's a pretty minimalist approach. I was willing to try something else out.

Beka was talking about the many benefits of coconut oil. My line of thought was this:
"My MIL gave me some of that.
I don't like cooking with it because it smells like coconuts.
LET'S PUT IT IN HIS HAIR!!!!"


Noted: I am informed that coconut oil can also be used on people. Given that I don't like the smell of coconuts and my idea of a skin care routine is applying sunscreen in the summer, I never really pursued that idea.

This is what I used

So. I carefully re-read Beka's instructions on how to apply coconut oil, because there were no instructions on the jar.

I gave Courage a full bath, including a deep clean of his mane and tail.

I then meticulously worked the coconut oil into his tail, starting at the top and working my way down. I massaged it all the way in to the roots and down through the skirt of his tail.

Before. Note attractive rubs from fly sheet.

I don't love the smell, but I really enjoyed the process.

After. Such a pretty tail.

At the end, I had a beautiful, shiny tail. Courage was pretty well dry by then, so I turned him out on his big grassy pasture.

When I came back to check him the next morning, I was excited to see what the results of letting the oil soak in overnight would be. I had visions of silken hair blowing like a shampoo model...











And it was disgusting. Dry, dusty, filthy. It felt worse than some scrub horse who's lived on the range for the past few years.

Unrelated picture of how cute my horse is lately

Seriously, his tail has never felt that nasty. Ever. My theory is that the oil just doesn't do well in our dry, western environment. I didn't even take an after picture because it was too horrible.

I hauled him back to the wash rack and ran the hose on his tail for several minutes. It looked like chocolate milk running out of his hair. Yuck. So gross. (And I even like chocolate milk.)

I washed his tail again with full strength shampoo and then used one of my favorite cream rinses and then showsheened his tail again.

Also unrelated. Also cute.

It's pretty well back to normal now. My theory is that the desert is just too dusty for the oil treatment to work, even if it sounds like a really good idea online. The showsheen must help keep the dust off a bit, because his tail is so much better now.

I am still interested in mixing up the hair care routine a bit. After all that day dreaming about shampoo commercial hair, it seems like I might as well try something else... Plus there's a sale at the tack store this weekend. Stay posted!