A Good Hair Day | A Gentle Bedtime Conversation

In A Good Hair Day, Marco and Amanda settle into a softly spoken, delightfully detailed conversation all about hair — the triumphs, the mishaps, and the small rituals that surround it. From the mysteries of hair dye and the convenience of dry shampoo to memorable cuts (both good and not-so-good), they share stories, light tips, and playful observations that feel familiar and gently humorous. It’s an episode that lingers on the everyday, finding calm in topics that are surprisingly universal.
As always, this calming podcast unfolds at an unhurried pace, offering a relaxing conversation designed to help you fall asleep, ease anxiety, or quiet racing thoughts at the end of the day. The tone is warm and easygoing, making it perfect for background listening while you wind down at bedtime or settle back in after a middle-of-the-night wake-up. There’s nothing too loud or dramatic here — just steady companionship and soft laughter to guide you toward rest.

​A Good Hair Day
(Original airdate: Aug 29, 2025)

Welcome to the Insomnia Project. Sit back, relax and listen as we have a calm conversation that's meant to help you find your way to sleep or at least relaxation.

Amanda: Hi, I'm here.

Marco: That's Amanda and I'm Marco Timpano.

Amanda: I'm Amanda Barker and some good news.

Marco: Amanda, what's up? So for our listeners who've been asking about AD free, listens for our podcast. I've been able to get the Insomnia Project onto a service that will provide that. So if you go to insomnia project.supercast.com you can get yourself a subscription so that you don't hear the ads that will sometimes appear at the start of this podcast. Now, I do have a 10 day free sort of offer going on so that you can test it out. It's new to me too, Amanda. I've never used this service before, so I'm hoping it will work out for everyone. And don't worry if you didn't write that down. I will have it in the show notes. It's the Insomnia Project.Super Cast.com A lot of our listeners were asking for this sort of service, if you will, and we'll see how that goes. Amanda?

Amanda: Yeah? Did you hear that little crinkle?

Marco: I heard the crinkle, yes.

Amanda: Oh, okay, folks, true story. I dyed my hair, dyed my roots.

Marco: You've got Amanda with a dyed bag on her head right now.

Amanda: I'm at an age where I'm dying my roots and so they're sitting patiently for me to wash them out.

Marco: How long do you have to wait for that dye to take hold?

Amanda: I don't know. I usually say about 20 minutes. For me, it's like I want to get the hair, but if I've dyed any of my scalp, I don't want that super glued on. So a little column A, a little column B. Maybe it should be 30, but I do 20.

Marco: Now, here's a tip for our listeners because my mother is a hairdresser, was a hairdresser all my life. And so I was around her, a

Amanda: very good hairdresser, I will say.

Marco: I was around her doing hair forever.

Amanda: Hair stylist. I think hairdresser is one of those antiquated terms. Maybe like sunbathing. We don't really say that anymore, do we? I. I think suntan lotion. Remember we used to call all sunscreen suntan lotion?

Marco: I still call it suntan lotion. Okay, so here's a hot tip for any listener that might dye their hair and get splashes on their skin and they want to get those splotches of dye off their skin.

Amanda: I feel like splanche is a word you created.

Marco: What do you call it? Mark a little.

Amanda: Yeah, dye.

Marco: Dye marks.

Amanda: Yeah. I mean, I think we know what you mean by splanche.

Marco: I think splanche is the better word.

Amanda: It is the better word.

Marco: So if you have ash, cigarette ash, or Other ash. And you put that ash with a little bit of water and make almost, for lack of a better term, ash paste. And you take that ash paste and you rub it on your splanch. Your dye splotch will come out.

Amanda: Okay.

Marco: And it will not dye your skin.

Amanda: Okay.

Marco: Yeah. So that's a little. That's a little hot tip for any.

Amanda: Will it work for my sunspots?

Marco: No, that's not recommended.

Amanda: Okay.

Marco: By any dermatologist or the Insomnia Project podcast to use that for those purposes,

Amanda: because I have those, too. They came along with the. With the need for dye. Yeah, the need for dyeing my roots. I don't need a ton, but just a little bit in the front of

Marco: sunspot cream or of dye cream.

Amanda: Dye cream.

Marco: I see. Okay. Yeah. Oh, my goodness.

Amanda: And I don't usually dab. I just do it when I go on to set when I'm shooting something, because I. I often. I'm actually, I'll just say quite addicted to spray hair root dye, if you know what that is.

Marco: Yeah. So it. It's basically hairspray, but color comes out of it, Is that correct?

Amanda: Exactly. And I love it because it fills in. My hair is always. I've always had very thin hair, so it kind of fills in a bit of the thinness. Listen, I'm not going to say it looks amazing.

Marco: I've noticed that we have a few out here.

Amanda: Yeah, I started buying them in bulk.

Marco: Amanda likes to spray.

Amanda: Well, because I do it for auditions.

Marco: Right. So.

Amanda: Because the way the light hits my head on auditions, it can look

Marco: sparse.

Amanda: Sparse and shiny, too.

Marco: Shiny and sparse.

Amanda: It dulls the shine of my hair, which I know is not something you normally would seek, but for camera, you don't want glare on your hair.

Marco: For new listeners, we are both actors, and so Amanda has to do auditions. And when she's on set, she means when she's filming.

Amanda: The secrets behind the audition. Spray dye and a whole lot of love. And ash paste.

Marco: Now, what's the difference between that dye spray and dry shampoo, which you also like to use?

Amanda: Well, they have two very different things.

Marco: They seem very similar to me.

Amanda: Well, dry shampoo can come out as a certain color, and actually I prefer it when it does come out as not a white spray. But dry shampoo basically came from. There was an old. A lot of people would put baby powder or talcum powder in their hair to sop up grease. If you have, again, thin hair like I do, you know, you. You could only go a day or two at Most without washing it. And I remember, I think I was camping once and someone said, oh, the. Just bring some baby powder and put it in your roots and it'll you, your hair won't look like it had any grease in it. It won't look like it's dirty. So I started that. But you know, people don't want to use talcum powder, so I get that. So they've started dry shampoo and that sort of came from that, I think. And now it's a spray that doesn't have baby powder in it. But it does much the same thing. It takes the grease. It's a powder that absorbs the grease from your roots.

Marco: I see. Okay.

Amanda: Sometimes it gives it a little bit extra body and then sometimes it is the color of your roots. But it's not meant to dye your roots. It's just meant to not create white splashes in your hair. Which sometimes as women especially we have. Like I'll, I run auditions too, so sometimes I'll have actresses that come in and they clearly just put a bit of dry shampoo in the back and didn't really look at it. So I'll see like a white spray there in the back.

Marco: I see, I see. Wow.

Amanda: But the camera doesn't notice, so it's fine.

Marco: What are your hair secret tips or what are some essentials you have with regards to your hair?

Amanda: I've had the same cut since I was about 10 years old. I've grown it out a few times. I've cut it a few, a very few times. But I've pretty much had shoulder length brown hair forever. Because my hair is thin, it doesn't really grow out super strong, so it doesn't last. It just starts to look kind of. I can tell when it needs a cut. It just doesn't. It's not strong, thick hair that can grow long. It just isn't that kind of hair.

Marco: But I'm talking about like, do you have anything that like is an essential? Like I know my niece, for example, she likes to sleep with a silk bonnet. Do you have any, like, things that you do with your hair? Any, any things that you're like, I always want to have.

Amanda: Well, other than the dry shampoo and the root spray. And I really do live by the root spray now because I just feel like it makes me look like I have a little bit more hair than I do.

Marco: Okay.

Amanda: That's why I put it in.

Marco: I see.

Amanda: It's not even really usually to touch up my roots, although obviously that's its own Little journey. Well, that's. That's its main purpose, sure, in life, but it just fills in the gaps, the thinness on the sides. It kind of fills it in. And I prefer that. But beyond that, I. Well, it really depends. You have to get to know your hair. I think. I think people go through fads especially, but women do anyway, when we're young. Sure. And so we want certain kinds of hair. And, you know, now there's a lot more things you can attach to your hair. But at the end of the day, your hair is going to want to do certain things and it's not going to want to do other things. Like, I don't know where the term cowlick came from. It always is a weird term. But those who have it know what I mean. It's that thing where you try to cut bangs and they just don't sit in a straight line on your forehead. They sort of curl up and have their own little part.

Marco: As if a cow licked your head.

Amanda: Is that what it is?

Marco: Yeah.

Amanda: Can't be.

Marco: I mean, if a cow licks you your hair, it's going to force it up.

Amanda: I mean, there's a lot of things that would force hair up that I would think of before a cow's tongue.

Marco: I think everything should be measured by cows, by bovine and farm animals. Remember during COVID there was a sign that said you have to be three Canada goose or geese away from.

Amanda: Away from someone.

Marco: What a great way to measure one

Amanda: canoe or something like that. Yeah.

Marco: I was on a bender of like, you should measure everything by foul. How tall are you? Oh, I'm about five chickens and a goose.

Amanda: I'm three pheasants high this year. Yeah. Anyway, I don't remember what we were talking about.

Marco: A cowlick.

Amanda: Oh, cowlicks. Yes.

Marco: So you couldn't do that.

Amanda: I guess my overall advice is, and this happens sort of in your 20s, 30s, you just get to know your hair. If your hair curls up, then lean into that. My hair is the kind that a little bit of humidity or no blow drying and it will kind of wave, it'll become wavy. But so I have to kind of lean into that if that's what I'm going for on that particular day.

Marco: That's a good point. Because not everybody can get the same hairstyle of, say, a celebrity or someone on television they like because their hair just doesn't. Won't do that. And so you could learn the hard way, if you go somewhere and say, I want to get this cut, and they're like that your hair won't. Won't do that.

Amanda: Yeah. Alternately, if you have really thick hair, like I don't have thick hair. But if you have.

Marco: Sister does.

Amanda: She does. My niece does. Good friends of mine do you know, you really have to lean into what that hair is and what looks good with that hair. There's going to be things that just don't really work out. I think so. I think that's, for me, the main thing. Now, if you do have sort of thinnish, wavy, ish hair, then one of the things that I live by. Okay, here we go, folks, since you've asked. Is hot rollers. And I read a few years ago, Reese Witherspoon had a book. It was a pretty frivolous book. It was sort of like tips from a Southern girl or something like that. I don't remember what it was called, but one of the things she said is the only way I know how to do my hair is hot rollers. And I have to say that is one of my tips. Beyond tips, because it is the quickest way to make your hair. I'm going to say this to make your hair look intentional, might not be the intention that you always want, but it makes it look intentional. So if you've got hot rollers or if you have an aunt or a grandmother or something that had them, you know you can get them. And they're not very big. Like the hot rollers of yesteryear were big, huge cases of rollers. They took up a lot of space. I'm not really a fan of those. I have sort of two sets. They're both really small, about the size

Marco: of a pencil case, maybe a bit taller. Is the size that Amanda has it. They're very compact.

Amanda: I would say a pretty big pencil case.

Marco: Okay, okay. Like smaller than the size of a loon.

Amanda: Yeah, the size of a loon. Not a Canada goose, but a loon. Loons are quite small. So, yeah, a bigger or medium. A small to medium sized bird or a goose.

Marco: A gosling. A gosling. That's.

Amanda: But not Orion. Anyway, so hot rollers. And then in that little roller pack, you'll have some sometimes that are different sizes. Some are smaller for like tighter curls and then some are bigger for a more rounded kind of flip kind of curl or just to give it some body. Those work really great in my hair because I plug them in. They're kind of cooking for 10 minutes while I take a shower, do my makeup, whatever. Usually what I do is I plug them in first thing, make a Coffee, come back upstairs. If I'm showering, great. If I'm not, then dry shampoo it is. Do my makeup or put them on, put them in my hair, spend 10 minutes doing my makeup, and then by the time my makeup is done, the rollers have done what they're gonna do, probably. And then I take them out, brush it out, and then my day's ready. So 20 minute hair. You know, 10 minutes for hair, 10 minutes for makeup. That's about it for me. So that's one thing I really, really live by, actually. Are those hot rollers. Straighteners never really worked for me. There's a trend in the world. It's been. I shouldn't say it's a trend because it's been for the last 10 years, where people curl their hair with straighteners and they go for that look, or they use a curling iron that doesn't have. How do I say this? A self clipping thing. They wrap the hair around the barrel.

Marco: It's just the tube, it's just the cylinder without the.

Amanda: You can also do that same thing with a straightening iron. Like slowly move the straightening iron in circles. That is what they do on set. That is what hair and makeup artists usually use. It's too much work for me. I've never had a lot of luck with it. I do it sometimes, but I don't do it a whole lot.

Marco: Do you remember the crimping iron to crimp your hair?

Amanda: Oh, I sure do.

Marco: Did you ever crimp your hair?

Amanda: Yeah, I sure did. Did you ever crimp your.

Marco: I wish I had hair to crimp.

Amanda: But I mean, back in the day even. No, no.

Marco: I mean, why would I crimp my hair like that?

Amanda: For fun? Because eventually everybody, if you see a crimping iron, you like, just gotta know, is it gonna work?

Marco: No, I didn't. My thing was too. Because my mother was a hairstylist, I was always around hair things, so that stuff never intrigued me.

Amanda: I see.

Marco: It's always amazing because. Because I. As ever since I was a child, like, since since birth, I've been around my mother doing women's hair. And so I have a keen eye on women's hair just by being around it. And I'll often say to Amanda, like, oh, our friend got a really good haircut. And she's like, how can you tell? I'm like, oh, I can just tell. It'll grow out nicely. And you got a haircut recently and you were iffy about it, and I said, oh, no. I said, Amanda, this cut is really good. Is she did a good cut on you. Just give it a day or two. Because sometimes you can tell how good a haircut is by how it grows out. So if it's because a hairstylist can make your hair look great on the day.

Amanda: Right.

Marco: But once that day is gone and you wash your hair and whatnot, the haircut will reveal itself. And if it's a good cut, you'll be able to do things with your hair. If it's a bad cut, in a few days or a week after it goes out, it's just going to be a splonch of mange.

Amanda: A splanche of mange.

Marco: Yeah.

Amanda: So one of the things that was a little different, that cut, she really wanted to put more layers in my hair. Hairdressers like to. Hairstylists like to put layers in hair. I'm going to say this. I do find my friends that have thick hair. They go to the hair stylist salon, sure person. They get haircuts. They inevitably say, he or she decided, we decided to do some layers. Sometimes it's we like having a baby. We decided this time we were going to do some layers. Maybe it looks good on the day, but then they just especially like thick, kind of coarser hair just looks like frizzy mullet, choppy chop. I just don't like it. Just not for me. I mean, listen, some people want frizzy mullet, choppy chop.

Marco: How do you feel about your hair cut now that you've had it for a couple of weeks now?

Amanda: It's okay. She left a little bit too much length and cut a little bit too much layer for me. But I don't mind it. I mean, it's been okay. It's a bit too layered for me.

Marco: It looks good. It does look good.

Amanda: Thank you.

Marco: Let me ask you this, Amanda. You had mentioned some trade secrets from the set that hair stylist will do. Are there any other trade secrets that our listeners might not be aware of because they're not on set that a makeup person or a hair. Hair and makeup people do to actors that you're like, oh, that's a really interesting or great little tip that you've noticed? Certainly makeup people do things that are really fascinating.

Amanda: I, when I was on the set of Handmaid's Tale, they used a product on me that I fell in love with and I've used. I went and sought out and I've used it a bunch of sets. It's called, I think, Osis. It's a little red bottle of powder. And I think that's the name of it. Osis. I think it's, like, 20 bucks. And it stiffens the roots. It's a little bit of powder that you shake into your roots. So I guess it's a teeny bit like a dry shampoo that way, but it stiffens your roots. So when you. If you just sort of rub your roots after putting it in, your hair suddenly, instantly has so much body, it's crazy. Okay, now you can't. It's not a product to be recommended if you're, you know, going on a date and you want that person to. To stroke their fingers through your hair. No, it.

Marco: It'll concrete up.

Amanda: It. Yeah, it turns your roots into concrete. But. But it's amazing. And. And it's concrete that can, like, activate every time you kind of rub it.

Marco: Oh, really?

Amanda: Yeah. So you can have a lot of body in your hair. I mean, arguably, I've done it, and people have been like, oh, wow, that's really high. You know, now you've overdone it. When I'm trying to, like, show off. I see.

Marco: I see.

Amanda: Okay, so that was one that I used. You know, something happened when makeup artists had to wear. Well, when talent had to wear masks and so on. Makeup artists changed the way they made up faces. And I noticed now that that change has continued. Okay, so sometimes now they'll make up eyes first. It used to always be you start with the skin. You. You do foundation. You get the skin to a place where you want it, then you do the sort of like, you're doing your base level, like building a house. Like you.

Marco: The foundation of your face. Like I do, you put the walls

Amanda: in, and then you get into the windows and the cabinets. So that would be the eyes, the brows, the.

Marco: What's the cabinet, the nose, the windows and the cabinets.

Amanda: Oh, okay. I don't know. Whatever. You get what I'm saying? And that's how I always approach makeup. I always do something. Skin cream, foundation, and then whatever I feel like doing with my eyes, my cheeks, my lips, which is usually the eyes are the only thing that takes any kind of time in that, because the rest is just smear color on and hope for the best. But I've noticed more and more people changed it because the person you're working on might have a mask on. So they would just do eyes first.

Marco: I see.

Amanda: So they would do the eyes and really concentrate on the eyes, and then they would sort of lightly work around the skin. Of course, Things have changed a lot in the last 10 years because filming has changed.

Marco: Sure.

Amanda: So it used to be if you were filming, you'd come home with a very thick mask of makeup on. If anything, the reverse is true. Now you can wear so little makeup because any powder, anything will show up.

Marco: Yeah. Because the quality of the film or video, 6K or whatever it is now picks up everything.

Amanda: I'm going to be honest, and you can say what you want about me. I, on the regular, wear more makeup, certainly to auditions, certainly in day to day life, probably. Well, maybe not day to day life, but at two auditions and filming, I wear more makeup myself than usually what they put on me.

Marco: Oh, I see.

Amanda: Generally speaking, sometimes they'll do my eyes a little bit more dramatic or something and that'll be neat. But generally speaking, I'll be like, I don't even look like I have anything on. But that's intentional that it can't look like you're wearing makeup. So I get it.

Marco: It's.

Amanda: It's a hard medium.

Marco: I always love how makeup artists on set will have a way of giving you the products you might need. So for example for me would be like a lip balm and making sure that it doesn't get contaminated. So it's like they'll give you a little. Yeah, like a little scooper of individual lip balm. So you're not using the same one that someone else is using.

Amanda: You're not.

Marco: And. Or things like that. Just the way they do that. I always love. I always love that.

Amanda: Right now realizing the mascara that I've been wearing this week, which is a new one I've tried, there's a trend in mascara where they have what they call tubes, like little extra fibers or extra pieces.

Marco: Right.

Amanda: To kind of give your eyelashes a little more, I don't know, extra love volume. I guess what happens is it's really hard to get off. And then you. You've washed off your makeup, but you still have these sort of like chunks of mascara and you don't want to go to set.

Marco: You probably need to just put some warm water on it.

Amanda: That's the thing, they don't really respond to water. You need oil. You need an oil based product.

Marco: Oh, do you have an oil based product?

Amanda: I used to. I don't right now, but I think they're gone. How did. Yeah, I've been peeling them off, but then I don't want to rip my eyelashes off either, so. Yeah. Tips from set.

Marco: Yeah, that's so great. I'm sure listeners Will appreciate some of those tips. And, you know, it's always great to share with people things like that.

Amanda: I'm trying to think of other things that they've done in the past, like everyone has their own way of doing. I had to wear a halo once. Do you know what that is?

Marco: No.

Amanda: That is extra hair. And it's like a headband that they sort of hide in your hair. They kind of brush over it so you don't see the headband.

Marco: So it's a headband that has hair

Amanda: attached to it on the bottom part. Yeah. So that you put it on and then it's underneath your existing hair. So it just looks like your existing hair is one layer of hair. And if you match it. Right. That the bottom hair looks. You might not even notice that there's sort of layering in there and it just looks like extra hair. I wore that once for a Christmas movie. Now, I loved it when I had it on. I felt like a glamazon. But when I look back at some of the footage, my mother voiced her opinion on that. She did not think it looked good, so. But I loved it on the day. So I felt really glamorous wearing a halo. But they're heavy.

Marco: Oh, I see.

Amanda: Yeah. And I remember the act. One of the actors in that film, they wanted her. They were talking about wearing one, and she said that she had shot a series, and they. That the hair and makeup person said, let's try Halo. Really? Let's put a halo for the series. That she did. And she didn't. It wasn't. She didn't think it was necessary for a character, but she wanted to go with it. And she said, I had headaches all year because the hair was so heavy and thick that they would put on me. So, yeah, wigs are a thing. Right. That happens a lot on sets. I did a 1920s piece once, which was super fun to shoot, and that was all wigged. Everything was wigs, which was amazing.

Marco: And I imagine that saves times time too. Right. Because they can just put the wig on, you set it and then.

Amanda: Well, what's interesting is a lot of times wigs are not the full hair, so they incorporate your real hair into the wig. So in that one, the wig was just sort of the back part of my hair, but the front part of my hair was still my hair. So they just made the front part match the back part so that the back part had sort of a more of a 1920s style. Did I just kick the table?

Marco: You kicked the table, yeah, I'M sorry.

Amanda: Well, you move. You never stop moving.

Marco: I don't move, but I never kicked the table.

Amanda: I didn't kick it. I just brought my foot down.

Marco: Well, when you do that, it shouldn't be on the table because it makes all this metal reverberate.

Amanda: Well, no one's perfect. And you also drank a big drink with lots of glugs. And I didn't say anything about that, did I?

Marco: I did it when you were talking so they wouldn't hear the glugs. These are the behind the scenes secrets of recording in a. In a booth that you have to also monitor, too.

Amanda: Yeah, I'm trying to think if there's any other little tips and tricks.

Marco: Now, when you go to set, what do you do with your hair and your makeup? You wear no makeup so that the makeup artist can do it.

Amanda: You have to come with clean, washed, dried hair. Sometimes the dried part is hard because you're like, oh, I got to wash my hair and I got to run. So then you're like, if you're like me and you have thin hair, you kind of hope it'll dry in the car, which it will. But clean, wash, dried hair. Sometimes when people have hair that has its own mind, they'll kind of style it just a little bit to help it start in that direction.

Marco: Fair.

Amanda: And then the hair person can decide what they want to do about that. But. Or with that. And always. Except for twice. Twice I've been told to come with makeup on, but that's very, very rare. Usually it's a clean, moisturized face. I did not moisturize my face last night. I just didn't feel like it. So. So I need to wash my hair

Marco: now and moisturize your face.

Amanda: Moisturize my face.

Marco: All right. And just said I go on that note, we hope your hair is washed and your face is moisturized as you listen to this podcast. Or if it's not, that's fine too. We won't tell. But we hope you enjoyed the show. Once again. I'll just remind our listeners that we now have a way that you can listen to the podcast episodes without ads. And that's the insomnia project.supercast.com I'll have it in the show notes. Until next time. I hope you were able to listen to this podcast and find your way to sleep.