Beauty Hits & Misses

I’m actually quite impressed by this gel; it’s a clear, fluid gel (i.e., not as thick and sticky as LA Looks nor runny like Biotera) that actually doesn’t require a lot to provide hold, definition, and crunch. I can’t find the ingreds list online but sleekhair.com did have this description from the back of the bottle:

Nexxus Phyto Organics Rigid Gel is an extreme styler with strengthening bamboo extract. Rigid Gel Extreme Styler blends instantly into damp hair to create a variety of textures and designs. This super hold sculptor is excellent for molding, defining curls, and blow dry styling. Formulated with strengthening Quinoa Protein, Bamboo extract, nutrient rich Alfalfa, vitamins, and thermal protectants to add strength, sheen, and exceptional body.

I washed with my KM bay rum bar, ACV/honey rinsed, conditioned with curls coconut sublime, and scrunched in two dimes of CJ coffee coco. I followed up with about two blobs between a nickel and quarters worth of the NPO rigid gel and scrunched. I noticed that the gel spread easily but didn’t disappear into my hair like angell; in fact, it actually made my hair feel a little slick like I had applied a more runny gel. I started to consider adding a bit more gel to ensure complete coverage but refrained from doing so to see just what my hair would do with this gel.

It’s about 12 hours later since styling and my hair is frizz free, defined, shiny, and soft with enhanced waves. To add to that, my hair feel like…hair. Not hair laden with product as it does with the Deva gels. I plan to experiment more with this but can tell it might be a repurchase.

For the sake of experimentation (and to see what bars really do for my hair) today I did a cowash with Suave peach essence, rinsed with an ACV/honey mix (I know that it isn’t necessary with a cowash but I need to get rid of a particular ACV bottle), and conditioned with KBB milk in cocomango. I scrunched in a nickel of CJ coffee coco and being my alertself at 415 in the morning, I forget to apply some to my other side and proceeded to scrunch in a dime of PBH passion shine +  a quarter of LA looks sport on either side. I diffused with my Sedusa and Devafuser and clipped. I truly do love the Sedusa. My hair, of course, is never going to be 3a status but I do love how my hair dries so much faster with the contraption. My Devafuser also has a special place in my heart because it dries my roots and nape quick style. Now, when I get to the office, I can scrunch the crunch within an hour! I plan on alternating between cowashing and bar washing this week to see if there will be any buildup at the roots.

In other news, I’m loving the L’oreal HiP jelly balms. I have them in all colors (thanks to BOGO at Walgreens) and I can’t really pick a favorite color from amongst them. What’s great about these little pots is that they marry both color and shine in the perfect package. My main gripe with most lipglosses is that the color isn’t true to the pot and that it wears off pretty quickly. With the HiP pots, the color is true to the pot but sheer and it wears surprisingly long for a lipgloss. Also, the caramel scent is incredible. The MUA reviews are a bit mixed; it seems as though some women were expecting the color to be true to the pot. I think a lot of them forgot that uh, it’s a lipgloss? so there has to be some give and take. On the flip side, the jelly balms are pretty pricey as far as lipglosses go so I would definitely only purchase this during BOGO time.

Not going to repurchase. It’s only what? three days? and I’m already halfway through the bottle. Plus 6 oz for approx. $10.00 doesn’t sound like a steal to me. But will that stop me from trying the PBH gelatine goo that I’ve read about on the NC.com boards? Nope. I just recently discovered that the passion shine gel is marketed as a flexible/medium hold gel….something my hair doesn’t much like on its own.

Today I washed with my bay rum bar (loving the spicy scent!), did an ACV rinse, rinsed out curls coconut sublime, scrunched excess water out, scrunched in two dimes of cj coffee coco, and a nickels worth each of lush the big tease mixed with pbh passion shine (x2). The result? Not a great hair day. Even my SO noted that it doesn’t look as controlled as it usually does. My hair feels fluffy and there isn’t a whole lot of holding action going on. I think the pbh flexible hold cancelled out the tough hold the lush usually has. On the plus side, my hair isn’t horrible enough that it requires putting up in a messy bun, nor has it expanded into frizz city like it did the first time I used KMF upper management.  

What I did notice with some surprise was when I lightly scrunched out the excess water after rinsing out the curls conditioner, my hair clumped up in a major way and the waves remained. Nice.

I’m still liking my sedusa and after diffusing today, I had no troubles at all taking my hair out.

So I tried out my new Sedusa last night and I was quite impressed. I washed with a new bar – kathymack’s Bay Rum bar, ACV rinsed, conditioned with SheaM, and then scrunched in SheaM (my feelings on this are changing a bit). I scrunched and plopped with a flour sack and go to it with the Sedusa. First off, it is a bit unwieldy. It’s quite large and the nozzle of my trusty conair doesn’t quite reach the end so there is a bit of wiggle room there. That being said, it can hold quite a lot of hair. I tried it out first with all my hair placed inside but since my hair is layered and some of the side portions were falling out, I haphazardly parted it (read, my hair falls into two sections when leaning to either side) and diffused on the warm setting at low speed. It only took me about 10 minutes total to get my hair about 85% dry! There is a learning curve in getting ones hair out of the contraption, however. I thought to try massaging the Sedusa to get some root action but I think that contributes to the difficulty in getting my hair out. Needless to say, my hair didn’t look too bad for just having sheam in. Yes, it was somewhat frizzy but had I just sprayed in some gel I would have actually looked decent enough to go out. (+1 to Sedusa)

Today I shampooed again with my KM bay rum bar, ACV rinsed, conditioned with KBB hair milk in cocomango, used GDLI as a leave in, scrunched in two dimes of CJ coffee coco curl creme, and followed with two golf balls worth of PBH passion shine mixed with LA Looks sport (I love how the blue and orange mixed together resulted in a clear gel). I scrunched and plopped and then Sedused. I followed up with my devafuser to get the scalp and voila! 15 min total and my hair was 90% dry. Gotta love that. What I found to be amazing with the Sedusa is that usually when I pixiecurl, my right side doesn’t hold the wave/curl very well so when I release it, it can easily lose waves just hanging there. (This is why I can’t air dry. The weight of my wet hair pulls out the majority of my waves/curls.) However, with the Sedusa, my hair sprung up to half its size and stayed that way. Huzzah! I find it funny that my diffuser attachments together cost more than my entire hairdryer with the diffuser and concentrator attachments combined.

I did noticed a marked difference last night and this a.m. using kathymack’s bars. The lather with her bars is much richer and creamier than the CV bars. Not only that, but they sud up much faster than the CV bars so I don’t feel the need to rub the bar over my head more to get some lather. However, when using my windblossom bar a while back, I noticed my roots feeling a little gunky/oily. I’ll see if I get this feeling with the bay rum bar. Worst case, I’ll just alternate between CV and KM bars on a weekly basis.

As for CJ, it does have protein but it isn’t in the top 10 listed ingreds so I may not have to worry so much (Ingreds: Distilled Water, Cetyl Alcohol, Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Juice, (Vegetable) Glycerin, Cetearyl Alcohol, Behentrimonium Methosulfate, Glyceryl Stearate, PEG-100 Stearate, Panthenol, Cocos Nucifera (Coconut) Oil, Coffea Arabica (Coffee) Bean Butter, Orbignya Oleifera (Babassu) Seed Oil, Butyrospermum Parkii (Shea Butter) Fruit, Camelina Sativa (Camelina) Seed Oil, Hydrolyzed Wheat Protein, Hyrolyzed Wheat Starch, PEG-40 Castor Oil, Stearalkonium Chloride, Behentrimonium Chloride, VP/VA Copolymer, Dimethicone Copolyol, Polyquaternium-44, Sodium PCA, Lactic Acid, Sodium Lactate, Urea, Collagen Amino Acids, Guar Hydroxypropyltrimonium Chloride, Sodium Chloride, Glycine Soja (Soybean) Oil, Mangiera Indica (Mango) Oil, Punica Granatum (Pomegranate) Oil, Corylus Americana (Hazel) Seed Oil, Glycine Soja (Soybean) Oil, Persea Gratissima (Avocado) Oil, Punica Granatum Linn (Pomegranate) Oil, Limnanthes Alba (Meadowfoam) Seed Oil, Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride, Calendula Officinalis (Calendula) Flower Extract, Gardenia Tahitensis, Silk Amino Acids, Hydroxypropyl Starch Phosphate, Agave Nectar Extract, Tocopherol, Propylene Glycol, Diazolindyl Urea, Iodopropynyl, Butylcarbamate, Tetrasodium EDTA, Fragrance). It smells yummy and it’s actually pretty thick (like sheam) so I only used a little bit.

ETA: The Sedusa definitely requires a learning curve. I love how quickly my hair dried and I love the volume I seem to be getting with it along with the Devafuser.

I think I may have spoken a bit too soon about the passion shine gel. Today I washed with CV’s babassu and marshmallow soap, followed with an ACV rinse, rinsed out two nickels worth of KBB hair nectar in coco mango (definite repurchase!) and applied the remainder of my KBB pear hair nectar sample (I need to buy full sizes of this!!!). I then scrunched in two golf balls of PBH passion shine gel, scrunched with a flour sack, and just for extra hold, applied a half dollars worth of GVP PM extra body sculpting gel. The second time around, I noticed that the despite it’s viscous, somewhat sticky nature, the PBH sank into my hair immediately much like KMF and angell. It has a pleasant lightly floral/nutty scent but it does sud up in my hair . Maybe it’s the amount that I applied this time around, but after scrunching the gel in, my waves were clumpy and somewhat boosted. Huzzah!

My only complaint is the amount that you get for the price you pay. As you can see from the picture in my previous post, the tube isn’t LA Looks gel sized. Nor is it priced like LA Looks. I’ll try using a bit less of it now that I know it can be mixed with other gels but I’m still not sure if it’s something I’ll repurchase.

ETA: Forgive the lighting in the first pic, but looking at the first one makes me want to break out my windblossom bar again….

My new toy is here!!! I plan on trying it out tonight (kinda in a half-ass way since I don’t like putting in styling products late in the evening) to see what the first time around brings about. I definitely will be playing with this tomorrow, too.

I’ve been having some mediocre hair days for the past two weeks. I think it’s due in large part to the fact that I’m slowly working through my PJ stash and discovering quite a few duds: GVP Paul Mitchell sculpting gel, GVP Paul Mitchell extra body sculpting gel, arcangell, and angell, and while LA Looks sport has worked for me in the past, it seems to be reneging on its promise of giving me “absolute fixation” and “absolute durability.” I’m not giving up on it yet, however, since I think my hair still needs to rehab from the other duds.

I’ve been using my CV babassu and marshmallow shampoo bar sample and so far I’m not really feeling it. Granted, it’s still hard to tell given the “quality” of the styling products I’ve been using. Maybe I’ll break down and re-open my KCC tub just to see what the shampoo bar really does to my hair. Who knows? Maybe the soap is the cause of the crap hair?

I had some pretty good hair days with the CV carrot milk and honey, and honey beer and egg samples so the light bulb went off and I thought to try honey 50:50 with my KBB hair milk coconut mango sample (really liking this!!). The slip wasn’t all that impressive but roughly 4 hours after styling my hair, I do think honey may be on my repurchase list. I have some pretty good wave and curl…unfortunately, that is eclipsed by the unusually high amount of surface frizz I’m experiencing.

My experiment today included trying the Paul Brown Hawaii passion shine gel I’ve secreted from my sister’s old hair stash. It. has. no. hold. Sure my hair is soft and not crunchy at all but that’s because there is no hold to speak of whatsoever. Boo.

Yes, I am a PJ. Yes, I made a vow that I wouldn’t spend a lot on hair care. Yes, in the past two months I’ve purchased KBB samples, Donna Marie and a Curls by Sister Smith Wet Set Pudding sample, more KM bars than I can use in 6 months, a Sedusa, and my newest toy showcased above.  And now there is talk on the boards about Hairveda, Ohm, and Komaza hair care. And not only that – Karen introduced Super Silky ” A perfect styling product for feathery fine straight to medium wavy tresses.” Le sigh. My current stash prevents me from purchasing full sized products. I just have TOO much stuff. Stuff that I need to at least try before blowing my hard-earned dollars on KBB goodies…no matter how much I’m already liking the hair nectar. Yeah, I know. Insert music from world’s smallest violin here.

I’m happy to report that the DevaFuser is a good buy. My good ol’ Conair Ion Shine and diffuser serve me well in forming the wave and starting the drying process but the attachment doesn’t do much for drying near my nape and closer to my scalp. Nor does manipulating my still damp hair to allow the airflow to reach my scalp lend to frizz-less waves. The hand is a bit awkward to move around but I’m sure I’ll get used to it. And for 20% off at Ulta using a coupon, it’s well worth it to have a good amount of volume and not worry about the undercanopy getting smooshed since it’s still damp.

Unfortunately, I still can’t get Angell to work for me. Not even when paired with a thicker gel: GVP PM extra body sculpting gel (still on the fence with this one). As much as I love the scent, I’m pretty much given up on Angell. The fact that it won’t even play well with other gels is really disheartening. Rather than try to off it via the NC.com swap boards, I’ll use up the remainder of the bottle and enjoy the scent while I can…although not the midday frizz that comes along with it.