Slight shakeup in the ol’ routine

The SO and I finally finished the V05 sun kissed raspberries and have moved on to an old ass bottle of Suave peach essence conditioner that I found stashed under a sink in my parents’ house. It’s runnier than the Suaves I have stashed away (coconut, tangerine, and a couple others) and my boyfriend is only tolerating it so far until I break open one of his beloved V05 washes. I’ve also finished my bottle of Pantene curl scrunching gel. I found it to be mediocre so I won’t be adding this to my repurchase list; it’s not that it was bad, it just wasn’t that great. It would be fine in a pinch, however.

Today’s hair routine was: water rinse/scrub, peach essence cowash, regis vivid satin condish (this is nice but the floral scent is starting to get to me…and I don’t feel like it’s really doing much in terms of nourishing my hair), gdli, and l.a. looks wet look gel. I scrunched the crunch with Suave professionals healthy curls spray gel (I’m liking this!) The result?

Not bad eh?

 

Back from being MIA

I’ve been away from my comp for the past few days and for good reason; my older sister gave birth to her first son (and my parents’ first grandchild) this past Wednesday. I’ve been visiting her every day so blogging has been far from my mind.

I’ve been enjoying the slip and results from NG rose and persimmon condish so I stashed it away to try out a new condish. I pulled out Regis Vivid Satin Conditioner and have been in love with the results! I didn’t expect to get suck great results with a condish that doesn’t have as many natural ingreds as the NG persimmon. I’ve been seeing more spirals and body and it’s just amazing!

I also switched out my KMS pepper gel. I wanted to see if the clumps and body were solely due to that gel. I used Pantene’s curls scrunching gel with sheam and ky and my hair looks great! If I weren’t so tired I would definitely load a picture. The definition, spiraling, body and feel is surprising.

I’m starting to suspect that my experiment of drawing all the water out of my hair before applying product was a contributor to my craptastic hair days for the two months prior. I guess my hair just likes having my product-laden hands squish out the water. I also haven’t been using the zigazaga method; I’ve just been finger combing my soaking wet hair before product application and it’s been working quite well.

Another thing I’ve changed in my routine is my clipping method. After diffusing, I’ve been using 5 big clips and getting more volume than I ever before…and it’s SO much easier to boot!

In other news, I splurged at Target and bought a crapload of Pixi makeup at Target. I purchased some eyeshadow palettes, all her cheek gels, all her gel eyeliners, and a couple of her lip stain pens. I also nabbed some JK Jemma Kidd items: two i-tech liquid liners and the color adapt lip gloss. I didn’t pick up anything from the NP Set line; it didn’t really grab my attention. I’ve played with almost everything I’ve purchased from the two lines and I’m really quite impressed. Yeah, I spent a pretty penny for the items but I think I’m good on makeup for, oh, the next millennium.

 

Mini product review…

My hair is still recuperating from the awful experience with B2B Jasmine. On Wednesday, I meant to add some honey to the Essential rinseout but I had a bit of a brain fart and just added it to my GDLI. The result was less than spectacular. My hair was a bit stringy, sticky in some places, and my waves were pulled out. On Thursday, I remembered to add the honey to my rinseout and I still wasn’t impressed. Friday, I just x-nayed honey completely and used JCHCC, TS, soaked my hair in Oyin J&B leave in, KY jelly, MopTop mixed with spike it, and sprayed HESMU spray gel halfway through diffusing. I scrunched out the crunch with Samy Big Curls curls defining creme. My hair looked great that day!!! Last night, for a night out with my friends, I used JCHCC, TS, TS leave in, KY, JCRR mixed with spike it, and sprayed Loreal Tightly Wound. I scrunched out the crunch with a pump of Tigi Curls Rock. Oh . My. God. FABULOUS hair! I think that JC works for my hair when I use all the products together and use a leave-in before rocking ringlets. I saw ringlets mixed in with my waves and my waves were soft, seriously boosted, defined, and frizz-free! I’d post a pic but I can’t find any where I don’t look tipsy.

I’m a bit on the fence with TJ Essential condish. It seems a bit too thin for my liking and I don’t get the ridiculous slip I do with Too Shea.

For my skin, I’m using GoW’s Fruity Exfo cleanser (love it!!), homemade ACV toner, and honey as a face mask at times and my skin couldn’t be happier. I love that cheap, natural products are working wonders for my skin.

 

I’m a hair idol!!

I was updating Curltalk on NC.com and came across this thread. Wow! I am so flattered! I never thought my hair could be something to work towards. I have to retry the KCKT/KCCC combo sometime. I loved it before I had my most recent haircut so I’m hoping the feeling will still last with the shorter hair and new method.

As for the Suave Sebastian Wet dupe? I’m feeling lukewarm about it. I have to find out which one of the two new products used today was the major contributor to the blah hair day. LLL coco light is my prime suspect but innocent until proven guilty, eh?

Can I just say that I hate humidity? Give me my dry desert air!!

 

My Deva experience at Capella Salon

i LOVED it! Keyonna was fantastic! She sat me down and asked about my previous devacut experiences. When I told that I wasn’t that impressed, she wanted to find out more. Afterwards, she wanted to know what I was expecting and what I wanted to see. I told her that I felt my hair was all one length (she agreed) but that I wanted to keep the length. Keyonna told me that my hair is heavy and that’s what it weighing down the waves. With my hair type, I needed to be broken up a lot to let the waves breathe and come into their own. I knew I was in really good hands, so Keyonna started cutting. After the cut, it was wash time at the wonderful massaging chair wash station. Keyonna’s assistant washed me with No-poo, devacurl one c, and used arc angell. Keyonna said my hair needs the extra hold that arc angell provides. Afterwards, Keyonna had me flip over while she scrunched me with paper towels, and she showed me how to get volume at the roots by slipping my hands in while upside down and shaking a bit. Then, it was a how-to on clipping and then under the dryer for 20. Afterwards, she used the devasun dryer and devafuser to dry my hair a bit more and get more volume. Keyonna also showed me how to style my bangs without having to take out the flatiron like I usually do. Both Keyonna, another stylist, and the receptionist loved my hair. They said the waves were perfect and that a lot of people would pay to have a head of hair like mine. I was quite flaterred of course!

I wish I could get the hang of the drying. I love the volume I had the first day and tried to replicate it both yesterday and today. I could only experiment so much, though, because I was at my SO’s parents’ house for the weekend. I’ll try clipping and drying a bit more to see if it’ll give more boost. I do love not having to break out the flatiron for my bangs. It hides my cowlicks better and looks more natural: wavy bangs, wavy hair. I plan on definitely going back!

 

LUSH – the big tease strong hold hair gel

(copied from my May 11th post on NC.com)

So I promised myself no more hair products for the next couple of months but that resolve completely disappeared after I visited the local LUSH store. I bypassed all their bath bombs and skincare products and headed straight for the hair care section. I already knew that quite a few of their products contain SLS for some reason (boo), so I ignored the tempting liquid and bar shampoos and their conditioners and checked to see if they had any styling products. Lo and behold, they make 3 gels: king of mods (light hold), goth juice (med hold) and the big tease (strong hold). I usually go for strong hold products to hold my waves so I picked up the sample of the big tease. The scent is really nice. I can’t quite put my finger on the notes, but both my sisters agreed that it smells very fresh. The ingredients puzzled me since the holding agents didn’t really stand out. I was looking for PVP somewhere in there but didn’t see it. (Ingreds from their website: Bay Leaf Infusion (Pimenta Acris), Peppermint Infusion (Mentha piperita), Linseed Infusion (Linum usitatissimum), Acrylates / Lauryl Acrylate / Stearyl Acrylate / Ethylamine Oxide Methacrylate Copolymer, Fair Trade Cocoa Butter (Theobroma cacao), Jojoba Oil (Simmondsia chinensis), Perfume, Propylene Glycol, Glycerine, Cupuacu Butter (Theobroma Grandiflorum), Ammonium Acryloyldimethyltaurate/Beheneth-25 Methacrylate Crosspolymer, Orange Flower Absolute (Citrus Dulcis), Bergamot Oil (Citrus bergamia), Mandarin Oil (Citrus nobilis), Lemon Oil (Citrus limonum), Coumarin, Benzyl Benzoate, Hydroxycitronellol, *Citral, *Geraniol, *Limonene, *Linalool, Methylparaben.) The SA scooped some out onto a stick and I scrunched it into my hair. It felt a little sticky but not horribly so and it gave me some oomph into my dying waves. I had used GF soft curl cream and HEBE for some hold and the combo seemed to overwhelm my hair with the end result of pulled out waves.

Well, I tried the gel this morning and I’m quite happy with the results. Like the website says, the gel starts to set pretty fast. I plopped for about 5 min (I usually plop for 10-15 min) and when I took it off to blowdry, my hair wasn’t as damp as usual. A couple of blasts with my CurlFusion on high and I was done. So far, there isn’t any frizz and I was able to scrunch out the crunch in about 2 hours. I’ll update by the end of the day once I see how it holds up, but so far, the scent, definition, and lack of frizz are giving the big tease high marks in my book. Only setback is the price – at about $17 for 3.5 oz it’s a bit steep but if it turns out to be a winner, I think it’s better than spending $5 each on 5 or 6 cheapo gels to try to find a HG.

ETA: So, it’s about 7 hours later and I’m still liking this gel. There’s a little bit of frizz, but I think I scrunched a tad too early. The amazing scent is still there – this even after having lunch in a crowded restaurant in Chinatown, and the waves are still defined. I’ll try it out for the rest of week.

 

Screw you UPS…but talk about a freakishly good hair day!

Why am I decrying UPS you ask? Well, it’s practically been three weeks and they’re still disputing a claim I made. I had ordered about $100 worth of clothing online and since I’ve had some luck receiving UPS packages in the past, I figured there wouldn’t be any hitches. The UPS website said my package would be delivered on Friday, my usual day off, but I had made plans to visit a friend that day. Since I wasn’t expecting any hangups, I just went ahead with my plans. I got home that evening fully expecting to see my package sitting by my front door only to see nothing. No note, no hastily scribbled delivery note saying it at the front office, nothing. Mind you, the hallway where my apartment is isn’t heavily traveled. It’s just me and my neighbor to the left. A bit put out, I checked the UPS website to confirm, and yup, plain as day, it states that my package was delivered and left at my front door.

I called the shipper and UPS and they set up a tracer. I called each week to get an update and today, I was told that UPS is going on with their story that they delivered the package. Uh…sorry, I’m not going to accept that. I called the shipper again and was told that they will dispute the claim. I then called UPS and told them my story. The agent told me that they would reopen my case. He also told me what their standard procedure is: a UPS agent would stop by my place to see what the problem is and if no one is at home when s/he passes by, they leave a note for me to sign that would be picked up the next day. I informed the agent that in the three weeks time, I hardly saw so much as a scrap of paper on my door. The agent conceded that someone wasn’t doing his/her job. And not only that, but the shipper won’t refund my money or replace the order if UPS sticks to their guns!

I am suspecting that the prankster a**holes who ring my doorbell at odd hours of the night (i.e., 11 pm, 1 am, 2 am) may have a hand in this. We know who they are and we know they know we know who they are. We’ll see.

Sigh. The only good thing from my 30 minute talk to both companies is the good hair day I’m having. I plopped longer than usual since I was on the phone contemplating the likelihood of one day being able to reach into the phone and strangle the person at the other end. Today I cowashed with Suave tangerine, rinsed out walgreens condish, scrunched in 2 dime blobs of Sally’s generic PM the conditioner, scrunched in 4 pumps of salon selectives curl energizing mousse, 2 nickel blobs of hebe, and then the 2 globs of loob. When I took it out of the 30 min plop, I wasn’t too impressed. It looked stringy with a potential to fall apart and just poof on me. I diffused, clipped, diffused again and sat down with my book (The Subtle Knife, btw).

After a couple hours I casually walked into the bathroom to scrunch out the crunch and usual. My SO was in there and he noticed how my hair was much wavier than usual I don’t know that the magic step/ingredient was. The leave-in? The mousse? The longer than usual plop? I’ll have to experiment leaving out one variable at a time. But huzzah for good hair days!