Monday, April 18, 2016
Wash Day 04-17-2016 (Jane Carter Curl Defining Cream Wash N Go)
Hey. beautiful people! It has been awhile since I did a wash day post. However, the weather was really warm here in Michigan, and I had a natural hair event to go to that evening, so I decided to break out the wash n' go. First, I did a deep condition overnight with Camille Rose Coconut Water Penetrating Hair Treatment. I have liked this product more than I ever thought I would, but more on that in other post. The next morning, I put Carol's Daughter Black Vanilla Shampoo in my hair. This is definitely one of my favorite shampoos. It smells amazing, and my hair does not dry out. Next, I used Herbal Essence Long Term Relationship. This conditioner is a holy grail for certain.
Finally, I did a wash n' go with Jane Carter's Curl Defining Cream. I love this cream. It may be the most versatile product I own. I have used it for braids, twists, braidouts, and twistouts, and it has not failed me yet. I also used it once for a wash n' go when my hair was shorter, and it worked well then. So, I decided to give it another try. The result was big, fluffy hair, but in a good way. I think I still prefer my gels for wash n' gos, but this is a good alternative. Plus, unlike gel, the next day, I was able to just braid my hair up for work.
Have you ever used this product for a wash n go? What are your thoughts?
Sunday, April 17, 2016
Product Review: Embrace The Natural You Twist Truffle Whip (The Braiding Files #5)
Price: $13 for 8 oz
Ingredients: Water, Aloe Vera Leaf Juice, Behentrimonium Methosulfate (and) Cetearyl Alcohol, Unrefined Shea Butter, Mango Butter, Sweet Almond Oil, Avocado Oil, Vegetable Emulsifying Wax, Extra Virgin Organic Coconut Oil, Jamaican Black Castor Oil, Vitamin E, Fragrance and Essential Oils. **NOTE: According to the website, as of 2/2/16, this product no longer has shea butter, Jamaican black castor oil, or vegetable emulsifying wax. So it may be even more low porosity friendly!
Scent: Light
island breeze, like papaya and mangoConsistency: Whipped cream cheese
Results: I bought this product last September at a market near my job. As a nice bonus, this is a Michigan-based company, so I can pick it up on the ground. When I purchased it, I met the owner, who uses her product on her own hair (bonus #2).
While I have been using this product for a while now, it has taken me this long to review it because I was not certain what to say. It leaves my hair soft and gave it nice sheen about 8 times out of 10. The rest of the time, my hair was really dry, and felt coated, and I wanted to figure out why because I really like this product. I have realized two things. First, I need to use water or a very moisturizing leave-in under this product for it to work well on my hair. If I don’t put enough moisture into my hair under this product, it leaves my hair dry. While this product comes with its own moisture built in, my greedy hair needs more. As I mentioned in my post on coconuts, I need a lot of water for coconut to work in my hair.
Second, if I use a heavier/coating
leave-in under this product, the residue from the this product will combine
with the residue from the leave-in, and my hair feels coated. As I note above, the ingredients have
changed, and the more heavy/coating ingredients have been removed, so it may
now be perfect for me. I plan to try the
new formulation soon. Maybe the new
formulation will be a “love it”.As an aside, this product reminds me a lot of Annabelle's Perfect Blend Hair Creme in both texture and the way it works on my hair,
except APB does not have coconut oil.
Thus, if you already like that product, you may want to try this, and
vice versa.
Love it, Like
it or Leave It: Like It
Sunday, April 3, 2016
Ingredient Investigation: The Coconuts (Coconut Oil vs Coconut Milk)
Hey,
beautiful people. It has been an awhile
since I did an ingredient investigation, but I’ve had a burning question for a while
now that I wanted to look into. If you
have read my blog for any period of time, you know that my hair does not really
like coconut oil in stylers. It leaves my hair
feeling coated and hard. That being
said, my hair loves leave-ins with coconut milk, coconut cream and coconut fruit, like My Honey Child Coconut Hair Milk, Silk Dreams Mocha Silk Hair Milk and Aubrey Organics Island Replenishing Conditioner. So, I decided to
investigate the different types of coconut products, and how they are
made. Below is a summary of what I found.
A green
coconut (young coconut) starts off with coconut water and soft, gel-like meat. As the coconut ages, the coconut has less
water and the meat becomes more firm. Coconut
fruit is the “meat” inside the coconut. Coconut milk is extracted from coconut fruit (frequently using water as part of the process), and coconut oil is extracted from coconut milk. Thus, coconut oil has the least amount of water of the three.
One way to make coconut milk/oil is through a process called "wet-milling fermentation". Freshly grated coconut is blended with water to make coconut milk. The milk then sits for hours (sometimes overnight) so that it separates into a liquid and coconut cream/butter. The coconut cream is scooped out, and boiled until the coconut solids fall to the bottom and turn brown. Then, the oil is filtered, and Voila!
In case you are curious (I was), from what I've read, heating the milk to create the oil is actually good. This particular wet-milling fermentation process produces the highest level of antioxidants in the coconut oil. Both the oil and the anti-oxidants are thermally stable, so heating doesn't break them down. In fact, simmering the cream for a long time at a high temperature dissolves more anti-oxidants into the oil! Who knew.
Based on my research, I think the difference for me is that coconut oil is a purer concentration from the coconut, as opposed to coconut milk and coconut fruit, which have water. Also, this explains why my hair likes co-washes and conditioners with coconut oil -- because I'm using them in the shower. In essence, my hair only seems to like coconut when it is with a lot of water, probably to counteract the protein-like properties and because my hair generally loves things that have high water content.
If you want to know more, I found a few great Youtube videos that show how coconut fruit is used to make coconut milk and coconut oil:
One way to make coconut milk/oil is through a process called "wet-milling fermentation". Freshly grated coconut is blended with water to make coconut milk. The milk then sits for hours (sometimes overnight) so that it separates into a liquid and coconut cream/butter. The coconut cream is scooped out, and boiled until the coconut solids fall to the bottom and turn brown. Then, the oil is filtered, and Voila!
In case you are curious (I was), from what I've read, heating the milk to create the oil is actually good. This particular wet-milling fermentation process produces the highest level of antioxidants in the coconut oil. Both the oil and the anti-oxidants are thermally stable, so heating doesn't break them down. In fact, simmering the cream for a long time at a high temperature dissolves more anti-oxidants into the oil! Who knew.
Based on my research, I think the difference for me is that coconut oil is a purer concentration from the coconut, as opposed to coconut milk and coconut fruit, which have water. Also, this explains why my hair likes co-washes and conditioners with coconut oil -- because I'm using them in the shower. In essence, my hair only seems to like coconut when it is with a lot of water, probably to counteract the protein-like properties and because my hair generally loves things that have high water content.
If you want to know more, I found a few great Youtube videos that show how coconut fruit is used to make coconut milk and coconut oil:
Monday, February 15, 2016
Product Review: Camille Rose Ajani Growth and Shine Balm
Price:
$12 for 4 oz.
Ingredients: Cocoa wafers, rice bran oil, virgin
palm kernel, babassu oil, murumuru butter, candulla, honey, castor jelly,
biotin, castor oil, silky btms, ceteryl blend, natural scent
Promise: From the website – This balm is an exquisite,
hand blended hair and scalp treatment that nurtures, invigorates and conditions
dry slow growing hair. Mango, Castor and
honey were chosen for their potent conditioning and styling power. Biotin is added for its hair growing
benefits. Your hair will be left with
amazing shine.
Scent: Light chocolate
Consistency: Grainy
Results: I like this product, but not enough. True to the promise, it does leave my hair
with a lot of shine. It also leaves my
hair soft. HOWEVER, I cannot get over
the grainy nature of this product. When
I take the product out of the jar, I see little granules. They melt in my palm when I rub my hands
together, but it is hard to get all of the granules to melt. There is usually a tiny chunk left after the
majority of it has melted. I'll be reviewing the liquid growth serum from Camille Rose, which I like better. The serum is like the liquid version of this product, though the ingredients vary.
Love it, Like it or Leave It: Like It
Saturday, January 23, 2016
Product Review: Blended Beauty Happy Nappy Styles (The Braiding Files #4)
Price: $21 for 8 oz
Ingredients: Aqua, Sunflower Seed Oil, Shea Butter, Behentrimonium Methosulfate and Cetearyl Alcohol, Behentrimonium Methosulfate and Cetyl Alcohol and Butylene Glycol, Polysorbate 20, Vegetable Glycerin, Methylheptyl Isostearate, Parfum, Soy Lecithin, Cetyl Esters, Guar Hydroxypropyltrimonium Chloride, Preservative (Phenoxyethanol and Caprylyl Glycol and Sorbic Acid, Rosmarinus Officinalis, Aloe Barbadensis, Chamomilla Recutita
Promise: From the website - A rich and moisturizing styling cream for kinky curls and dreads, or highly textured hair. Style and define your curls or twist locs, while naturally hydrating. Perfect for finger twisting curls! Create defined curls, with maximum moisture and softness. Dries touchably soft and satiny, not sticky or greasy.
Scent: Snickerdoodle Cookie
Consistency: Very thick, like buttercream frosting
Results: I’m so torn on this product. When my hair is wet or damp, this product works well for moisturizing and sealing. However, when my hair is dry, it just sits on top of my hair and feels greasy. In other words, this product has to have separate moisture to work properly on my hair. When it does have moisture, my hair feels soft and stays that way for a little while. It does not give my hair alot of sheen, but it does give it some. I used it on my daughter’s hair, and it was amazing for her, even more than mine. When I spritz her hair and apply this, her curls pop, have a lot of sheen, and even have some shine. I think this butter would be really good for someone with high porosity or more coarse strands, unlike my low porosity/fine hair. The Blended Beauty Curl Quenching Conditioner was definitely a better fit for my hair.Love it, Like it or Leave It: Like It
Sunday, January 10, 2016
Product Review: Carol’s Daughter Hair Milk Nourishing & Conditioning Styling Pudding (The Braiding Files #3)
Price: $12 for 8 oz
Ingredients: Water, Ethylhexyl Palmitate, Glycerin, Fragrance, Agave Tequilana Stem Extract, Aminomethyl Propanol, Shea Butter, Carbomer, Cyamopsis Tetragonoloba, Guar Gum, Dioleyl Phosphate, Disodium EDTA, Ethylhexyl Methoxycinnamate, Macadamia Ternifolia Seed Oil, Oleth-5 Phosphate, PEG-12 Dimethicone, Avocado Oil, Sweet Almond Oil, PVP, Jojoba Seed Oil, Methylisothiazolinone, Potassium Sorbate
Promise: From the jar - For curls, coils, kinks and waves. Deeply moisturizes. Improves softness. Prevents frizz.
Scent: Chemical
Consistency: Very light and thin, feels like watered down lotion
Results: As background, I got a really good deal on this product and I saw a few positive reviews, so I decided to try it. Normally, I would not have picked up this product because the ingredients are not great. As I’ve stated in prior posts, you should typically look at the first 5 ingredients in a product to determine what is doing the heavy lifting. In this product, it is a red flag for me that fragrance is the third ingredient. Most products put fragrance as one of the final ingredients, plus I am sensitive to strong smells. It is also a flag for me that this product is packed with chemicals and most of the natural ingredients are towards the end. If the ingredient list is accurate, there is less Avocado Oil in this product than there is aminomethyl propanol. Aminomethyl Propanol is typically a pH adjuster, and it needs to be used carefully (more on this in another post). Glycerin, is third on the list, which is not necessarily bad, but does limit the weather conditions in which I can use this product. Finally, to top it off, when I tried this product, it gave my hair moisture for all of about 10 minutes before my hair dried out like the desert and became hard. In short, I am not a fan. Thankfully, the store I bought it from has a great return policy.
Love it, Like it or Leave It: Leave It
Wednesday, January 6, 2016
Product Review: Uncle Funky’s Daughter Supercurl Miracle Moisture Cream (The Braiding Files #2)
Ingredients: Water, Soybean Oil, Glycerin, Coconut Oil, Honey, Polymide-1, Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride, Shea Butter, Fragrance, Cetearyl Alcohol, Ceteareth-20, Glyceryl Stearate, Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Extract, Olive Fruit Oil, Sweet Almond Oil, Macadamia Seed Oil, Potassium Hydroxide, Xanthan Gum, Carbomer, Tetrasodium EDTA, Phenoxyethanol, Caprylyl Glycol, Potassium Sorbate, Caramel.
Promise: From the website - Dry curls have no fear, extra moisturizing Supercurl is here. This creamy hydrator has dual-power abilities to stretch out and detangle curls in very kinky, tight textures, yet define curls in medium to loose curly textures.
Scent: Possibly papaya, definitely a sweet citrus
Consistency: Lightweight cream
Results: I like this product. The Polymide-1 gave me pause because I had never heard of this ingredient before, but the Skin Deep Cosmetics Database has it rated low on the hazard scale, which is good. The cream moisturizes some, but not a lot. It does leave my hair soft, and it provides my hair with a lot of sheen and definition. It also absorbs fairly quickly into my hair because it is so lightweight. Also, despite the price, a little goes a long way. I had a sample size that I got from an event, and it lasted through several braid styles. However, I would like to buy a bigger jar.
Love it, Like it or Leave It: Love It
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