Saturday, June 28, 2014
Product Review: Silk Dreams Vanilla Silk Cream Moisture Dream (The Deep Conditioner Files #6)
Price: $10
for 8 oz. / $16 for 16 oz.
Promise: Get
ready for moist, supple, manageable hair. This rich conditioning cream will help you get
your moisture groove back. Silk protein
protects and softens your hair while honey, apricot kernel oil, jojoba oil, and
aloe wrap your tresses in silky moisture.
Scent: Almond extract
Consistency: Like lightly
whipped buttercream frosting
Results: The
price is right and it makes my hair feel great.
I got at least 4 uses out of this.
I’ve tried it under a heat cap, as an overnight deep conditioner, and in
my hair for two weeks under a wig (I was feeling lazy on my wash day). My hair probably liked the overnight deep
conditioning best, but it worked every way I tried it. It was even mild enough that my scalp wasn't bothered by leaving it in long term. After each use, my hair felt moisturized, yet strong.
Saturday, June 21, 2014
Ingredient Investigation: Dimethicone and Other Silicones
Hey, beautiful people!
As I mentioned in a previous post,
I’m going to take a few posts and investigate some of the more suspect
ingredients in commercial rinse out conditioners. This is my first one.
If you have been in the natural hair community for awhile,
then you probably know by now that silicones have gotten a bad rap. From what I know, it seems like most of that
bad rap stems from the Curly Girl method created by Lorraine Massey. As a result, many people, including me at one
point, have just accepted that silicones are either good or bad without knowing
why. However, the science geek in me
can’t just stick with assumptions.
As you may recall from my toolbox post,
one purpose of a rinse out conditioner is to coat the hair to make it easier to
detangle. Silicones are great for this
purpose because they coat the hair, creating an effective lubricant for
detangling. They also provide protection
for thermal styling.
The reason why silicones can be bad for you is that they coat
the hair and can cause buildup, preventing good things, like moisture from
getting to your hair. Silicones usually
end in "cone," "col," "conol" or
"zane." There are four types
-- water soluble, non-soluble that evaporate, non-soluble that resist buildup,
and the rest.
Water soluble silicones can be washed away with water, so if
you wet your hair frequently, then water soluble silicones should not be a
problem. Non-soluble silicones that evaporate
won’t wash away with water, but they completely evaporate from your hair
anywhere from 10 minutes to a few hours after application, so there’s no worry
about build up or moisture lock out with these.
Other non-soluble silicones may need sulfates or another cleanser to be
washed away. If you are a regular
shampoo user, like me, or clarify periodically, then even non-soluble silicones
should not cause a problem. Here is a
great chart from Chemist Tonya McKay that shows what cleansers will remove what silicones.
The reason why non-soluble silicones are not good for people
on the Curly Girl method is that the Curly Girl method discourages the use of
sulfate shampoos. Obviously, if you are
avoiding stronger cleansers, then it is probably a good idea to avoid
non-soluble silicones that don’t evaporate.
So, with that in mind, here is the list of silicones that I have been
able to nail down into a category:
Water Soluble
- Dimethicone Copolyol
- Lauryl Methicone Copolyol
- Hydrolyzed wheat protein (Hydroxypropyl Polysiloxane)
- Any silicone with PEG as a prefix
Non-Soluble That Evaporate
- Cyclo-XXX-siloxane, like Cyclopentasiloxane
- Cyclomethicone
- Decamethylcyclotetrasiloxane
- Hexamethylcyclotrisiloxane
- Hexamethyldisiloxane
- Octamethylcyclotetrasiloxane
Build-Up Resistant Non-Soluble
- Amodimethicone
- Bis-aminopropyl dimethicone
- Aminopropyl Dimethicone
- Dimethicone crosspolymer
- Vinyldimethicone Crosspolymer
Other Non-Soluble (hard to wash out)
- Dimethicone (when paired with cationic ingredient, like a such as a bromide, chloride or polyquaternium)
- Bis-Phenylpropyl Dimethicone
- Behenoxy dimethicone
- Cetyl Dimethicone
- Cetearyl Methicone
- Dimethiconol
- Stearoxy dimethicone
- Stearyl dimethicone
- Stearyl methicone
- Propoxytetramethyl piperidinyl dimethicone
- Polysilicone-18 Cetyl Phosphate
- Trimethylsiylamodimethicone
Based on this, I am ok with testing out rinse out
conditioners with silicones, with a preference for water soluble, evaporative
or build-up resistant. Maybe,
one day, I’ll even go back to dimethicone -- GASP!
Do you use conditioners with silicones? If so, which ones and how do you avoid
buildup?
Saturday, June 14, 2014
Product Review: Alikay Naturals CoWash Me Cleansing Conditioner
Price: $13
for 8 oz. / $22 for 16 oz.
Promise: Formulated
to be gentle enough for daily use on curly, kinky or straight hair. Leaves hair soft, moisturized, clean and easy
to detangle. Hair will feel and smell great!
This Product is 100% Natural and 90%
Organic. Cleans hair without the
stripping it of natural oils caused by sulfates.
Scent: Like
strawberry lemon starburst or skittles
Consistency: It
was very runny. It almost ran off my
hand mid picture.
Results: My
hair definitely did not feel stripped.
However, I’m not sure this cleansed my hair at all because my hair didn't feel any cleaner after using it and I can't really tell which ingredient is the cleansing agent. It was
a great conditioner, though. This had lots
of slip and was great for detangling.
Unfortunately, I run through conditioner way too fast to ever use this as just a good conditioner. I used up the
8 oz. bottle in about 2 washes. After
the second wash, I only had enough for 1/4 of my hair. If I had a smaller head of hair, I would add
this to the regular rotation. Maybe, if
I have a daughter, I will use it on her, if I can figure out what is in the “herbal and botanical blend”.Saturday, June 7, 2014
Product Review: Jessicurl Deep Conditioning Treatment (The Deep Conditioner Files #5)
Price: $16.95
for 8 oz.
Promise: From
the bottle - Intense pampering for dry hair.
From the website - It’s thick, it’s rich, it’s moisturizing, it doesn’t
build up – it really is the ideal formula for restoring moisture to dry curly
hair. It also works great as a shaving cream – that even includes bald men!
Scent: I
bought the Island Fantasy scent. The
scent is so light, I can’t really tell.
Maybe light orange and peppermint.
Consistency: Like
whipped shea butter
Results: This
is thick, and it really should be in a jar.
I had to work so hard to get this out of the bottle that my hand turned
red from hitting the bottle against it. That's why I didn't bother trying to get more out to take a picture of the consistency. Despite the thickness, it still
goes on smooth. Unfortunately, it didn’t
work for me. I tried this under a heat
cap for about 25 minutes, and it made my hair hard. As a disclaimer, the bottle says to leave it
on for 30-60 minutes; but, I forgot to check the bottle before I went under the
heat cap. The Curlmart website and
another website I checked while under the heat cap said 20 minutes. The next time I tried this, I did an overnight
treatment. My hair wasn’t hard, so the
extra time helped, but this is still not one of my favorites. I think that the concentration of butters is just too much for my low porosity hair. This worked better in the front of my hair, which is a slightly higher porosity I think. Between the effort it took to get this out of
the bottle, the amount of time this product needs to work for my hair and the price for the result, I
just can’t get with it.
Monday, June 2, 2014
Product Review: Purabody Capuacu Butter
Price: $14
for 4 oz. (wait for a sale)
Promise: A rich
creamy blend of natural butters and oils to combat dry, brittle hair. Cupuacu is well known for its high fatty acid
content which benefits dry, damaged hair while protecting moisture and leaving
hair soft and silky.
Scent: I
bought the Tahitian Vanilla scent. It smells
like yummy vanilla cake.
Consistency: Like softened
butter or margarine. It is lighter that
whipped shea butter.
Results: Unfortunately,
I purchased this and tried to use it before I realized that my hair just doesn't do well with most straight butters. Then,
I made a rookie mistake and tried it again later because I really wanted to
like it. I just could not get it to
absorb into my hair. I ended up having
to put a headband on to cover my edges because my hair was just white with the
butter sitting on top of it. This would
probably be great for someone with high porosity hair if their hair normally
likes butters.
Saturday, May 31, 2014
Product Review: Qhemet Biologics Burdock Root Butter Cream
Price: $16
for 8 oz. / $30 for 16 oz.
Promise: From
the website -
Scent: Lemony
citrus
Consistency: Like face
cream
Results: I
tried this a number of different ways for styling. The best way that this worked for me was
for a braidout. It gave my hair amazing
definition and shine. I didn't even mind the glycerin in this product on colder Michigan days. I'm in the process of testing different products for my braidouts (more on that later). So far, this is one of my favorites.
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
Update 5-27-14: Rollersetting Fail
Hey, beautiful people! My hair has been in desperate need of a trim for a couple weeks now, so I decided to take advantage of the long holiday to finally do it. There are a number of ways to trim, all involving the use of small sections. I decided to trim my hair in its curly state in sections small enough for my extra wide Curlformers. That way, I could trim and style all at the same time. This was also a great time for me to try out the It's A 10 Miracle Leave-in that I have heard so much about.
Here is what I did:
(1) Deep conditioned overnight with Silk Dreams Vanilla Silk
(2) Washed hair with Dr. Woods Pure Black Soap
(3) Conditioned / detangled with Hairveda Moist Condition Pro
Because I wanted to test out how well the It's A 10 worked, I used just It's A 10 on the left side of my hair and It's A 10 plus Carol's Daughter Chocolat Smoothing Blow Dry Cream on the right side.
Before putting a curlformer on a section of hair, I would put on my leave-in(s), comb it through, and then stretched my hair between two fingers to trim off the last 1/4 to 1/2 inch. I was ok with trimming off this much because I haven't trimmed my hair since my big chop. My goal was not to make my hair even. I just wanted to get rid of the ends. It took about an hour to put in my Curlformers because of the added trim step. After putting in my Curlformers, I sat under the dryer for an hour, in my favorite dryer pose, until all of the curls were dry.
After taking out the Curlformers, my hair was was amazingly soft on both sides, but the curls had almost no hold. The side with just It's A 10 had a little curl, but was mainly just poofy. The It's A 10 + Carol's Daughter side held the curl for a about an hour or so before puffing up. By the end of the day, all I had was a curly fro. It was potentially cute, but not the look I was going for at the time.
I think this was the first time I've had my Curlformer set poof out. Even my set with Oyin Hair Dew didn't poof out. Next time, I think I want to try a mousse/wrap lotion for a firmer hold.
What do you use for your sets?
Here is what I did:
(1) Deep conditioned overnight with Silk Dreams Vanilla Silk
(2) Washed hair with Dr. Woods Pure Black Soap
(3) Conditioned / detangled with Hairveda Moist Condition Pro
Because I wanted to test out how well the It's A 10 worked, I used just It's A 10 on the left side of my hair and It's A 10 plus Carol's Daughter Chocolat Smoothing Blow Dry Cream on the right side.
Before putting a curlformer on a section of hair, I would put on my leave-in(s), comb it through, and then stretched my hair between two fingers to trim off the last 1/4 to 1/2 inch. I was ok with trimming off this much because I haven't trimmed my hair since my big chop. My goal was not to make my hair even. I just wanted to get rid of the ends. It took about an hour to put in my Curlformers because of the added trim step. After putting in my Curlformers, I sat under the dryer for an hour, in my favorite dryer pose, until all of the curls were dry.After taking out the Curlformers, my hair was was amazingly soft on both sides, but the curls had almost no hold. The side with just It's A 10 had a little curl, but was mainly just poofy. The It's A 10 + Carol's Daughter side held the curl for a about an hour or so before puffing up. By the end of the day, all I had was a curly fro. It was potentially cute, but not the look I was going for at the time.
I think this was the first time I've had my Curlformer set poof out. Even my set with Oyin Hair Dew didn't poof out. Next time, I think I want to try a mousse/wrap lotion for a firmer hold.
What do you use for your sets?
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