followup to "the score: giovanni smooth as silk shampoo"

i don't like to shampoo my hair.

i tried the giovanni SAS shampoo about a day or two after i blogged about it. i love everything about it, the smell, the texture, the feel....but what i don't love is how it made my hair feel, and of course, that's the most important thing here. *big collective sigh*

my method of shampooing is to apply the product to my fingertips, then distribute it on my roots, since a) the purpose of shampooing is to clean your scalp and b) it's the best and quickest way for ME to tell how it's going to affect my hair. for those shampoos that work well with my hair, like aubrey organics gbp and kinky curly come clean, the suds will simply distribute down to my ends and my hair will feel clean, but not stripped or extremely dry. for those that we (me and my hair *smile*) can't get along with, like ALL shampoos with sulfates, organix shampoos, and unfortunately giovanni SAS, my fingers get trapped in my roots and i have to use half a bottle of conditioner to add the moisture back in. it's shampoos like these where i have a serious problem on my hands if i don't DC after washing.

before i relegate it to the body wash stockpile (or give it away), i think i'll try mixing in some conditioner as i shampoo my hair. i've heard this can cut down on the drying effect. anyone know of any other tips and tricks that can cut down on this tangling effect?

the ups and downs of trader joe's nourish spa conditioner

about a year ago, i made the (unconscious) decision to switch to all- or mostly natural hair care products. not that i have anything against my beloved VO5, herbal essences or ion products, but as part of an overhaul of my diet and general lifestyle, it just made sense to convert my hair products, too. it wasn't as hard on my wallet as i thought: i find giovanni products on sale at my local whole foods pretty often, i caught a killer sale on aubrey organics, so i'm good on DC for a while, and there is always marshall's and tjmaxx when i need a liter of giovanni smooth as silk or 50:50 (a product i haven't tried.....YET). as for some of the more "trendy" lines, kinky-curly is more expensive than i am used to, but one bottle of come clean shampoo lasts me a few months, and since i don't care too much for the curling custard and knot today, i don't have to break the bank on the whole line. jane carter, shea moisture, qhemet biologics and oyin handmade are next on my list. however, the frugalista in me loves the fact that there is a cheapie line i can turn to: trader joe's nourish spa.

while i haven't tried the shampoo (y'all know how finicky my hair is with that stuff), i believe i actually talked about tj nourish spa conditioner quite some time ago....like 2 or 3 years ago. back in the day, i couldn't decide if i liked it or not, since it seemed a little too thick for a cowash conditioner, but not quite nourishing enough to use as a DC. well....though i haven't really talked about it, the conditioner has actually been a part of my regimen for a few months now.

i have heard for a loooong time that it is comparable to giovanni smooth as silk, but since i never used that specific giovanni product, it didn't matter to me. that all changed around december of last year when i found the entire giovanni line on sale for $5 at whole foods and picked up the smooth as silk conditioner instead of the direct leave-in. as some of you may know, i'm from the "i'll try anything once" school of thought, so it wasn't a huge decision to grab the SAS instead of GDLI, especially since i was trying to decide if i liked the new version of GDLI as much as the other. long story short? it was great as a DC, but ROCKED as a cowash conditioner AND a leave-in!

now i'm not gonna lie, i'm used to getting a lot more conditioner for $5 (i believe their products come in 8oz bottles) but my hair was responding so great that i said 'forget it' and kept purchasing. i was in heaven when i came across the liter pump bottle at tjmaxx for $12.99, but being that i could only find the SAS in virginia, that joy didn't last too long. while i continued to run into the two local stores every week hoping to find a stray bottle, i decided to give tj nourish spa another go. i guess it was because i fell in love with SAS, but this time my hair responded IMMEDIATELY to nourish spa -- it stays soft, moisturized and tangle-free, and i can go longer without cowashing, too. i call it my "triple threat" since i can use it as a DC, cowash and leave-in. besides, it's got the other things on my "dream hair product" list: no offensive smell, readily available, pretty good ingredients, and fantastic portability. since i (re)discovered tj nourish spa, i've gifted it to my mom, sister and recommended it to a few coworkers as well. i mean, who doesn't need a multipurpose, all natural, CHEAP conditioner/moisturizer/styling product?

not bad for $3, huh?

ingredients: purified water, organic rosemary oil, organic valencia orange citrus, organic mango, organic lemongrass, organic ginko biloba, organic echinacea, organic willow bark, organic sea kelp, organic chamomile flower, organic textured soy protein, organic lavender, organic grapefruit citrus, tocopherol (Vit E), acetamide MEA, cetyl alcohol, citric acid, methylparaben, propylparaben, botanical fragrance

read the amazon reviews here!

me vs the avocado

the other day, i bought an avocado and decided to try to make a natural hair mask with it using a recipe i found on LHCF. the recipe called for one avocado, a bit of honey, and some water, but i decided to add some melted shea butter and a little coconut and olive oil to it as well. long story short, i think i'll stick to avocado butter and oil -- i wasn't able to get it down to a guacamole-like consistency and ended up with chunks of avocado stuck in my hair. let's not even get started on the smell -- i smelled avocado for about 12 hours after i rinsed!! speaking of which, after i rinsed, i added some oils (coconut, olive and castor) to my hair as a pre-poo before hitting the dominican salon that afternoon. the guy at the shampoo bowl had a pretty funny reaction; he just kept talking about all the oil in my hair and ended up shampooing it about three times trying to get it all out. i was a little peeved (although it may just have been him in general) but didn't let it bother me. it WAS kind of funny when he pleaded with me "no mucho oy-jul", trying to say i had too much oil in my hair. all i did was smirk and say ok -- i'll definitely keep pre-pooing, because Lord knows all that oil in my hair is what kept it from going down the sink with all those sulfates he put in it!

love it or hate it: queen helene mint julep masque

ok...so i have still been looking for a good mask since unfortunately the whole indian healing clay thing didn't work out. i mean, it went on fine and all, but i got tired of mixing it and the BURN was so unbearable. it probably doesn't burn regular thick-skinned people, but RAM is a killer and i am forced to accommodate. i've heard a lot of things about the queen helene masks lately, specifically the mint julep and mud masques, but i never really bought into the hype. that is, today when i went on a store run to walgreens and ended up spending 45 minutes perusing the makeup and skin care aisles. (yes, you know i stopped on the hair care aisle too.) i saw a lot of things i have been wondering about, including amlactin, neosporin dry touch sunblock, and the walgreens-brand AHA cream and knockoff cetaphil cream, but when i ran across the masques on sale BOGO i had to jump. i figured best case i can give one to my brother, worst case i can take them back, cause i always keep my receipts.

i decided there was no time like the present to try it, so after an early evening nap i swiped off my makeup with a baby wipe and washed with the johnson's head-to-toe before screwing the top off the mask tube. i really thought it would be a squeeze type flip top thingy, but whatever. i had to squeeze kinda hard and when i saw the stuff i was taken aback. it was...green. i know that it is "mint julep", but i didn't think it would be green! i shrugged and put it on my face, and immediately felt a sting. it was so bad that i wanted to stop applying it halfway through, but then i remembered that earlier today i wiped the extra glitter from the dream matte mousses i got on clearance off my cheek with a baby wipe and it stung when i reapplied my eucerin moisturizer, and that stuff NEVER stings. i really think it was the baby wipes, so i am glad my sister has been sneaking them to use when she changes my baby cousin's diapers. on MUA i heard that simple wipes are good, so maybe i should find out what those are next. back on topic...i survived the pain and then the stinging went away. there was this strong smell of mint, but it wasn't overpowering; it smelled like i was putting doublemint gum on my face. it actually made me smile a bit. the instructions say to leave it on about 15 minutes, but with my sensitive skin i planned on cutting that down to ten...then my boyfriend called and i got on the phone. uh-oh. twenty minutes later, i put him on hold and raced to the bathroom to rinse it off, fearing the worst - but unlike the indian healing clay, it did NOT prevent me from moving my face and it DID come off easily. score! i waited a good 15 minutes waiting for some extra burning, and it never came...so i took the other bottle out of the bag and threw away the receipt.

so...love it or hate it? love it. it's a good clay mask, very inexpensive, already mixed so it's foolproof, and it actually did what it said it would do and gave me a good deep down clean. i will reassess in the morning to see if this blemish on my forehead has cleared up any, and if it has then i will also have an excellent spot treatment.

love it or hate it: johnson's head-to-toe baby wash

it's no secret that i have skin problems, some of them simpler to solve than others. i decided to attack one of the easier-to-fix ones by switching my face wash from basis sensitive skin bar to something else. i really thought i had a winner with this (being that it was less than $2) but boy was i wrong. my skin was so DRY after washing with this stuff, and i think it clogged my pores and made me break out. i have some wal-mart brand clearasil that i was using a few months ago, and it didnt leave my skin AS dry so i used that in the meantime. while browsing various boards (MUA, acne.org, LHCF) i noticed a lot of people raving about johnson's head-to-toe baby wash, and since i am dumb enough to become desperate i pilfered the travel-size bottle my brother has and tried it out. definitely a lot watery in consistency than the soaps and washes i am used to, but this may be because it's not full of fillers. it wasn't really thick on my face, but that's ok, i just wanted it to get the job done. i felt like i had to use more in the shower cause i couldn't tell if it was on my face, but over the sink this was not a problem. the real test came after waiting 10 mintes after washing to see if my skin felt tight...and surprise, it didn't! even better was the price; the wal-mart version of JBW is $1.18 for 15oz, so it is wayyy cheaper than the eucerin i was considering and even cheaper than the basis i got to be economical.

so...love it or hate it? so far, love it. i will use it for another 2 weeks to see if it breaks me out, but i really dont think it will. i love being able to simplify my regimen.

love it or hate it: aztec secret indian healing clay

it has been about 4.5 weeks since i went to the derm and my skin is looking so much better that its unbelievable. consistency must really BE the key, cause for the irst 4 weeks i was going like "when is this stuff gonna kick in?!" but when it began to show visible signs of working last week i was shocked. my cheeks have almost completely cleared up, my chin has cleared up, and the rest of my blemishes are getting smaller. i'm gonna wait the whole 6 weeks to take pics and/or get really excited, cause i'm still a bit skeptical. in the meantime, i wanna rave about this mask i posted about yesterday.

i bought this healing clay from the vitamin shoppe yesterday, and after reading up on it a bit more on the makeup and skin care boards i gave it a go. i initially mixed it with water, but apparently there are other things you can mix it with, with ACV, rosewater, and lemon juice being just a few examples. i think i left it on too long for my sensitive skin, cause it was really rough getting it off, but my brother left his on 15 minutes instead of 20 and his came right off. oh yeah, i cant believe i let him try it, but i wanted to compare our results. anyway, when i did get it all off, my face burned, but it was SO SOFT! i kept touching it, which i know is bad, but i really liked it. it was a bit red but like the container said that disappeared after about a half hour. the real test is that when i woke up this morning my face was really really smooth. i was in shock. i mean, lately i have woken up and when i look in the mirror my blemishes are smaller (i wonder why that is), but after a few hours they return to their normal size. sucks, but maybe that will stop. the key difference is my face was also less oily...i hate waking up looking like i spilled vegetable oil on my face. i looked up bentonite and it is a key ingredient in a lot of expensive cleansers for oily skin, like the dermalogica dermal clay cleanser, but luckily for me this stuff was only 7 bucks. sweeeet...now my task is to search for rosewater so i can get a really moisturizing mask. since i bought AV juice i will try that first, since it is known to be a good moisturizer. the next try will be monday or tuesday night so maybe i will post then.

verdict? LOVE IT. go buy it. now.

love it or hate it: VS so sexy balancing conditioner

i love testing out new products and this is one that has been on my list for a while. i have been talking about all the great things i got at the VS semi-annual sale...and on the beauty side of the store this is one product i wanted but did not buy. must be a sign, cause a week later i found someone on LHCF selling the travel size bottle for half price. this made it the perfect time to try it...and i am glad i did.

i opened the package and was hit by a cloud of perfume. ick, right? one thing about my VO5 and suave that i love is that the smell is subtle...i catch a whiff of my hair when i fluff it, or when i shake it, but not all the time. i was put off by that and thought that maybe this wasn't something i would wanna try, but i did it anyway. i must admit, VS made the bottles really cute, and this is something i can sit in my shower or even on my dresser and people cant even tell what it is till they read the bottle. so cool! after this analysis, i pushed my thoughts about the smell to the back of my mind and hopped in the shower.

i used this conditioner following my first ever overnight DC; i used kenra mc, honey, shea butter, and EVOO and left it in about 12 hours while i lollygagged on LHCF, went to bed, woke up and took my brother to work, and came back home to some yoga. my hair felt pretty good, but there is something in this mix that is not working, cause i get a better experience with just plain kenra mc. it felt like my hair was drier than usual under the showerhead, and it was tangled. i was using my shower comb and took out more hair than normal. gotta figure that one out...but after i rinsed it all out i used the VS conditioner. it has a very thick consistency, almost like a deep conditioner, but i will not be using it for that anytime soon. i worked kinda hard to get out a quarter sized dollop and ran it through my soaking wet hair before detangling with the shower comb. again, the smell was kinda overpowering, but once it was in my hair it went away some. in other words, i wasn't choking. they didnt lie when they put something about "a burst of ultra-feminine fragrance" on the back of the bottle.

after my shower, i squeezed out the excess water as usual (although there seemed to be less water in my hair) and looked in the mirror. my hair looked really fluffy, which isn't a bad thing. i also decided to plop my hair with a t-shirt, and my drying time went WAY down. my hair was dry about an hour later....oh i took the t-shirt off my hair about 20 minutes after i put it on, btw. instead of leaving it down today i used my nylon ponytail holder to smoosh my hair into a pony puff. i love the way it looks so full, and i cant wait for my ponytails to look like this. -sniff- there goes the smell again...i am sitting under the ceiling fan as i type and every few seconds i smell my hair. thank goodness i have gotten used to it by now. it's not a bad smell, it's just that i am used to fruity smells more than this perfume-y type deal. i will continue to use the bottle...but it's not something i will stock up on. this will be my night-on-the-town conditioner more than anything.

so....verdict is in. i like it. too much fragrance and not enough moisture.

love it or hate it: suave tropical coconut conditioner

now that i cowash a lot (and the buy nothing challenge is over) i can start experimenting with different conditioners. i am always on the hunt for products that will give me everything my hair needs, and now that i have a solid regimen this is getting easier. i have a staple cowash conditioner, VO5 strawberries and creme, but i keep hearing that suave tropical coconut, organix vanilla silk, and herbal essences hello hydration are awesome and get the job done well. on my trip to family dollar (it's in walking distance from my house - worst move EVER) i picked up a bottle of VO5 S&C, since it's only 80 cents, and i saw the suave tropical coconut sitting right next to it. awesome. it was 20 cents more, but that only made it a dollar...not bad by my standards. the bottle is kinda sleek as well...not that it matters if the product inside it sucks, but that means i can fit more in my shower.

the actual test came yesterday, and upon squeezing it in my hand i was pleased to notice that it is of a thicker consistency than VO5. it took less of it to coat my hair, which means that maybe i can go through the bottle slower. the scent is not as noticeable as with the VO5, but this could be a good thing, being that it won't interfere with whatever else is in my hair (or on my body). my hair dried really nicely and i had another good hair day yesterday.

verdict? love it. the family size (i dont know why they call it that, it's only 7 oz larger) is only about 50 cents more at wal-mart and that is an expense i can afford once or twice a month. now i have two conditioners i can rotate. unless i start liking this one more...hmm...