Wash Day Launches New Products!

It feels like I've been in production forever, but alas, it was worth it and four new products are on the Wash Day shelves! Let me introduce you:

• Red Hot Grease: Imagine tiny fingers massaging your scalp 24/7. That's what this herbal oil blend of castor oil, pimiento oil, cayenne pepper, and sea buckthorn and saw palmetto essential oils feels like as it gets to waking up those sleepy follicles to help you grow some hair. 

Red Hot Grease is for sleepy follicles.

Natural bright orange-red color.

• Vedi Good Grease: I love all things Ayurvedic, so why not an Ayurvedic hair grease? A blend of hibiscus, amla, shikakai, brahmi, neem, orange and bhringraj powders, will help strengthen, thicken and darken your hair while adding lustrous sheen and shine, and correcting any topical scalp issues.

Vedi Good Grease is very good Ayurvedic hair grease!

Natural greenish yellow color.

• Green Grower's Grease: This nourishing blend of sweet almond oil, horsetail, coltsfoot, blue malva, nettle leaf and burdock root herbs, and rosemary, sage and carrot seed essential oils will fertilize your scalp and give those follicles the food they need to help you grow strong, healthy hair. It's also soothing to itchy scalps!

Green Grower's Grease is the fertilizer your scalp needs!

A natural fun almost neon green color.

• Brownie Butter: This rich, creamy dark chocolate deep conditioner comprised of bentonite clay, cocoa butter, avocado oil, cocoa powder, espresso powder and neutral henna will cure whatever's ailing your hair, and make those kinks, coils and curls pop out all over the place. Just mix these solid deep conditioning cubes with your choice of hot water, aloe vera juice or coconut water or milk, and let Mother Nature work her magic. This is a sinfully delicious treat for your hair!

The ultimate deep conditioning experience.

Chocolate's not just for eating!

If you haven't been by the shop lately, you're missing out! And, stay tuned for an update on my own hair as it comes out of winter hibernation!

New Sofn'Free product review

This weekend, I was pleasantly surprised when samples of Sofn'Free's GroHealthy's Nothing But line showed up in my mailbox. Among the samples was their Intense Healing Mask. Y'all know me...I love deep conditioners, so I decided to give this a try first but not without some hesitation.

This smelled like peppermint even though there's citrus oil in it.

First, it's "made with nothing but simple ingredients," and "it penetrates deeply to repair, soothe and smooth damaged, brittle hair," while also touting that " In no time, your curls will bounce back with renewed health and vigor." Second, it proposes to repair "weak, fragile hair" and is "real help for transitioning."

I don't know about you, but when something sounds too good to be true, it probably is because only a pair of scissors can repair damaged hair. Regardless, I decided to give it a try with my steamer. Oh, but wait! What's in this stuff? To my dismay, the ingredients weren't listed on the packaging or enclosed informational brochure so I had to hop on the Internet. Look what I found!

Ingredients: Cyclopentasiloxane, Dimethiconol, Cetearyl Alcohol, Behentrimonium Chloride, Glycine Soja (Soybean Oil),  Butyrospermum Parkii (Shea Butter) Oil, Hydroxypropyl Starch Phosphate, Acetamide MEA, Hydrolyzed Keratin, Panthenol, Propylene Glycol, Sorbitol, Sodium Cocoyl Collagen, Amino Acid, Cocoyl Sarcosine, Wheat Germ Acid, Triticum Vulgare Oil (Wheat Germ), Linolenic Acid, Linoleic Acid, Sulfur, Oleth-10, Simmondsia Chinensis Seed Oil (Jojoba), Tocopheryl Acetate (Vitamin E), Hydrolyzed Glycosaminoglycansance, Diazolidinyl Urea, Iodopropynyl Butylcarbamate, d-Limonene, Linalool, and Citral.

That's a mouthful, huh? Even more interesting is that while this product line is void of petrolatum, mineral oil, sulfates, parabens, colorants and phthalates, it does contain silicones! Personally, I'm not afraid of cones, but you might want to avoid this product line if you're picky about what you put in your hair. Sofn'Free says Nothing But is "simple," but how simple can it be with more than 20 ingredients?

Enough's enough! Now for the product review! This minty cream feels very pleasant in the hair. It smooths snarls and tangles, it spreads easily and evenly, and it washes out fairly well. Beyond that, my hair didn't feel or behave any differently. Maybe I would've noticed a difference if my hair was suffering from damage, shedding or thinning, but I keep it in a protective style throughout winter so it's relatively strong and healthy.

Overall, I can't say yay or nay to this one. But, I can say that at $10.99, this won't be part of my arsenal when it comes to deep conditioning treatments. I've found cheaper deep conditioners, i.e. LeKair Cholesterol for $2 or $3, that work much better at a fifth of the cost. Nice try Sofn' Free, but no coils up for you!

Hallelujah and Amen!

Armed with an arsenal of never-tried-before products recommended by one of my fave bloggers, Moptopmaven, and a brand new hair dryer that promises to do everything but kiss the ground I walk on and a new flat iron, I was ready...I was excited...to straighten my hair!

First, however, I deep conditioned under the steamer with Huetiful's Hair Masque with Moringa Oil. 

I've never seen a product, other than what comes out of my own kitchen, with moringa oil so I was super excited when I got this in the mail after submitting an Amazon review of my steamer. This masque is okay and has an overwhelming peppermint smell, but it doesn't perform well enough for me to try again. Coincidentally, I had to use almost the entire jar for just one application so sadly, this product is not going to be a repeat.

After deep conditioning, and washing and conditioning my hair, I set about Moptopmaven's hair straightening regimen. Prior to blow drying, she recommends using Fermodyl 619, Sebastian Potion 9, Frederick Fekkai Glossing Cream and Aveda Brilliant Damage Control.

I'm not sure if my hair was supposed to feel any different with this product, but it purports to help hair retain  nearly 70 percent moisture. I didn't feel a difference, so I don't know if I'll ever need to use this again.

This runny, orange goopy stuff smells funny and felt a little sticky. As a leave-in, I will give this another try since it's so light. Otherwise, I probably would never use it again. It just wasn't what I thought it was going to be.

What more can I say, but AMAZZZIIINNNGGG! The smell of this olive oil-based cream is intoxicating and truly does smooth and silken the hair. I will definitely keep a tube of this on hand.

I really enjoyed this herbal floral-scented spray which serves as a heat and UV protectant. I think this will be sticking around for a while.

Now, down to the nitty gritty-blow drying time!!! The next step in the regimen is to apply Chi Silk Infusion.

I loved this too! It smells amazing and left my hair feeling rather sleek!

Confident I was on my way to creating silky, smooth straight locks I plugged in my new hair dryer, the Infiniti Hair Designer Pro by Conair, and got down to business. Thank God I got this at a bargain price because this hair dryer left my hair in such a mess I had to pull out my old hair dryer and round brush to finish the job!

The blow dryer from hell! This thing is supposed to detangle, straighten and dry the hair in one fell swoop. Yes it dried my hair, but I ended up with more single-strand knots on the bottom two inches of my hair than I've ever had in my life! This blow dryer also has four separate tension settings and coarse-haired girls are supposed to use tension four, but all it did was rip my hair. I backed it down to tension one. The ripping stopped, but detangle it did not! DO NOT BUY THIS!

My final step was flat ironing, but that didn't go well as the blow dryer didn't work out too well. I used a cheapie I grabbed around town to flat iron and I believe it'd work for my hair, but only with the proper blow drying technique. Needless to say, about halfway through blow drying, I had to pull out my old one and my round brush to finish the job.

Now, Moptopmaven's hair is super shiny and appears to have movement from using all of the hair products previously mentioned, but I had not a lick of shine. I have my own remedies for that, but to make my straight strands last as long as possible, I finished off with Aveda's Brilliant Anti-Humectant Pomade.

OMG, I love this little jar of herbal oil pomade! It smells amazing and  so light, you can't feel it on your hair! It seemed to do the trick overnight, but perhaps I should apply some everyday as my hair got a tad poofy today. I will definitely keep this in my arsenal and will probably use this to maintain twists that are kept in for more than a week.

Overall, I'm pleased with my results, but it took me just shy of five hours to complete this process from beginning to end. The only element I think I was missing was a straightening cream, so next spring, I will give this a go and try again. For now, though, I've applied so much heat to my hair and fought so many single-strand knots, I'm going to keep my hair in twists until spring to repair the damage I know I've done. Plus, my significant other and I prefer my wild bushy curls to my straight look. I also look closer to my age with straight hair, too. LOL.