Okay so for my first blog I thought I’d
start with something pretty poignant for me at the moment – my hair mare. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending what you like), this first post is a pretty juicy one as I guess it's also a bit of an intro but don't worry – future posts will be much less chunky!
Like
the rest of this generation of women, my hair has faced the extremes of drying,
straightening, highlighting, weather (cheers Yorkshire) and the occasional
clip-in of extensions. Unfortunately for us – all hair wreckers. As a bit of a
beauty junkie, I have always looked after my hair (heat protection, quality
products) but the sad, sad truth is my individual hairs are just so fine that
the merest glimpse at a GHD and it just breaks off. As a result, it refuses to
grow past what I call it’s nemesis length.
In the last year I’ve really turned the
haircare up several notches, I’m talking Moroccan Oil, Kerastase and Lee
Stafford ‘for hair that never grows past a certain length’ treatment. I even
forked out £30ish for the Nioxin 3 Step System which promised to spark regrowth
from the roots (but incidently feels like crap to use). I stopped straightening
(doable due to the hermit nature of third year life) and avoided bleached
highlights. FINALLY – after over a year, my hair has grown an extra inch and a
half at least past its nemesis length.
Then on Saturday, I went to the
hairdressers. Bye bye over a year’s worth of hard-earned hair growth, no thanks
to you non-listening, non-caring hairdresser. In any case, you can’t cry over
chopped hair (well actually you can but I drew the line after a day) and I
resign myself to encouraging my poor hairs to grow again for the next however
long it takes.
So there’s the introduction to my hair and
though I realise everyone has different hair problems, there’s gotta be plenty
of girls like me right? And lets face it – one look at the wonders of hair dye
and styling tools and there was just no going back. So I’m going to log over
the next few weeks the products which I find look after hair the best, restore
it and encourage it to grow those extra few centimetres. I might even post some
that I found didn’t work as well to help you all save money where it matters –
sometimes investing is just better than trying loads of products that don’t do
the job….
MIRACLE PRODUCT NUMBER 1
Ta dahhhh! It’s Kérastase
Bain Force Architecte (3-4). This shampoo is just a hero for me, but make sure
you get the 3-4 version as this is the most restorative product they do and I
think it works a treat! I have previously tried Bain de Force (the lower
strength 1-2 version) and also Bain Satin but I have to say that for me, this
blows these out the water. I always pick mine up from lookfantastic.com (my top
tip for cheaper beauty products and zillions of reviews to help you decide) for
around £12 which I don’t find extortionate to be honest and I often have some
cheeky voucher codes to get an extra 10% off or something. The thing about
products like this is you only need a tiny amount and if you’re like me, trying to protect your hair even more by only washing every other day – it really
lasts a good while.
Anyway, this little one has what they call
Ciment-Cylane3 complex, a
combination of Intra-Cylane, Pro-Keratine and Ceramides. The magic ingredient for me
is Pro-Keratine as this is proteins, which is basically what makes your hair
stronger and that’s what restores it. There are countless products on the
market now which claim to have ‘Keratin’ or proteins, some cheaper and some
more expensive but I was once explained how these things work. If you think
about guidelines, there is a set of rules which dictate whether you can say
your product has protein in – cheaper brands tend to use the minimum
requirement possible so they can still charge those prices, whereas products
like this will use far more as they are the originals and higher paying clients
expect their products to work. Now I’m definitely not a posh brand snob (I’m
currently testing a lower price alternative atm, review to come) but I would
say it’s definitely worth thinking about.
When I first started using it, I have to
say I wasn’t overwhelmed – it doesn’t smell particularly lovely, it doesn’t lather
well and it doesn’t even leave hair feeling amazing soft. But oh boy does it work. The problem with cheaper products is they actually coat your hair so
it feels super soft and silky but isn’t necessarily making it better
condition – this is only evidenced by the claims e.g. 90% of women agree hair
FEELS repaired (we all know hair can’t actually repair right?). Over time, this
little gem has really helped my hair and encouraged it to grow. I originally
purchased it with the partner mask (Masque Force Architecte) and although I
liked this, it ran out so fast and was really pricy (£20-£30 a pop depending
where you get it. I decided to continue with just the shampoo and actually
found it works just as well.
The trick with this shampoo is just know
how to use it. I’ve found using a small amount (just over a 10p piece) but
shampooing twice is best. I also leave the second lot all massaged in like a
mask for a couple of minutes which I think works really nicely in letting all
the goodness get in there!
All in all – this is a fab product and well
worth a go in my book! Has anyone else got any suggestions for making my hair
grow (preferably at supersonic speed)? I'll upload some of my other discovered hair growth tricks in the next few weeks. Phew this was a long blog for the first one but more bitesize ones to follow.
Let me know what you think J x
Love this shampoo...I like your blog.^^
ReplyDeleteMaybe follow each other on bloglovin?
Let me know follow you then back.
Lovely greets Nessa
I love this product ;) Is very good ;)
ReplyDeleteI follow you beautiful blog. I hope you will follow me back and I will wait for you in my blog www.gabusiek.blogspot.com
Thankyouuu, I'm heading over now :)
DeleteThank youuu I'm looking into it, don't think I have it yet! x
ReplyDelete