Tuesday 1 October 2013

My Hair is My Nemesis
Part 1: Kérastase Bain Force Architecte Review


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

4 comments:

  1. Love this shampoo...I like your blog.^^
    Maybe follow each other on bloglovin?
    Let me know follow you then back.
    Lovely greets Nessa

    ReplyDelete
  2. I love this product ;) Is very good ;)

    I follow you beautiful blog. I hope you will follow me back and I will wait for you in my blog www.gabusiek.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thank youuu I'm looking into it, don't think I have it yet! x

    ReplyDelete