Got 2b Guardian Angel Is A Smooth Move

Hi. This is my hair.  No, this is not my hair just on Halloween, or at a costume gala, or even on a dare….. This is actually my hair looking pretty normal—you know, for me. It has been hot pink enough to glow under a black light. It has been golden blonde on top and jet black on the last four inches or so. It has been long, it has been short, it has been a lot of things. Damage? Oh yeah… I got that in spades, so while I was shopping with my eldest the other day, I started thinking, “Man, I do some pretty crazy stuff when styling & dying my locks, maybe I should look for something to help mend and alleviate the damage I do?” to which Eldest turned to me and also expressed, “Mooooooom! I need something to flat iron  my hair and keep it smooth!” (Just imagine that being said in a whiny teen whine.) So together we start pouring over the hair care aisle when we happen upon this little gem: Got 2b Guardian Angel Flat Iron Balm.

According to the bottle, (and several stylists I have been faithful to…), hair doesn’t like heat. Temperatures above 425 degrees make your hair brittle and split. Use high heat long enough and you end up with major breakage! Yikes! This balm claims to moisturize and insulate each and every little hair on your head to not only keep is healthy, but smooth too. I looked at Eldest, Eldest looked at me and we both looked at the price tag. It was refreshingly UNDER $5, so we chucked it into the basket and finished our shopping.

Now, since I looooooove my eldest, I let her be the guniea pig go first. We took a photo of her with the product and what her hair looked like before being straightened. It’s already pretty straight, but you can still see subtle waves and frizz. Apparently, frizz is O-U-T out in high school this year. So she took the styling balm and disappeared into her bathroom to do the flat ironing.  While she was gone doing this I emptied the dishwasher, vacuumed the living room, dusted the bookshelves, solved string theory, started dinner, and then she finally waltzed back out!

This is what she looked like after. Her hair was definitely straighter, and it felt smoother. There was a definite lack of frizz as well. Eldest was extremely pleased. I said we needed to try it for more than one outing. She squeed in agreement and made off with the bottle for the next four days. During those four days we had hot, humid weather, windy weather, and rainy weather. (We live in Florida, so there was no way we were going to be able to get some cold weather.) Eldest flat ironed her hair each morning before going to her high school and I picked her up in the afternoons. Her hair stayed straight, shiny, and without frizz, even on the rainy day! It also stayed soft and shiny.

We’ve also been checking her split ends and noticed that even those had started to number fewer and fewer. Eldest is enjoying Guardian Angel immensely! Got 2b seems to have a winner here.  I know if I can ever pry the bottle out of her teenage clutches I may actually get to try it for myself, although I think I’d probably go for their other product, Guardian Angel Heat Protect & Blow Out since I use the hair dryer and the round barrel brush more than the flat iron. Either way, Got 2b Guardian Angel will be gracing my hair at my next derby bout! Who doesn’t love soft straight blonde hair with electric purple and acid green highlights!??!

 

 

 

Want Silky Hair? Use This.

I know I’ve mentioned before that having a baby really wreaked havoc on my hair. My previously stick straight hair got wavy and I also began to have a problem with frizz on humid days. I struggled to find a good product that I could use to tame the frizz and get my silky hair back.

My hairdresser recommended Moroccan Oil to me and I have never looked back. He uses it on my hair every time he fixes it, and even adds it to the color before he applies it to my hair.

You probably are not keen on the idea of putting something with “oil” right in the name into your hair, especially if like me you don’t wash your hair every day. You do need to be careful that you are putting the oil in your hair only and not on your scalp – I usually accomplish this by just bending over, flipping my hair over, and scrunching into my hair, avoiding my scalp.

Not only does Moroccan Oil smell AMAZING (to me it smells like a tropical vacation), it leaves your hair feeling silky and smooth, and makes it so much easier to blow dry, and then straighten. It also works well if you can’t or don’t want to blow dry your hair. Just work into wet or damp hair and let it air dry.

Moroccan Oil makes a whole line of products for every hair type and hair problem, including products for curls, scalp treatments and shampoos and conditioners, and a shine spray.

I bought my Moroccan Oil from my hairdresser – a 3.4 oz bottle for $40, but Amazon carries for a bit less, and they also carry several of the other products from the line. I haven’t used anything else from them, but I can say that even with my long thick hair, a 3.4 oz bottle lasts me about six months because you use it so sparingly.

Great Care For Color-Treated Hair: Pureology

The most important part of coloring your hair is definitely selecting the right color, but a lot of people forget that what happens after coloring is equally important.  Combating unsightly fading and minimizing damage to your color treated hair is an intricate part of being a bottle blond, brunette or pink haired punk rock chick.  My secret weapon against faded glory and split ends for the past five years?  Awesome hair care products.

Let’s face it, there’s nothing worse than shelling out big bucks to get gorgeous honey colored highlights in dark hair only to find that within a few short weeks those same two hundred dollar highlights have faded to a pallid off white color that are reminiscent of cast off Barbie doll hair that has been brushed one too many times.

Or so I’ve heard.

Pureology hair care products is a unique system of hair care that is specially designed for color-treated hair that fights both color fading and damaged hair.  These products are completely “vegan,” formulated with pure organic botanicals, and, most importantly, they contain zero sulfates.  Another great thing about Pureology shampoos and conditioners is that they’re super concentrated.  Most bottles contain about 80 shampoos worth of product, so don’t be discouraged by the price.  Using this stuff will most likely not cost you much more money than using drug store brands which mostly contain sulfates.

Sulfates?  Are very bad for colored-treated hair because they scrub the color right off of it far quicker than you would want.  Finally, if you need a moral reason to use a beauty product, you should know that Pureology is an industry leader in creating hair care products that promote environmental sustainability both through ingredient and packaging choices.

Bottom line, these hair care products protect your hair and your color until the next visit to the salon, and in the long run they’ll probably save you money.  This line also offers several different “custom” systems for color treated hair, so it’s worth checking out the consultation tool on their main website to figure out exactly what’s right for you.

My stylist suggested a great blend of the systems for my hair.  For example, I have wavy hair (which we all know is a euphemism for frizzy), so I use the Super Smooth Shampoo. In order to combat the damaging effects of adding very light highlights to my very dark hair, I follow up with the Essential Repair Conditioner. I’ve tried other products before this, drugstore and designer, and I can say with total conviction that in addition to protecting my hair and color, these products also make it easier and quicker to style my hair.

Which reminds me, Pureology also has a fantastic line of styling products.  My favorite one, something I cannot live without, is Root Lift, which, obviously, uh, lifts your roots.  It’s a light mousse that’s applied to the roots when your hair is wet and provides soft to the touch hair with durable volume.

Pureology products are sold through specific salons which you can find by entering your zip code at the bottom of their main site under “Find A Salon.”  You can also find these products on Amazon by searching “Pureology,” but be sure that you’re purchasing from a salon authorized to sell the products or you run the risk of buying expired, counterfeited or contaminated products.

How to Manage Curly Hair: Product. Product. Product.

I have naturally curly hair that I love.  Now.

It took me years of trial and error to get here.

I spent decades of my life walking around with a frizzy sort of kind of wave thing going on and I hated my hair.  I brushed and brushed and blow dryed and sprayed and it always just poofed.

My senior year in highschool, I discovered gel and scrunching.  Then, instead of a poofy triangular shaped fro, I had a crunchy spiral perm that always looked wet.

I’ve tried every cut, product, and gadget on the market.  From the very, very cheap to the very, very overpriced, I’ve experimented with everything in an effort to manage my curly hair.

About three years ago, I stumbled on the secret recipe.  I’ve tested it since then – trying to swap out one part of the formula or another – and time and time again I have proven to myself that this is what works on curly hair.

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