Every so often I decide to write about hair care. The reason why I don't write about it so much is because my hair is just there. I have really long hair and I have it cut in layers. I've had my hair this way for years. I basically don't really do much to my hair because I think it looks good the way it is and I don't want to mess with it. For when I feel like I need to change things up I usually go for a new color. Lately, I've been dying my hair with Henna Dye from Lush in Caca Rouge which is the red color that they have. I've been loving it. But if you read my post you would know that the application is very time consuming. In the winter, this is great since you usually stay inside but now that its summer I started realizing that my hair started to look really dry on the ends. I had recently gotten my haircut so I knew it wasn't that but didn't matter what I did, my hair was just gross looking. I decided that I needed to dye my hair again and I went to the +LUSH Cosmetics in Herald Square is now permanently closed. I was appalled and honestly didn't have time to go to the one in Union Square but my hair needed to get colored so I went to the good ole drugstore!
I look around and first started to look at what was on sale and I settled on the Loreal Excellence Creme Rich Richesse in Dark Mahogany Red. This color is a true brown red color. I've used this brand before and I knew that I would like this. It usually conditions my hair really well too. I only bought 2 boxes even though my hair is really long but I've learned how to be able to cover my whole head with just 2 boxes. When dying your hair at home you want to remember a couple of things. You want to make sure that you use either chap stick or vaseline on the border of your hairline because you want to make sure that the color does not stain your skin. Also I first recommend to cover your roots and then work your way down to the roots. Its also good to make sure that you have a comb so that you can comb the color down to your ends. Once you've colored your hair wrap your hair in a bun and you can either leave open or cover it with a shower cap or something. You wait the appropriate amount of time and then you wash it out.
When washing it out, just make sure to rinse your hair until the water is clear. This will take a long time because there is a lot of product in there and my hair is really long. Once I got the product all out, I went on and blow dried it. The end color was gorgeous. It is like a cranberry brownish red. It's definitely red, you will notice in the run right away that your hair is red but not Little Mermaid type red. It's gorgeous. This hair color retails for about $8.99 but I got it on sale for $5.99 and personally I love this brand. I'd definitely repurchase.
Do you dye your hair at home? Let me know what products you use. Leave comments below!
Once and a while I love to give home remedy type beauty tips. There are so many natural remedies out there that its hard to not use them. I've noticed that a lot of these types of remedies are usually 'old wives tales' but actually they work. My dad told me about how to use Baking soda and hydrogen peroxide to whiten my teeth and I also use it to whiten my nails. I wrote about it in one of my past posts. I also believe that your skin reacts to the food you eat so if you have acne prone skin, I recommend taking a deeper look at what type of foods you eat and anything bad for you also probably isn't good for your skin. I recommend swapping things out and also make sure you are keeping up on your water intake. If you do this and still have bad acne, go to the doctor.
Growing up in Puerto Rico, I used to go to the beach every weekend for like 5 months straight. Sometimes during the first few months going back to the beach after the long break of 'winter months' I would get sunburned if I went overboard and didn't really protect my skin which I never did when I was younger. There were times that I had horrible sunburns but one time I had gotten the worse one was one time I laid out and I guess the sun was REALLY bad that day and I ended up with blisters on my arm. Forget about the pain, once you put aloe on it the pain went away. I was more worried about days after when it cleared that I was going to get scars. This would have sucked since it was on my arm in plain view any time I wear short sleeves. My dad told me to put Tea Trea Oil on it every night. At first, I really didn't think anything was happening but by the end of 2 weeks the scar that could have formed was gone. I then went all crazy. I put it on a scar that I had on my knee and it helped minimize the marks as well. I was in love with this magic oil.
I started reading up on other possible uses for this magic oil and I saw that you can put a few drops of this into your shampoo and conditioner to clarify your hair of any build up. A lot of people don't think that their hair has build up maybe because they don't color their hair or that they don't use a lot of product in their hair but that isn't the only thing that causes build up. You can get build up with hard water. It is always good to wash your hair once a month or depending on how many times you wash your hair you can do it either once a week or twice a week or even once a month. As long as you are doing it frequently you should be good.
Those are what I use Tea Tree Oil for but you can also use it for cuts, burns, skin infections and other things like that. Before you use it, just google some stuff and see if its okay to use. But all in all its like coconut oil, you can basically use it for everything. Let me know if you use this for anything specific?
Not sure if you have seen lately that there have been a lot of different brands coming out with a cleansing conditioner or a conditioning cleanser for your hair. It basically is a 2 in 1 shampoo and conditioner but not the ones that we are used to seeing when we were growing up. This is something that conditions your hair more and the ones that I've tried so far don't leave your hair feeling like yarn. If you read my post from yesterday, you know I received this product in the May Test Tube container.
I saw the Macadamia brand and automatically thought 'crap, I'm not going to like this because it will make my hair all gross and greasy'. I had to wash my hair so I decided to use this instead of my regular shampoo and conditioner. First of all, the instructions aren't really clear and I had to Google how to use it first. I wanted to make sure that I was actually doing this correctly.What you are suppose to do is wet your hair just like you would if you were going to wash your hair with shampoo and instead of using shampoo and conditioner, you use this. It says to use 2 pumps and just make sure that you rub it in your hair. It says to massage your scalp to make sure that it has a chance to cleanse from the root to the ends. You can add water just to make sure that you have enough to make sure it saturates your hair. I didn't leave it in for long, it says to massage it in for about 3 to 5 minutes. I probably did 3 and then went under the shower for about 10 minutes just to make sure I didn't have any residue left. I wanted to make sure that I didn't have any greasiness left. I was reading some reviews and some people said that it was greasy. For me it wasn't greasy.
So this Flawless 6 in 1 cleansing conditioner is suppose to refine hair texture and optimize the styling process. It claims to cut the blow drying process in half. I can tell you that I don't think it cut my blow drying process in half not even a quarter. It usually takes me 20-25 minutes and I think it took me about the same amount of time. Now it did give my hair a nice shine to it. The ends don't look as frayed even though they aren't really frayed but since I don't really spend a lot of time blow drying my hair sometimes the looks a bit rough. I do blow dry my hair at night so I figured once I slept on it, my hair in the morning would be greasy but to my surprise it wasn't at all. Actually, today is probably one of the best days to try this out since its 93% humidity today and I have to say that my hair isn't weighed down nor is it frizzy. I honestly wanted to hate this stuff but I can say that this is definitely a good buy.
One thing I want to bring up is that I didn't buy this separately. I got it in the Test Tube May edition so I didn't know how much it retailed for until I researched it. I saw that the little bottle that I got retails for $15 and the bigger bottle retails for $30. Now thats a lot of money but if you think about it, its really replacing your shampoo and your conditioner. I haven't used this enough to see how many uses I get out of the $15 bottle so I can't really say if its REALLY worth it but I do like the product.
After a whole lot of skincare and makeup reviews I like to move into some haircare products. If anyone knows me personally, they know I am very anal about my hair. I try to get it cut every 13 weeks per what I've read in articles. I usually just get half an inch taken off because if you do more that that, your hair doesn't really grow since you'd be cutting off the actual growth. I am very simple with my hair meaning I've had a classic look for a long time. I might dabble with some hair color but nothing really with the cut of my hair. I like it long, a little bit of layers and then the shortest layer would be my "bangs" that have to be long enough to go behind my ears.
I take a shower and wash my hair probably every other day or every 2 days. My hair is greasy so I usually have to wash it if I want to wear it down but I can put it up if I wanted to not wash it one night. Being that my hair is greasy, I do not like putting product in it. I only put conditioner on the ends because of this. Sometimes when I feel my hair is a bit stringy I use the CHI Silk Infusion which is a serum for your hair. It is suppose to protect your hair from the heat of irons and blow dryers. Since I usually just blow dry my hair, I usually use this when I want to go out that night and I need my hair to blow dry nicer than usual. It doesn't make my hair greasy that night but after using this, I usually have to wash my hair the next day. This is whenever I use anything other than shampoo and conditioner in my hair. I do like this product because it does cut the frizz and it helps when blow drying my hair, I don't have to spend that much time blow drying it since this usually gets my hair just right.
This silk infusion has silk molecules that grab on to your hair and it protects your hair from heat which over time is going to give you shinier hair and less damaged hair. It not only protects your hair from future damage but it also reverses the damage that you've already done to it. It has natural pure silk, whey and soy protein which are all good for your hair and this is really why I use this. My hair isn't that frizzy and I have naturally straight hair but this stuff really helps bring out that shine and it conditions it especially if I use a flat iron or a curling iron. This usually retails for $25 for the 6oz bottle but I've had the smaller bottle that I got in Marshalls years ago and I still haven't gone through the whole bottle yet. You use very little bit at a given time. All you have to do is wash your hair and then after you towel dry your hair you can use a dime size amount and I usually concentrate on the ends and not too much on the roots since my hair is oily.
I recommend this for people that have curlier hair or just hair that is harder to manage and you will see that when you blow dry your hair this stuff will really make a difference for you!
Do you have something that you use and love? Let me know I am very interested in hearing about new hair products. This one is an oldie but its definitely a cult favorite and a must buy to anyone who applies heat to their hair on a daily or even weekly basis.
If you've been reading my posts you know that I love +LUSH Cosmetics and I use the Henna hair dye. I use the Caca Rouge color which is a red henna dye. Now in my blog post, you can see the extent of the process but its a process for sure. I wanted to see if there was something that I can put in my hair that wasn't permanent since I do not want to dye my hair with chemicals anymore. The henna is permanent and its natural so I prefer the henna dye.
I saw a commercial of this colour refreshing gloss and I thought, can't hurt to try it. I saw that they had about 3 or 4 colors ranging from black, brown, light brown and red. I obviously got the red color. Just like all hair dyes, the box shows the "if your hair is this color, this is what your color will be after" so I saw and I figured from a faded red it would be a nice deep burgundy red. So I was really excited to put this in my hair. The instructions say to just wash your hair normally with shampoo and conditioner and then the ring it out to make sure that the excess water isn't there. The instructions do not tell you to wear gloves but the first time I put it in my hair, I wore them anyway. The consistency of this stuff is gel like. Its bright red and smells like berries which is cool. I started to put the color on my ends and my hair is so long that I use more than the recommended dosage to make sure it was all covered. I put it all the way until I hit the crown of my head where they said to just do middle of the hair to the ends. I went up a bit more but not my roots. The instructions say to leave it in for about 3 minutes. I left it in my hair for a total of 10 minutes so I was really trying to get as much color as possible. I wasn't afraid of the color because it wasn't permanent so eventually it would fade out.
After washing it out, I saw that the color was rinsing out so I really thought that it was
working. I was excited to rinse it out and immediately blow dry my hair. My hair smelled really good and it was definitely softer. Unfortunately, when I finished drying my hair, there was absolutely no difference in the color of my hair. I didn't see anything. I had the red fade faster on the ends because I had ombré but with all that the color didn't change. I had really high hopes for this because John Frieda is usually good. Most products are really good and this gloss retails for $14 so I figured it would work better than just as a good smelling conditioner. After my experience with this, I wouldn't recommend this but if you would like to try this,I advise that you wear gloves. I used it once without gloves and my hands were bloody red. It looked like I was making wine. Side note: if this does happen to you-- you can fix by using baking soda and peroxide. Mix it together and rub into the areas that are stained.
Have you tried this before? Am I doing something wrong? Maybe my hair doesn't work? Any suggestions, let me know!
Hi there! I wanted to talk about the Lush Solid Shampoos. I recently received these for my birthday from my dear friend +Carrie L. I know what you are probably thinking that shampoo shouldn't be in a solid form since shampoo should be lathering. I have to tell you skeptics out there, this shampoo has such a rich lather. Lush has many different types of shampoos that you can choose from so you can definitely get one that works with your hair type. My hair is henna colored with the Lush henna dye and along with that I have really thin hair but it tends to be on the oily side which is no surprise since my skin is always oily.
I use these shampoos every other time that I shampoo so that my hair doesn't get accustomed to it and get dull. This usually happens with any shampoo doesn't matter what I do, if I use it for a long enough time, my hair stops reaping any benefits. All I do is wet my hair and then I take the shampoo and rub it on my hair. I start with the roots and then I run it down to the ends. I keep the bar of soap in my hand until I get enough of the product that makes it lather to my liking. I then rub the shampoo as you would any other shampoo and I rinse then I go at it again. I always shampoo my hair twice since its oily and I feel that it helps get the oil out of my hair without stripping it. I then go in with conditioner at the ends so that my ends are conditioned and then thats it. I rinse and dry my hair.
My hair comes out so shiny and doesn't get oily as much as with other shampoos that I buy. This is all organic and vegan and natural. I love all Lush products and these are great for everyone. These are great for people that travel a lot and hate hotel shampoos or like me, my hair is so long that it takes more than what we get in those little vials and for traveling, its a pain to carry my own shampoo since I can't put my luggage in carry on. These range from $10-11 and you can get them at your local Lush store or online. They are a good deal since these last way longer than bottled shampoo. I use one complete bar every 6 or 7 months maybe more. My hair is really long too (like 2 inches from my waist) and I wash my hair at least twice or 3 times a week. All in all I definitely recommend these shampoos and there are different varieties so there is one that will work for you. They are so fragrant too so get ready for great aroma therapeutic shampooing experience.
Now for a little hair talk. I have very long hair and the texture of my hair is a lot of thin hair and its wavy/straight. I always look for products that would help reduce grease and also help with volume since I need something in my hair to give it life. I've been dying my hair since I was 14 around 8th grade. I convinced my Mom to convince my Dad in letting me get highlights and from there it spiraled into a never ending adventure to get different hair colors. It was all done with the harsh chemicals and so at the age of 29, I've realized that I need to be healthier with my hair. So I saw this Henna hair dye in Lush. There are 4 colors available and I picked the red one Caca Rouge and I right away went into reading reviews and looking at Youtube videos to see how well this hair dye is on darker hair. I think I read about 100+ reviews and I was just a bit scared since I've never really used Henna like this before to dye my hair and the description says FIREY RED, I was a bit scared. I read and read and it never said that my hair color was going to turn into an orange mess and that was logical since its Henna with no chemicals like bleach which is what would turn a natural dark brown haired girl into Carrot Top. I was ready to breath and start the process.
Now the process in itself is a pain, especially with hair thats almost down to your butt. The henna comes in a brick and first of all you have to grate it with a cheese grater which is a pain. Depending on the length of your hair, you use a certain amount of blocks but my hair is so long, I went ahead and threw the whole 6 blocks in. After its all grated and into a powder form, you have to them pour boiling hot water into it. I added lemon, paprika and cinnamon. The lemon to help lighten my hair since its a deep brown and paprika and cinnamon for color and smell. You have to put enough water in it to make like a muddy consistency, like brownie mix. Once you mix the mud and the mixture isn't going to be boiling hot so don't worry about burning yourself.
Once the the mixture is done, you want to start the application in your hair. Its easier to apply if you section your hair. You need to make sure that you get the roots to the ends. After the whole head if covered, you have to then wrap your hair with saran wrap and this is so that the red color of the Caca Rouge can deepen. It says to leave it for 2 hours but once I read online a lot of people were leaving it for about 7+ hours. I left mine in for 8 or 9 hours just because my hair being so dark that I wanted to make sure that the red shines through. This mask once you get to the 6th and 7th hour it gets really heavy. Then you can rinse it out. When you begin to rinse it out, you will see that it is gritty. It takes a long time for the henna to wash out. I would first rinse all of it out first and then shampoo it about 2 or 3 times. Again, my hair is very long so for someone who has shorter hair, might have an easier time to rinse it out.
Since the henna has all good things for your hair such as cocoa butter and the henna in general conditions your hair so good. Once I rinsed it out and blow dried my hair, my hair had a reddish hue and it was so conditioned. It really does do a great job for my hair and even though its a lengthy process, I would definitely keep doing it to my hair. I've done it twice already and my hair is really shiny now and it doesn't look dry anymore and the ends aren't brittle. This retails for $24.95 which is not bad especially if you get your hair done professionally and the best thing is that its actually good for your hair unlike anything else that you put in your hair to dye it.
