January 15, 2010

Do this.  To your hair.  Now!

I'm not kidding, you'll thank me!  You may already have this product in your pantry, but if not, you can easily pick up a jar.  You don't need to go to the beauty supply or the salon though.  And you don't need to take out a loan to buy it!

What is it?  Coconut oil!  You can get it at Whole Foods, Sprouts, or any health food/natural foods store.  You can order it online from Swanson Vitamins or Vitacost and probably tons of other sites.  You may even be able to find it at a well-stocked grocery store.  I get mine at my favorite hippie health food store called Natural Grocers/Vitamin Cottage.  For a 16 ounce jar, you can expect to pay only around $10.

I have coconut oil in my pantry because I put it in my smoothie each morning.  I never thought about smearing it on my hair though until I was reading on Beauty Brains about an expensive hair treatment called Ojon ($55).  Ojon is made of palm oil from the rainforest, plus fragrance and some extracts. The Beauty Brains said that coconut oil and palm oil are essentially the same thing, and each will actually penetrate the hair's cortex.  Most conditioners only coat the surface of the hair shaft, and don't get into the hair itself.

Penetrating the hair's cortex can help replace the natural oil that we lose simply by washing our hair.  When you replace that oil, you're “refatting” the hair.  The Beauty Brains suggested that using a coconut oil based conditioner could be as effective as Ojon.  I've since seen online that lots of girls are just using plain ol' coconut oil, and getting good results so I had to try it.

Coconut oil is solid in my house right now since it's 60-something degrees, but it will be liquid when the inside temp is in the 70s.  Since it's solid I took a blob and warmed it in my hands a bit til it softened.  Then I just started rubbing it into my hair.  My hair's almost shoulder length and is a little thin now (dang hormones), and I used three walnut-sized blobs of coconut oil.  I combed it through, and let it sit for about an hour.  Ojon recommends leaving their treatment on overnight when possible, so I may try that with the coconut oil when I can.

After an hour, I rinsed really well with pretty warm water, and then had to shampoo twice before the oil was out of my hair.  I did use my regular dab of Pureology conditioner afterward, since the coconut oil is supposed to work inside the hair and not outside.

What were the results?  My hair was softer, shinier, fuller and had more body.  It even had less frizz before flat-ironing.  After the next shampoo two days later, the results are still there.

I'm planning to give my hair this little tropical treat once a week.  It's easy, it smells fabulous, I can do it myself, and it makes my hair happy.  What more could I want?  Give it a try and let me know how you like it!

~BigSis

June 25, 2009

I have the curliest hair in my family.  My 3 sibs all have some wave or curl to their hair, but I got the most by far from our dad, and let me tell you that my school photos revealed what a challenge that was for me! It was brutal!  It literally makes me cringe to remember how I struggled with my hair.  I could show you photos that would scare the daylights out of you, but I'm too vain to do that.  It's bad enough that my family has seen them.  😀

FrizzyHair by Joseph Robertson on Flickr

When the Chi flat iron came out several years ago, it literally changed my life.  I am SO not exaggerating!  Before that, blow drying my curly thick hair could take close to an hour, and then it was still too poofy!  The Chi gave me smooth, shiny, soft hair, and I've never gone back to the curly look.  Curls look good if you have pretty spirally curls without my frizz-o-rama.  My coworker SA has that kind of pretty curl.  Me?  Not so much.

Now I've found another product that makes dealing with curly hair a little bit easier.  It's called No Frizz and comes from a company called Living Proof.  I first saw it on a TV shopping channel…I know, random.  I don't watch those but landed on this demo while channel-surfing one time, and had to watch the whole thing to see how it came out.  They had a woman with curly hair, and applied No Frizz to half her head, and blow dried each side smooth.  Then, here's where it gets interesting.  They took a clothes steamer and held it close to her head for several minutes!  The side without product, of course, got frizzy and big and fuzzy.  The side with the No Frizz stayed smooth!  Really?  I had to see for myself.

I ordered the No Frizz from their web site since I wouldn't have saved any money going through the shopping channel and I got free shipping at the time (shipping is free now on orders of $48 or more).  You towel dry your hair a little, apply a quarter-size dollop and work it through well.  Then style as usual.  I follow the No Frizz with a tiny bit of the Biosilk Smoothing Balm that I usually use before drying.

Living Proof's No Frizz

I found that my hair seemed to resist frizzing even on a really humid day, but the big test was our recent trip to California for LilSis' birthday.  We went out on the boat, and drove around in the damp wind.  Guess what?  No frizz!  After close to an hour, I got a tiny bit of poof at my front hairline, but it was very minimal.  Ordinarily, in windy sea air, I'd have a giant puffball on top of my head.  If you have curly hair, you know what I mean!

No Frizz is also available at Sephora, I've since discovered, which would save the shipping costs but you'd have to pay tax.  There are several different formulas, but the Living Proof web site's diagnostic tool will help you choose the one that is right for you.  I will tell you that this product is fairly pricey; at least to me.  The 4 ounce bottle I bought was $24, but it has lasted me about 3 months already and I still have some product left.  I shampoo at least every other day.

I would definitely recommend that you curly or frizzy haired girls give this a try!  I use it every shampoo and will repurchase it for sure!

~BigSis