So last night I gave the TIGI Bed Head products a try. I decided to go with the "Straighten out" and "Recharge" first. "Straighten out" claims to tame your flyaways and frizz and make your hair smooth for up to 48 hours. And "recharge" says that it will turn dull lifeless hair into shiny and smooth locks.
I will start off my saying that my hair is usually straight, it is also very thin and flat. Since I have darker blonde hair, I use blonde shampoo by John Frieda along with his purple shampoo and his voluming conditioner. And I usually use some kind of leave in conditioner because my hair can also get dry (recently I've been using Organix leave in). I do not shampoo/wash my hair every day, I can go a few days in between washing my hair because it would be just awful if I did (not to mention hell on my skin!). So yesterday before my shower I decided to take some before pictures of my hair, it was in a braid and thus you may see a "kink" or two in my hair.
Once I hopped into the shower I opened up the Recharge shampoo. It smelled really nice. A little like "sweetpea" in my opinion. And it was a very translucent lavender colour. It was really fast and easy to work into a lather and it filled the whole bathroom with that same smell. The conditioner is a solid white colour and but has about the same smell. For a while I was scared that I would have to use two packets, because I realize now that I use a lot more conditioner than shampoo. I left the conditioner on for about three minutes, which isn't at all necessary - but I do it with all of my conditioners. When it was rinsed out, I felt like my hair was smoother, however, it didn't feel like the conditioner did a really good job at detangling. Which is pretty important, at least to me. I am pretty tender headed, and I don't particularly like to brush my hair when its wet, not only does it cause damage to the hair, but it really hurts if you hit a snag. My other conditioner detangles really well, and so there is no need for me to even think about brushing it wet. So, after toweling off my hair, I applied the "straighten out" leave in, like I said it smelled terrific! The leave in itself is a while colour and its kind of sticky, you run it into your damp hair following that with a blow dryer and a flat iron. I do not own a flat iron, so I just ended up blow drying my hair (this leave in is suppose to protect it from heat damage as well, right?). I do have to mention that it is very hard to dispense this leave in, and it doesn't really specify how much you should use, but using rule of thumb I used about a nickel size. This also does not nothing to detangle, so that was a little bit of a let down. Especially if you have to apply it to damp, unbrushed hair. I used the lowest setting on my blow dryer and got to work. I was actually pleasantly surprised with the results. I thought that my hair did look straighter than it usually does. It also looked smoother and had more shine. So, the products achieved what they claimed to do.
As you can see in the after pictures my hair does appear to have more luster and shine, and its considerably smooth. After I blew dryed it, it reminded me a bit of the hair of Gwyneth Paltrows very sleek and straight bob. I'm sure it would have looked even straighter if I had used a hot iron.
Next time, I plan on using just the shampoo and seeing if I have the same results. And then the "Elasticity" shampoo.
I would recommend this product to use if you like to straighten your hair. The shampoo and conditioner aren't bad, and they do work. But I just can't see myself using this product in the long run. It just doesn't provide me with enough conditioner to detangle and even dry my hair feels like it has product in it (although its not as bad as some leave in treatments). I would totally use the "Straighten out" on special occasions though, I think that very straight sleek and smooth hair can give a very sophisticated look. But I think my hair requires a bit more work, and I also love the volume that my previous shampoo/conditioner provided me with.
Oh! I totally forgot to add: the straighten out leave in does keep your hair straight for a while. I went to bed, and this morning my hair was still as straight as ever. Where usually it would be somewhat a miss. So, its claim of lasting up to 48 hours is totally plausible.
