SOOO, I FINALLY tried out the much talked about Hello Hydration line from Herbal Essences. And I have to say, I can’t complain. I bought it a couple days ago but I only tried it yesterday morning so I had time to let it dry etc. I also wanted to do it on a day I didn’t have to do a twist out with so I could see how my hair really reacts to it. I changed my whole routine (well, at least the products I used). I washed with Herbal Essences HH shampoo (which funnily and worryingly enough has paraffin liquidium towards the end of the ingredients list…think it’s the Arabic version). It smells really nice and almost fruity. It didn’t leave my hair feeling as moisturised as my enhanced Tresemme shampoo but it was close as it didn’t leave it feeling squeaky either. Then I put the conditioner on and almost right away I began to feel my curls curling up. When I looked in the mirror with it on, my hair was a nice defined curly afro. I didn’t need to use a lot and it also smelled very nice. Then I combed it with no issues, put the shower cap on, finished showering, then rinsed. So my hair came out feeling nice. I towel blotted, then put on some aloe vera juice, glycerin and some more HH conditioner. All of this I didn’t measure, but I’ve made a concoction today so will see how that works. (BTW the glycerin feels hot when it’s put straight onto the skin, don’t know if it’s cos I hadn’t diluted it but it was a weird sensation). So by then, my hair was feeling quite nice. Then I put some of my new Garnier Fructis Triple Nutrition Fortifying cream on and some ORS gel and I don’t know if it the mixture of all the stuff or the glycerin, or the humidity in Dar or WHAT but my hair started getting coily. It wasn’t getting defined on it’s own so I helped it out with a few twists around and they stayed! I didn’t even have to twist them that much, only about two loops and they were cool. Once dried, my hair still shrank but at least I didn’t have to manipulate it as much as I usually do to get a bumpy afro look. And my hair smelled fresh the whole day :).
So today, I’m gonna co-wash it and twist it out before I head out. I made a HH leave-in based on the stuff I put on it yesterday and will see how that works out. I’m excited, I’ve even considered not braiding my hair or anything while I’m here so that I can buy more hair products. It seems that there are more options here when it comes to the stuff I’m looking for. I also bought some Enliven shampoo and conditioner which is much cheaper but haven’t tried it out yet. I’ll do a trial week next week and do a review then make my decision as to where my money’s gonna go. In a way I’m hoping the Enliven line will also do well cos it’s about half the price for double the amount of conditioner that I get compared to the HH stuff. But then I also saw some Vatika oil etc. there :S I might end up carrying a suitcase of hair stuff!
