is the word 'diary' better than the word 'blog'? probably not.
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Putting your money where your hair is.
I was meeting with my "student consultant" the other day (I am in a pedagogy seminar where I and a bunch of other professors meet to talk about teaching but also have "student consultants" who visit our classes once a week and give us feedback from the student perspective) and during that part of the conversation where we weren't talking about work at all, we were talking about living in different places, and I was voicing my typical I-love-California sentiments, when I was heard to complain that one of the things that sucks about Pennsylvania (and the east coast in general) is that my hair always looks worse than it would if I were in San Francisco. It is THE HUMIDITY. Ugh.
However. I have tried many, many hair products, from all price ranges, seeking for a fix to the terrible frizz-fro that grows around what would be my normal hairstyle. Some products help. None of them fix the problem. Most of them are pricey.
However. When I was packing for the move from NYC to Philly, and I was clearing out under the bathroom sink, I found a tube of extra firm hold hair gel from paul mitchell that must have been leftover from when I still had short hair, which means it must have moved house with me a couple of times without being used, so I tossed it in the trash. Then I took it out of the trash (I do have a borderline hoarding problem). I thought, I should try this on my hair and see how it works.
And you know what? It works really well. It tames the shit out of the frizz. I have discovered that if I put a quarter-sized dollop of that in my hair when it is wet, let it air dry, and then finish it off with my more pricey Prive Shining Weightless Amplifier, all is pretty much well, depending on how much humidity I have to contend with. So there you have it. $8 and your hair is fixed. (Except for the $26 you spent on the Prive, but that is WORTH IT because it is miraculous and smells good.) (I did try finishing the dry hair off with the cheaper Sunsilk hair cream, but that didn't work as well and also made my hair greasy by the end of the day. So I moved the bottle of Sunsilk to my desk at work in case frizz touchups might be needed during the day.)
Part of Project: Live Within Means (which is one part of the larger Debt Abatement Measure) is that I need to make decisions about what I am and amn't (I had an Irish friend in college who always said this and sometimes it just sounds right to me now) allowed to spend cushy-bucks on (by which I mean: when am I allowed to buy something for $26 and when must I settle for something that costs $10 or less?). I am allowed to spend the big bucks on mascara (Givenchy, Benefit, Too Faced are my favorites) but not on lipstick. Expensive mascara is much better than inexpensive mascara. And inexpensive mascara makes my eyes itch. But it is possible to find inexpensive lipstick (for instance, Maybelline ColorSensational Lipstick costs $5.99 and there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. It comes in a wide range of colors, the formula is smooth and it doesn't smell bad or taste bad, and it lasts a long time once you put it on. It might be perfect, actually. Also, the HIP by L'Oreal line has a good gloss tube for about $8) that should shame me if I ever find myself grasping at overpriced lipstick on the shelves of Sephora.
And so on.
(But oh, how I love wandering around in Sephora.)
(By the way, I forgot to mention that if you ARE going to spend a bunch of money on a hair cream instead of buying the $5 Sunsilk stuff, which really is pretty good, you should definitely go for the Fekkai Glossing Cream. It is better than Sunsilk, and also costs four times more. I'm not sure it is four times better, but it is good. I got a deluxe sample size from Sephora recently.)
I used to use the Shea Butter shampoo and conditioner from L'Occitane, which is expensive. I recently switched to Nexxus (Therappe, Humectress and Keraphix) and there is absolutely nothing wrong with these products. They work really well, smell really good, at half the cost of L'Occitane. I used these shampoos when I worked at a hair salon in college and am not sure why I ever stopped.
The new L'Oreal sulfate free EverPure line is good, too. I bought the moisture formula shampoo and conditioner, and I use it part of the time, especially when my hair is newly dyed, to cut down on the sulfate use and preserve my haircolor for a bit longer.
And all of these are available for under $10 at your local drugstore, my friends.
Finally, my final report on my latest foray in to epilating is this: although I am drawn to the idea of shaving less often, in the long run the epilated leg sprouted a field of ingrown hairs that I then had to ease out with some pointy tweezers. So it was not a time-saver, nor did it ever get my legs to the utterly smooth stage achievable by shaving or veeting. The epilator is good for strategic hair removal here and there, but for my legs I am sticking to the razor for now.
The Venus razor.
And with that I end today's product endorsement blog entry.
10:58 a.m. - September 06, 2009
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