Review: L’Oreal Elvive Total Repair 5 Masque

When I decided to go overhaul my routine by weeding out the silicones and sulfates, I realised that none of the deep treatment conditioners in my stash were silicone free. So off I went in search of a new deep treatment. My first stop was Mecca Maxima (mainly because I’ll take any excuse to enter that store), but they did not have any silicone free treatments in stock that day.
Next up was Priceline – the place I’m sure many Australian women would not be able to live without when it comes to budget beauty and personal products. While there, I glanced at some of the more natural brands, but many of the so-called ‘natural’ and ‘organic’ brands often contain silicones (this is why it’s so important to become educated in ingredient labels, that’s where the truth of a product lies), or they have intense smells that that give me nausea.
Moving on to the more synthetic brands, I stumbled upon the L’Oreal Elvive Total Repair 5 Masque. If you decide to give this product  go, make sure it’s the one with the red label – the other masques contain silicones.
I’ve been using this masque one to two times a week for the past couple of weeks and so far I quite like it. It has a bit of protein which is perfect for my colour treated hair. In actual fact, the first time I used it, I noticed that my hair had more body, shine, curl and less frizz. I went out dancing that night and enjoyed my big hair – I love big hair!
It’s not the thickest treatment I’ve ever used; it’s more like a thick conditioner. As I’ve mentioned in the past, I’m not one for spending hours on deep treating my hair. The only difference between my regular routine and this one is that I’ll scrunch out as much water as possible before applying the treatment to two sections of hair. I really coat the hair with the product then finger detangle before going through thoroughly with my Denman brush. It provides a lot of slip for a product that’s marketed as a ‘masque’.
My only bone to pick with the treatment, is the synthetic floral fragrance – not my favourite. But it doesn’t linger, so it’s not a deal breaker.

The Breakdown:

Where can you get it? I picked mine up from Priceline, but it’s also available at Coles, Woollies and a few chemists.

How much is it? $$ (currently on sale for less 😉

Eco-friendly? 4/10

Animal testing? Yes; no indication otherwise.

CG friendly? 2/3 – it does have one water-soluble silicone right at the bottom of the list.

Colour safe? It makes no claims to be, but since it’s a treatment which is meant to strengthen structurally damaged hair, I’m going to say yes.

Available internationally? Yes.

Let me know if you give this treatment a go. I’d also like to know if there are any products (preferably silicone and sulfate free) you’d like me to try and review, and I’m happy to answer any and all questions!

Love and waves,
Astrid

My Routine March ’15

One thing that changes constantly is my hair washing and styling routine. Not only am I a product junkie, but I’m also intrigued by new techniques (and if you’re familiar with the curly care world, there are tons of different ways to wash, rinse, detangle, apply products and dry the hair).
Pretty much all of last year (the year I took to try my hand at professional hairdressing), I was shampooing and conditioning my hair the way you’re instructed on the bottle: lather, rinse, repeat if necessary, rinse and apply conditioner, rinse. I even started using sulfate and silicone laden products.
I did this because I was a hairdresser in training and thought I should be taking care of my own hair the way I was being taught to take care of the clients’ hair. Despite knowing that the CG method worked for me – I’ve been using the CG method in some shape or form for seven years now. And every time I stop following the CG method of hair care, eventually my hair gets cranky; it gets frizzy, dry, stops curling as much and causes general frustration (despite any claims otherwise on product labels).
When I returned from Europe, my hair was just doing some weird frizzy-straight kind of thing and I just wanted to get some semblance of a defined wave back into my hair. So I did what I’ve known to work before: I hid away all my products with sulfates, non-water-soluble silicones and drying alcohols and made sure to only detangle my hair when it was soaked in conditioner.
And so, from beginning to end, this is my current routine. This has been working for me for the past few weeks.

Method (to the madness):

1. Co-wash with Shea Moisture African Black Soap Balancing Conditioner (I picked this up on my recent trip to the States). I scrub at my scalp with the pads of my fingers, nice and thoroughly.

2. Condition with Sukin Moisture Restoring Conditioner. I split my hair into two sections; I put quite a bit of conditioner on each section, until I can easily slide my fingers through the strands without catching on snarls.

3. De-tangle with my new Denman brush – I picked this up in the UK recently and I love it! You can find these brushes at Hairhouse Warehouse or Price Attack in Australia but there are also cheap dupes that work just as well. I use this brush to gently get through any of the smaller knots I may not have got through when I was using my fingers. Remember: gentle is the key.

4. Leave the conditioner in my hair while I go about my other shower routines (wash face etc).

5. Rinse. Some curly gurus suggest leaving in a bit of conditioner, but I try to rinse as much out as possible. When I’m rinsing I say to myself: ‘soft, not slimy’.

6. So now the water is off and my hair is rinsed out, but I don’t step out of the shower yet, and I don’t even squeeze the water out of my hair! This is where I begin my styling routine. First product: leave in conditioner! Splitting my hair into two sections again, I apply a small amount of the Living Proof No Frizz Leave In Conditioner to both sections – just over the surface of the section. My hair doesn’t like raking and combing in the styling stage.

7. Next comes a serum or oil. At the moment I’m using the DevaCurl MirrorCurls (I don’t remember it being quite so expensive when I bought it). I apply just a pea sized amount to both sections.

8. Last comes the gel: DevaCurl Ultra Defining Gel (another goody from the US). Again, I apply a blob to each section and work it through. Now that all my styling products are applied, I flip my head over, take another, smaller blob of gel and begin scrunching – I scrunch upside down, then tilt my head to either side and scrunch again.

9. Now, drying! Using a microfibre towel (you can go fancy or plain), I scrunch my hair again – upside down and each side.

10. My hair scrunched and no longer dripping, I put it into a plop while I do everything else I need to do to look presentable for the day.

11. Air dry. This leaves me looking a little straggly until my hair fully dries (watch it expand!), but it’s worth it to keep it healthy.

And there you have it! My full hair-wash routine. It doesn’t take as long as it seems to when it all happens fluidly. But this is also one of my more complex routines. I fluctuate between full routines like this and way more pared back routines. I’ll keep you guys updated now and then when my routine changes.

So I hope this gave you some ideas for caring for your own hair. Wavy and curly hair can be frustrating at times, but it’s also fun to play around with new products and techniques. Let me know if you have any questions, or leave a comment if you just want to say hi! I’ll say hi back 🙂

Love and waves,

Astrid

Where HAS she been?

Well hi there! It’s been awhile, hasn’t it? Probably something like… five months? I’m not going to check that, so let’s just agree, that it’s been around five months. In that time I’ve been going through some personal changes and coming to some realisations that have prevented me from cultivating the desire to publish anything publicly. But then last night I had very little sleep and found myself unable to concentrate on anything else that needs my focus today. So I decided to sit down and write out a long-winded post about where I’ve been lately.

The most exciting thing that I’ve done since I last posted here, was travel to the US and Europe over Christmas and New Year. I have a lot of family in California, so they had my attention for the first half of my travel (including a nine mile hike on Boxing day to Point Reyes – I kind of died). The second half of my travel took place in Europe, a place I’ve never been to up until this year. If you follow me on Instagram (remember: @asteriskthat), you’ll see that I’ve been slowly adding pictures from the trip. One of my bad habits is not sharing my experiences. It’s a habit I’m trying to break – but it’s hard, I don’t like talking about myself unless it comes up naturally in conversation (and even then, I get uncomfortable if I notice I’ve been talking about myself for too long). The point being: I loved Europe! Especially Madrid. And I will keep putting up photos until I reach the end of my trip – great sources for #throwbackthursday and #flashbackfriday 😉

Another huge thing – not as exciting but probably more momentous – is that I decided not to continue with my pursuit of a career in hairdressing. It took a while for me to figure this out – you might remember me referring to bouts of anxiety last year – but once I realised what I really wanted for myself, I felt much better.

This decision was the main reason that I steered clear of this blog for so long. It’s supposed to be about hair after all! But for the past few weeks I’ve been thinking about getting back into posting regularly again. I still love hair – just on a personal and hobbyist level. And having stepped away from training formally, I can get back to what I really enjoy helping people with: curly hair! I’m going to continue focusing on products that are easily accessible in Australia, but I’m going to take a break from my Aussie spotlight series; my hair was drying out, even from the gentle and sulfate free shampoos. But as I said, I will try to be informative about the products readily available in Australia, even if they’re not Aussie owned or made.

I’d also like to start posting hairstyle tutorials. I’ve loved braiding since I was a little girl, so I may try and get myself in front of a camera and do a video tutorial! One of my New Year’s resolutions was to film at least ONE (yes, aiming low here) YouTube video. So telling you guys about it will hopefully hold me accountable.

Another thing I’d like to do with the blog is to make it more interactive: more comments! I’m going to try not get into how many page hits, follows and likes I get, but I do want to be more interactive with you guys: my readers 🙂 So, if you have any advice on how to make a more interactive space, please help me get started with this new goal and leave a comment!

Thank you so much for reading this to the end! I can’t wait to continue with this blogging journey and to see how it evolves.

Love and waves,

Astrid