UPDATE & APOLOGY **REVIEW** CAMILLE ROSE NATURALS Honey Hydrate Leave-In

UPDATE & APOLOGY - 

First, I have to backtrack on all the trash I talked about the product. As with so many other things in my crazy life, most of the problem was due to user error. I need to remember that every product can't be used the same way for every person.

The Honey Hydrate saved my hair after I dried it out trying to wash out an unfortunate dye job. Clarifying shampoo is awesome for getting rid of buildup - with a good single wash. After using it 3 or 4 times in a row on my hair, I ended up with tresses like those straw-headed dolls. And the dye was still horrible.

My hair was so dried out that it felt like damp steel wool. When all the water evaporated, I was afraid to comb it for fear of strands just snapping off.

Honey Hydrate to the rescue!

I sprayed my hair so that it was very damp then I applied the Honey Hydrate to my hair in 4 sections. I ran my palms from root to tip to make sure I was coating the hair well. Then I wrapped my hair in a satin bonnet for the night. In the morning, my hair was softer and felt less damaged, if that makes sense. Still, I avoided combing it for a few days. I just sprayed my hair lightly with water every morning and wore a scarf and let the Honey Hydrate do its thing. 

Now that I have more respect for the healing power of Honey Hydrate, I try to use it more. I don't use it full strength because that's still just too much. What I do is add a couple of drops to my sprayer and use it for curl refreshing or for softening after applying those hard curl gels. I also tend to add it to almost every other hair product I have! 

Basically, I have to use the product sparingly. Otherwise, it's too hydrating.

So, yeah, I had to come back and give Honey Hydrate credit where credit is due.

P.S.: My best friend says that I never tell this update story the same way. Probably. But gist is the real deal! LOL

**********************

 Oh, the hype out there about this stuff! I read, watched, and listened to probably more than 50 reviews about Camille Rose Naturals Honey Hydrate Leave-In. Well, hype is hype but results are what count. The price of this ranges from $14 to $20, depending on where you buy it. I got it from Target for 14 bucks and Amazon has lost its mind and has it for around 17 bucks with free shipping (and up). So, is it worth it? Let's take a look at everything about the product:

The look: It looks exactly like the amber-colored supposed-to-be-honey you find on most store shelves. Well, it might be a touch darker.  When you hold it up to the light, it looks even more like honey because of the tiny bubbles and what looks like sugar granules.

The smell: I've heard other reviewers describe the smell as "nothing", slightly sweet, and "just like honey". Sniffing the jar, I thought it smelled faintly of honey and amber with the tiniest hit of... chocolate??? It's not stinky and it's not strong. However, once I used this on my wet hair, the scent got much stronger and sweeter. It was more candy-scented than perfume-like. When it dries, it retains the sweet scent but is not overwhelming or unpleasant.

The texture: I  saw where other reviewers said that this felt just like honey - very sticky and unpleasant to the touch, in some opinions. Maybe I got a different batch but I don't find this to be sticky at all. It's not lotion-like, but it not overly tacky. You can see from the photo what it looks like just smoothed across my palm and the back of my hand.

A test strand: Before I did my entire head, I tried applying this to some strands of my hair. The first thing I noticed is that it brings out the curl pattern. Second, it seems to have an elongating effect. The hair was *not* sticky but had a slightly "coated" feeling that I didn't mind because it seemed to protect the hair and make it feel stronger. 

Doing my hair: The instructions are to apply to conditioned hair. I use a leave-in conditioner - which seems like overkill but... I use the Hydra Steam that I reviewed here so I applied that first, then applied the Honey Leave-In.

As I always do my twists

I want to note here that, just as mentioned by other reviewers, there really is a warming effect when rubbing the Honey between my palms. I didn't notice this when I was just applying it with my fingers to the test strands. It must be a chemical reaction between the ingredients and it actually feels nice. As I applied this to my hair (I did it in sections), there was that slightly sealing/elastic kind of feel left on the hair that I previously mentioned. 

I was spraying my hair to keep it from drying out as I applied the Leave-In. At the finish, my twists - which are normally only damp at this point - were dripping wet still. I took that as a good sign.

By the way, I have fairly thick hair and I ended up not using a lot of the product. 

Overall results: I am not that impressed. See for yourself. My hair is very moisturized but looks dry.

This did leave my hair incredibly soft but it also 'floofed' out any curl definition. I love the way my hair smells and feels, but it looks like I haven't done any styling at all. 

I ordered this online but, after one more test, I plan to return to Target when I go back into town. It's just not living up to the hype. The other "test" I plan to do? Since this suggests applying to conditioned hair and I used a leave-in, maybe the low-quality results are on me. Next week, I am going to do a "traditional" wash and wash-out condition and see what happens with the Honey Leave-In. 

Keep in mind that I used this in conjunction with Hydra Steam Curl Designing Cream - which is highly moisturizing by itself.  This next photo is the 2nd-day results of the Honey Leave-in used as described and then the Hydra Steam product used by itself (no Honey Hydrate).

Top - Honey Hydrate Leave-In applied over Hydra Steam Leave-In
Bottom - Hydra Steam Curl Design Leave-In by itself

Look at how those curl pop! with the Hydra Steam. My curls have never been so defined and shiny with less work...

Summary (and to be fair): I saw where some reviewers used Eco Styler and other aids to help with curl definition. As I said, maybe the other leave-in I used over-softened my hair and ruined the curls. Maybe. 

I am not totally knocking this product. I think that results depend on how you use it and what your hair type is - or maybe just your styling method. I don't want to have to buy another product (styling gel) to use with one that costs this much. I would like to use just this and get all the benefits it's hyped for.

I will update this when I use it solo.

To summarize:

Natural hair needs moisture. Afro natural hair needs lots of moisture. Moisture retention is important for hair growth, length retention, and hair health. 

Peace

--Free

**REVIEW** Bella Leave-In Conditioner

This is one of the products I ordered from Dollar General. It's the Bella Curls Coconut Whipped Creme Leave-In Conditioner. And, dangit, that is a mouthful of words!

From Bella Curls Haircare

You can get on from Amazon ($12.77 but this is just one listing of many) but it is much cheaper from Dollar General - $4.50 as I type this though it was $5.50 when I ordered it. Drats.

I was glad to get it at a bargain price and I wish I could say that I loved it. I like it but I am not in love. Not yet. I will hit the highs and lows of my first time using it.

PROS:

• It smells great - very lightly tropical but clean at the same time. The smell does not overwhelm or linger though.
• When I was applying it to my freshly washed hair, it felt good going on. It had what I would call medium-good "slip".
• It was slightly detangling - or just added enough slip that I wasn't losing a lot of hair while combing it through.
• The moisture retention was crazy good at first. More on that in a moment.

CONS:

• The moisture did not last. Once my hair was fully dry, it felt somewhat better than usual but was still dull and had that slight feeling of straw.
• You're only supposed to apply this to wet hair it might not be something a "natural" and kinky-coily gal can use often. If I washed or even seriously wet my hair every day, it would just dry out more than ever.

The conditioner has a pretty standard lotion-like consistency and it's not sticky or tacky feeling.

I have to admit that I haven't completely made my mind up about this conditioner. As I was saying, the initial moisture retention was amazing. After sleeping on my twists all night, they were still too damp to take down after at least 7 hours. Usually, my hair is bone dry and sucking the moisture out of the atmosphere by the time I get up in the morning.

When my hair finally did finish airdrying, I thought for sure that it was going to be uber soft and lots more manageable. It was softer than it usually is, but not my as much as I expected. I took a photo before I added more products so that you can see how dry my hair looked.

Stay away from open flames!

Trust me when I say that my hair felt as dry as it looks in that photo. 

I have to admit that this provided a LOT more body and volume that I normally get after a wash, dry and twist. I had so much volume that I had to pin the front back so that I didn't look like a pufferfish.

If this doesn't work any better when applied to dry (or just semi-damp) hair, I will try adding a little bit of StaSofFro to it. I feel that with just a tiny touch more something, this would be a great product. Since it did help in detangling my hair and keeping it moisturized overnight, I give it some credit but it's supposed to be moisturizing! It talks about that on the front label.

The back label even has graphics to hammer in the point.

As far as ingredients, I was too lazy to type them all out, but their site makes this statement about the absence of certain ingredients:

"...eliminating our use of those unnecessarily harsh chemicals like Sulfates, Phthalates, and Parabens."

(By the way, I am not one of the curly naturals who will actively avoid 'cones and some other ingredients in hair products. My 4C hair needs some 'cone love sometimes or my comb would never get through it.)

Anyway, here is my photo of the ingredients on the label:

 I understand and appreciate wanting to keep toxic items out of hair care. What I noticed from the label how far down on the list are the coconut "juice" and oil. I just wish that there had been something in the product to actually moisturize this hair of mine.

So, that is my review. I have since received one other product that's supposed to be softening and moisturizing and I have bought a sale product that claims the same. I will get around to those reviews soon.

Peace
--Free



P.S.: It's been just about a month since I wrote this review and am just now getting around to scheduling it to post. In the meantime, I have since found a way to get some use out of the Bella. I added some purified water and a touch of glycerin (about a tablespoon to the 16-ounce bottle. That helps a little but I am still not in love with the product.

On the Plus side, I do think that this might work better for people with finer and straighter hair. It's probably good for sealing the ends and adding some flyaway control.

**REVIEW** Maui Moisture Curl Quench + Coconut Oil Curl Milk

I've been wearing my hair in a protective style for the past month or so and plan to continue throughout winter. This is to combat breakage because my hair is dryer in winter so I don't want to handle it too much. Since I am doing this, I'm not using my usual curl creams. I don't want to waste those since... not showing off the curls. Instead, I am trying out a leave-in product to use along with my trusty StaSofFro that I love so much. This is the leave-in:

That's the Maui Moisture Curl Quench + Coconut Oil Curl Milk I got because, A: it's cheap (under 7 bucks*), and B: I've read a lot of great reviews about it.

Right off, I was pleased that there is only a very faint scent to this. I thought there was going to be a fragrance of coconut screaming up my nostrils. No. There is just a mild whiff of the scent.

Now, this might sound strange, but I often check moisturizing hair products on my skin first. I will rub in a bit of the product on the web between my thumb and forefinger. After washing and drying, that is some of the dryest skin on my body. I figure it's a great place to test the moisturizing properties of a product. This one passed that test. Also, it didn't leave the skin greasy and when I added a little water to the spot, there wasn't a white or waxy residue.

By the way, the cream itself is of a medium-thick texture - sort of like good skin lotion.

The ultimate test though is on the hair. Since it wasn't time for me to do a full wash, I only rinsed my tresses before applying the MM Curl Quench. Let me tell you something I was warned about: a little really does go a long way. That's great because it means I will get a lot of use from this affordable 8-ounce bottle. I know now that I need to carefully separate my hair so I can apply this to small sections at a time.

By the way, here is the full list of ingredients** (given by one of the sellers on the product page):

• Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Juice
• Glycerin
• Cocos Nucifera (Coconut) Oil
• Isopropyl Myristate
• Cetearyl Alcohol
• Cocos Nucifera (Coconut) Water
• Hydroxypropyl Starch Phosphate
• Microcrystalline Wax (Cera Microcristallina)
• Carica Papaya Fruit Extract
• Plumeria Alba Flower Extract
• Hydrogenated Soybean Oil
• Polysorbate 20
• Stearic Acid
• Tapioca Starch
• Diazolidinyl Urea
• Iodopropynyl Butylcarbamate
• Fragrance (Parfum)

I'm not altogether sure about some of the ingredients, but...

This stuff is nice. Really nice. Once I got the hang of applying it in small amounts, I could tell that it was going to be perfect for use with a protective style.

Other than applying it in very small sections, I also made sure to keep my hair slightly damp during the process. I used my spray bottle set to a really fine mist. After applying the leave-in to a section, I would spritz with water, then smooth my fingers back over the swatch of hair.

I had to wait for my hair to dry (I am doing flat twists in thin rows from front to back) to see if it retained any of the conditioning moisture. My hair wasn't bone dry like it usually is after a rinse. Still, I needed to put a little bit more of the MM Quench on my palms and dab it over my twists. Just for good measure, I sprayed on (like I always do anyway) some of the StaSofFro. After about 20 minutes, I checked and loved the results. My hair felt moisturized without being greasy and the ends of the twists (where I can really tell) where in good shape.

Usually, I leave my hair in twists all week, then take it down to apply StaSofFro and some other moisture before re-twisting. I take it down for washing or co-washing about every 2 1/2 to 3 weeks, depending on how well I feel. Now that I have this leave-in, I plan to only take my hair down when it's time for a wash.

By the way, for the other naturalistas wondering about "protective" styling, I find the this is one that works well for home, work, church, or anywhere. I tend to wear my beanie scarf/hat to dress up the look. Best of all, if you do need to take down the twists for some reason, you are going to have the most beautiful zig-zag curls.

Anyway, to sum things up, yes, I do like this leave-in. I think that I will always thin it out with some filtered water though. That's to "stretch" the use and to make the application more even.

I will do an update on the product as I get more time using it. Hopefully, I have found a keeper...

Peace
--Free



 * When I went back to get the link for this, I realized that it was only available from certain sellers and the price has gone up to as much - some are priced at over $15! I got mine from Amazon.com Services, Inc when I ordered and paid $6.74 with Prime (free) shipping.

** The links in the ingredient list are to Making Cosmetics (where available) because that site gives more laymen-friendly descriptions and information. I can't say that the MM leave-in used the same formulations but you now have an idea of what each ingredient is generally used for in products.  I have ordered from them before and the reason is because of their information-based set-up. EWG is another good site for checking on cosmetic ingredients.

**REVIEW** Curls & Naturals Leave-In Conditioner + Daily Moisturizing Serum

In a recent post, I told you all about texturizing my hair with a product from Biocare Labs. The texturizer is from BL's Curls and Naturals line. Since I was using the texturizer, I decided to give a try to a couple other items from Curls and Naturals. Let's go.

First up, this is the Leave-In Conditioner which is touted to also detangle.

The label tells that it contains shea butter and natural honey with silk protein. Here is the full list of ingredients:

I'm not up on all the no-no ingredients that some people know about, but I am glad to see that the silk, honey, and shea butter are not the last items on the list. Also, the fragrance is closer to the end and I notice that it's not very strong to the nose.

Now, while I do love the texturizer, I barely have a crush on this leave-in conditioner. For one thing, the moisture doesn't last once my hair dries. I've been using it the past couple of nights as a twisting cream. It doesn't dry my hair out or make it "crunchy" or hard, but it doesn't add much moisture that I notice. As a matter of fact, today, I had to spray in some of my SofSheen.

On the Plus side, I do feel that this adds some strength to my hair because I am seeing a lot less breakage while using it. Because of that, I will keep using it and just add some SofSheen when twisting or styling my hair.

I also have to mention that I have the coarsest, driest type of natural hair. I have vowed that the next time I'm in Arizona, I'm going to find someone to give me a Jheri Curl. My hair thrived with that stuff!

I am happy with how my hair looks after using the leave-in as a twisting cream. This is after the texturizer (and dye job) and before adding the SofSheen:

For those with a less coarse/dry type of natural hair, I think that this product is right up there with the pricier stuff. This will be one of the rare times that I prefer shoping the brand site instead of Amazon.

On the BL site, this 12-ounce bottle is $6.99 + shipping (Biocarelabs.com offers FREE STANDARD SHIPPING in the 48 states in the continental U.S. for merchandise orders $50 and over (excluding taxes). For shipments totaling less than $50, delivery charges are based on the weight, city and state. Our standard shipping option is ground services. Orders over $50 ship for free —no promotion code needed)

On Amazon, the same size bottle is $6.99 + $9.35 shipping. As far as I see, none of the Curls and Naturals stuff is Prime so...yeah.

Now, for the Daily Moisturizing serum:

The highlighted ingredients in this one are Shea Butter, Natural Honey, and Abyssinian Oil. It has a glossier look and silkier texture than does the conditioner but, like the conditioner, it's nice but not quite moist enough for my coarse hair. I have learned to add a little bit of the SofSheen when putting this on my hair right after washing. When I used it on dry hair (slightly dampened with a spray bottle), this was even less effective than when used on really wet hair.

The 6-ounce bottle is $6.99 plus shipping on the BL site. On Amazon, it's the same price but, like with the conditioner, it's a non-Prime item and the shipping charge is ridiculous.

I have to say that, while this is not a great match for my very dry, 4C type hair (not many products are), I think that it's worth trying for a softer type hair. If you want to understand just how dry my hair is, try using some SofSheen on your looser-textured hair. It would be way to heavy and oily. For me, it's perfect.

On the big Plus side, both these products really help the hair hold a curl. My twists were on point...

Here is a look at the difference in texture between the two products:

serum is more transparent
conditioner is thicker/whiter

In summary, I will say that Biocare Labs has good products at really good prices (except for the shipping) and is worth trying out. I wouldn't recommend it to my friends with hair as coarse and dry as mine.

Peace
--Free



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