Many of us curlies know the stress and finesse that comes when shopping for your token curly hair care products. As the industry is evolving and growing and new items hit the shelves, you can easily replace a curl staple of your hair care with something new. For those of us who are champions of our token brand, moving outside our comfort zone is hard and we have to take careful steps to putting new products in our curly hair.
Will it work? Am I wasting my money? These two questions are common feelings I ask myself when shopping because I’m pretty intent on always sticking to what I know will work. In the spirit of the new month I decided to take on a challenge and let my type A personality put my hair care in someone else’s hands…my boyfriend. He is a wonderful man who not only loves my curly hair, but understands the importance of the natural hair movement, so needless to say he was pretty confident he could do this.
Now, my partner and I do not live together so I knew my proposition to give him $25 and buy my curly hair products would be a risk. While he’s aware of my enthusiam for curly hair care and has seen my work in NaturallyCurly, we’ve been dating less than three months and he hasn’t seen my curl routine up close and personal. We haven’t had a vacation or weekend getaway which requires him to see the curly cocktail I put in my hair. He hasn’t gotten to spend a Sunday where I’m deep conditioning with a cap on or the struggle of a detangle session mid-week.
I decided to take a chance to see what products he thinks it takes to style my hair. The only parameters I gave him was not to use my staple company since I need to use products/brands I’m not familiar with.I will say his choices were impressive, some I was familiar with via social media, others I hadn’t heard of. After a lengthy trip to our local Target where I was patiently hiding in between shelves of books, we checked out and I looked in the bag.
Surprisingly he chose an interesting mix: Shea Moisture’s Raw Shea & Cupuacu Frizz Defense Hair Masque ($12.99″>, the Travel size Cantu Shea Butter Leave-In Conditioning Repair Cream ($2.99″>, and Eden Bodyworks Coconut Shea Curl Defining Cream ($8.99″>. He spent exactly what I gave with a little fluctuation for tax, but I was very impressed. Shea Moisture products aren’t a stranger to my hair, but the other two were, so here’s my curl take on the products.
Shea Moisture’s Raw Shea Cupuacu Frizz Defense Hair Masque: I’ve actually had this in my hand many times, and always put it down because I already had my signature hair masque. My oh my am I happy this came across my path. The amazing scent of Passiflora and Pistachio left an intoxicating smell on my hair on top of taming the frizz in my hair for the week. It was extremely thick like any deep conditioner, but I was very satisfied with the softness of my hair and smoothness on my curls.
Cantu Leave-In Conditioner Repair Treatment: This 2 oz. portion was so small I side-eyed my boyfriend at first, but once he explained how he thought a mini version was a better investment so I could try it out, I understood. This repairing cream is very thick and I didn’t need much at all to spread throughout my curls. It left a great amount of moisture and shine to my hair which I haven’t seen in many leave-in conditioners, so I appreciated a new effect on my hair.
Eden Bodyworks Coconut Shea Curl Defining Creme- Hello heavy product. I knew by the 16 oz. bottle this was going to have more weight in my curls. It wasn’t my favorite only because my dry curls didn’t absorb the product and it sat on top without giving me much definition. I do plan to try again with wet curls to see if it gives me a different hold and feel, but $8.99 I do think it is a generous portion and is good for curl separation.
When I asked my boyfriend why he chose these specific products he told me a few things. 1″> He was looking for products that were curl/wave/texture specific in the title to help wittle down options, 2″> With $25 he wanted to at least bring a minimum of two quality products though he realized how expensive natural hair care is 3″> He looked for items that weren’t fully stock on the shelf so he assumed other people were also using them. Overall, I was very happy with his choices even if they all won’t be my go-to’s, I can incorporate them into my curly routine on occassion.
