Review: Neal & Wolf Guard Heat Protection

I always find heat protectants to be a very tricky product to review. How do you know it's doing its job? How do you know for sure that it's doing its job? Yes, my hair isn't particularly frazzled, but is that the heat protectant doing its job or is it my conditioner or maybe some styling product I'm applying? How am I ever supposed to know?

I guess what I'd like to focus on with this review are a few things that become obvious right from the second you use this. For instance, I find that a lot of heat protectants leave a sticky residue on the hair. Fortunately, this doesn't (as long as you're not showering yourself in the stuff), so there's a big thumbs up for that. Use it on wet hair or dry hair, there's no sticky crispiness left behind.

The scent is another big bonus. It has this light salon smell that lingers just long enough to make you go "oooh", but then doesn't interfere with the rest of your day.

The other thing I really like about this - and I know this is really, really random - is the product size. I think it's just spot on - big enough to last a fair bit, but small enough to be travel friendly and not to still be there lurking in a corner years after you bought it.

I have really enjoyed pretty much everything I've tried from Neal & Wolf ever. I just think it's such a shame they're not more widely available, as I'm a bit of an impulse shopper and don't tend to go out of my way to look for a certain brand or product.

As for the heat protection spray, all I can say is that I like it. Whether or not it really benefits my hair in the long run - who will ever know?

Review: Lee Stafford Poker Straight Flat Iron Protection Shine Mist

Woahhh, what a mouthful this product name is! Gotte love them 3 for 2s at Boots, though. I was stocking up on purple shampoo and conditioner when a little offer meant I could sneak something into my basket completely free of charge, so in went this little pink bottle which promises to protect my hair from the almost daily straightening that I put it through. Granted, that was quite a while ago now, but I'm sure there'll be another 3 for 2 soon, as they have a tendency to crop up frequently.

I love the bright pink packaging of Lee Stafford products and it always draws me towards them when browsing the aisles of Boots, but I could definitely do without the mixture of upper- and lowercase lettering on the label. It's awfully outdated.
I've always been told that it's important to use heat protectant when blowdrying and straightening your hair to avoid breakage, but chose to avoid this advice for the majority of my life. Ever since I started using heat protectant my hair has been stronger and healthier, though I wouldn't say the difference is particularly mind blowing.

Anyway, this isn't the first heat protectant I've used and it's always a tad difficult to judge their efficiency other than by the fact that my hair isn't ruined (hey, that's better than nothing).
Positives I would like to mention is that the spray smells nice, albeit a little too sweet for me, the nozzle doesn't get blocked like it does with some other sprays and you can be quite generous with it without your hair going sticky or crispy.
Not bad for £5.99! If you're interested, you can find the Poker Straight Flat Iron Protection Shine Mist (whew) here.

Hair Saving Superheroes

First of all, sorry about the long absence and lack of posting. I've got loads and loads of ideas for posts, from reviews to NOTDs and possibly a few tutorials thrown in as well, but unfortunately time is incredibly short at the moment. I'm quite literally working day and night, so I haven't got a lot of energy in the time I do have for posting. Hopefully that will change soon enough.

This post is about a few things that have absolutely transformed my hair from a frizzy, limp mess into something a lot more acceptable. A few years back I used to dye my hair black, but then got bored of it and wanted to go back to my natural hair colour (a darkish brown), so had it bleached out. This was pretty much death for my hair - I had it cut quite short afterwards, but it was only about five months ago that the last bit of bleached hair was chopped off. It didn't get much better afterwards either, though. My hair is naturally quite dry, but over the summer it somehow managed to be frizzy, damaged and greasy at the same time.
Even my boyfriend and parents started commenting on the terrible condition of my hair (if anyone else dared to I probably would have killed them, haha). I just didn't know what to do with it.

The first thing that really made a difference in the condition of my hair was a keratin supplement. My mum got me some as she was taking it for her weak nails and thought it would be good for mine as well. I didn't notice any difference in my nails, but boy did it transform my hair! It completely got rid of the limpness and balanced it out, so it wasn't greasy at the roots and frayed at the tips. I tried a couple and they all worked fine, but I would like to issue a word of warning: It worked like a dream for me, but some people produce enough keratin as it is and too much of it can cause horrible course hair and thick skin. I have now stopped taking it and will continue using a box every other month or so.

My second little saviour is this Iron Style & Hold Spray by TRESemme, for £4.80. I know a lot of people hate this product, but there's a reason for that. It says on the bottle that you can use it on wet/damp hair as well as on dry hair.
DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT EVER use this on dry hair before using heated styling devices. It will leave your hair sticky and crunchy and makes styling extremely difficult.
However, if you use it on wet hair before blow drying it's a completely different story. I use a few spritzes all around and then massage it into towel dried hair before getting my hair dryer out and the end result is lovely and smooth. As it's also a styling spray I don't need any hair spray afterwards unless I'm doing an updo or curling my hair (which I don't do often). A really great product if used on wet hair.

Sorry about the grainy-ness in these pictures - I had to take them late at night and ramp the ISO on my camera way up

This is just love in a bottle. I cannot even begin to describe how much I love these two bottles of heaven. The Ojon Damage Reverse shampoo costs £20 and the conditioner retails at £21.50. I got these for free at a special John Lewis event and as they're quite on the pricey side I would have never usually bought them, but OH MY GOD.
After the first wash I was unsure, the second wash was a bit better and then from the third wash onwards I was completely hooked. It's like this product has taken my hair off and replaced it with something much nicer. It's so soft I just want to stroke it all the time. It's smooth but not so slick that it won't react to styling. It's never been so shiny no matter how much oil, serum or shine spray I put over it.  And the day after washing it only gets better! I'm so in love with this, so even though the price tag does hurt a little bit I will be repurchasing this whenever my hair needs a little pick-me-up.
Of course it's meant for very, very dry hair, so if yours tends to be a bit oily this is probably way too heavy for you, but anyone else who just gets course and frizzy and dry hair this really is a miracle worker. It does exactly what it says on the tin: it really does reverse the damage my hair has suffered in all this time.

Naturally, I'm still not completely satisfied with my hair, as I feel that it could do with a little bit more volume now that it's all silky and smooth. But I'm pretty sure that's nothing that can't be fixed with some heated rollers, the right products and even the odd bit of backcombing. If you have any recommendations for products that would push up the volume on my hair without making it all dry and frizzy again, please leave them in the comment box below, as I'd love to hear about them!