Product Review: U R Curly Line

Idk if I mentioned this before but my out-of-control behind is on a "no-buy" until March 2014. Yep so its time to start using up this stash I have. Check one of my first posts for pics of my stash but unfortunately it has grown a little since then (but we will get to that later). To keep track of everything I hate, like and love I will be doing product reviews and comparisons for all my products.

Obviously this is my review of the U R Curly.

The line includes the Soya Shampoo, Quinoa Conditioner, Tight Curl Enhancer, and the Loose Curl Enhancer. These products have no alcohol, parabens, sulfates or dyes but they all have protein in them. I have tried all these products several times alone and with other products.

The Soya Shampoo- This is clear and has a strong menthol smell. Unlike many other shampoos you are supposed to leave this on for a couple of minutes (crazy I know, right?). I almost didn't want to leave it in because I'm weary of shampoos stripping my hair but I did it anyway. With soaking hair I applied this with an applicator bottle directly to my scalp and rubbed it in. It lathers well and after a few minutes it starts to tingle. Oh how I love a shampoo that tingles because my mother always told me, "that means its working!" Lol but stimulation of the scalp does aid in hair growth . I rinsed this out letting the suds slide down to clean the rest of my hair and used a t-shirt to dry my hair. This shampoo did not strip my hair surprisingly.

The Quinoa Conditioner- This conditioner has the same menthol smell as the shampoo. I usually like my conditioners to have slip and this had little slip. HOWEVER, this conditioner did make my hair a softer. I stopped using this as a regular conditioner due to the little amount of slip which I need to detangle my hair and started using this as a co-wash. It tingles similar to the shampoo and adds the moisture that I lost since my last wash day.

The Tight Curl Enhancer and the Loose Curl Enhancer- My hair does not know the difference between these two but they do smell different (the TCE has a pleasant floral scent and the LCE has a subtle aloe smell to me) and the ingredients are different (both have protein though) . They are both thick gels that provide little slip while going on so I ended up using a good amount (1/6th of the bottle for one use) for my entire head. While my hair was damp it looked okay. When it dried it was a mess. Some curls were define, some were frizzy and there was frizz which is a given with my type 4abcdefg hair. When my hair dried it felt drier than a California fire. I hate to say this but the gels did nothing for me. I did try them in a braid out and added some shea butter when it was dry and this actually worked and gave definition for my hair for a few days.

Bottom line: The U R Curly line is an affordable line of products and my favorite was the shampoo. However, the rest of this line was okay and I had to work it in with other things or repurpose them (turning the conditioner into a co-wash) in order to get some benefit from them. I'm looking for products that have slip and these did not. I haven't seen these in any stores yet so they aren't accessible to me on ground. Also idk if I'm protein sensitive yet and the fact that all these products have protein in them makes me weary of them. All in all I would only repurchase the shampoo.

Tell me what you think of these products if you tried them. If you have any comments or questions leave them below. See ya!

Wide tooth comb vs. Brush vs. Finger Detangling

Idk if it's just me or what but my hair is always tangled. My hair is not thick, in my opinion it is fine but since it is curly it takes a lot of space. And because each strand does its twists and turns, I get tangles like crazy. Now in my head this is how I imagine how knots happen:

• When running a tool (comb/brush/fingers) through my hair the hair stretches then springs back up once the tool leaves the hair. In the "spring back" my hair is not going in an orderly way if that makes sense. As it shrinks back up because it doesn't usually create clumps every strand is pushing against the other strands. In fact let me just make this simple and easy. My hairs are social and love tying the knot with other strands.  
• When water touches my hair (even in braids) it shrinks and moves creating twists around other hairs.

I'm sure there are other reasons why my air tangles but these are my opinions. So....lets compare the detangle tools.

 LOL my feet are in this pic. But who cares? Any way these are my combs and brushes. The last comb in the picture is a rat-tail comb which is not used for detangling only for parting the hair.

 The first is the "Tangle Teezer". I bought it online from sally's for $10. It has small and long bristles that are flexible but makes a horrible ripping-out-your-hair sound when you use it. Its hard to hold because there is no handle. Many people believe its too harsh and causes breakage which is why I stopped using it. But really it does detangle well and it doesn't take many strokes to get the job done.



 

The next is a fake Denman style brush from Goody (I'm too cheap to buy a real one). I forgot how much it cost, probably $5-$10 from the local beauty supply store. It comes with 7 rows of plastic semi-flexible bristles but I took three rows out to lessen the damage this may do to my hair. This does a really good job of detangling my hair but I hate that when I use it the red part of the brush slides up and I have to push it back every so often.



 

The next is a comb that I received from Natruallycurly.com is my prize (check my previous posts on more details of this prize). It used to have writing on it and the tips had a protective paint on them but both wore of after a couple of uses. I rarely use this thing. When detangling curly/coily hair wide-tooth combs usually have no flexibility and miss a lot of tangles because the spaces are wide.

 



 

This is also a Goody comb. Idk why I bought this thing. I guess it looked interesting because the teeth bend and are at different lengths. I prefer this over the previous comb because the teeth are closer so they will get more tangle out.

Let me out this out there. FINGER DETANGLING SICKS!!!!! Why do I say this? It doesn't make sense logically that my fingers, or anyone's fingers really, can separate the millions of hairs on your head. I tried it too so I'm not just saying this. Using your fingers there will be shed hairs on your hands, which you need to remove before putting your finger back into your hair, which takes time. Then going through every single strand and separating them and releasing tangles...its just toooooo much. Like really? Washing, styling and drying time for curly hair is already a long process I can't take another time-consuming process. AND it doesn't get ALL the tangles LOL.

Bottom line: I use the Goody brush/ fake Denman most of the time and the wide-tooth Goody comb on rare occasions. I have never had a matt in my hair doing this. Have I experienced some breakage? A little but I'd rather take the little breakage than spending 1/3 of my life detangling using my fingers or missing tangles with a wide-tooth comb.

Let me know if you have any comments or questions by commenting below. Take care!

My Experience With Soultanicals/ Soultanicals Review

After 3 1/2 years of being a natural I've never really been too big on buying hair products. BUT all of a sudden I think I have a serious case of Product Junkie-ism. I knew it was a problem when I went into the GROCERY store and couldn't leave the hair section (and I had just gotten new products and have a lot of things I haven't even tried). My family thinks they need to intervene its gotten so bad and therefore I'm on a no-buy until March. Sigh.

Onto the Soultanicals review. I first heard about this company and their amazing Knot sauce from watching Curlygirljess on Youtube (I love her). She does a lot of product reviews and if you follow her on FB she updates you on sales for hair products so go check her out. I hate to admit it but these YT videos do make me want to buy everything and end up broke but what can you do, right?

So my hair has been really tangled lately (enough for me to consider a texturizer) and with their all 8oz. for $10 sale (they have a sale every Friday I think) I purchased a 16oz. Knot Sauce and a 8oz. Marula-Muru Moiisture Guru. Tell me why it took 18 DAYS for it to arrive to me. Now they will explain on their site that they make their products are made-to-order so it takes a while and even during sales. HOWEVER, my things took entirely too long, mind you I live within the state and could've went down there myself to pick up the products. Now was I upset it took long? Yea. But I was more excited to get the products for my tangled birds nest.

Notice anything strange?

My labels are crooked. This may not seem like a big deal but after the whole thing with taking forever with shipping because they use tender love and care with making their products for you BS this is a sign that they did no such thing. There were no apologies, no "I know it took longer than it should here's a free sample/product/discount", no anything. Also the labels are paper and not water-resistant, so I had to put tape over the label so it would last and not fade.

Okay so I used the products on co-washed hair. Here's the line up.

I thoroughly rinse my hair with water then put on the U R Curly Quinoa Conditioner and rinsed 5 min. later. I used the Knot Sauce as a detangler/leave-in. and the Murula-Muru Moisture Guru on top. The Knot Sauce was not what I expected. It had okay slip for me (even when I left it on for a while). It smells like vanilla frosting which kinda calmed me down a little because after all I went through for an okay conditioner. The MMMG was better though. It has a banana smell and had more slip in my opinion than the KS. So I two strand twisted my hair for three days and when I took it out it was a tangled parched mess. I ended up using cheap on the ground VO5 moisture milk to detangle which had more slip than the KS and MMMG. LOL

 I'm so disappointed. Ugh!
Bottom Line:
Shipping- $5.80 but still took 18 DAYS!
Packaging- Filled to the brim but labels are crooked and not water resistant.
Performance- Sigh. Its okay...I guess.
Would I recommend? NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!Not even on a sale. There are too many good products out there to be dealing with this mess.

I'll give it a 1 out of 5. Please comment below and tell me what you think of these products. Was I the only one who was disappointed?