Wen Cleansing Conditioner (First Impressions)

Hi Everyone!

I'm here with an update to the Wen Cleansing Conditioner.  I bought this mid-January to help deal with the hair that got damaged when I dyed it last year.  I was very hesitant to invest in a $32.00 bottle of cleansing conditioner, but it's supposed to take the place of shampoo and conditioner.  Additionally, some reviews I read on Makeup Alley said the product made hair fall out and left a greasy residue in your hair.  I will address both of these concerns in my post.  For now, some pictures.

 

So, I'm going to picture out my hair care routine with the Wen Cleansing Conditioner.  

 

I use only 6 pumps of the product.  I wouldn't use the recommended 10-15 pumps because I don't think I need it and I don't want such an expensive product to run out so quickly.

I focus the majority of this product at my roots and scalp.  I massage it all over my scalp for 3 minutes and pull the product through the rest of my hair.

Some people said this product weighed their hair down and left greasy residues.  Yes, it happened to me after the first day.  But I've learned the trick is to rinse out the conditioner completely.  I flip my head upside down and rinse from my nape to my forehead, then I flip my hair right side up and rinse from my forehead to my nape.  Then I split my hair like I'm doing a half up and half down pony tail and focus a lot of rinsing at the crown of my head.  

Rinsing this way, my hair does not feel sleek or soft like when I use regular conditioner.  In fact, it still feels tangled up.

 

This is what my hair looks like after being towel dried.  It clearly looks like a tangle mess.  But looks are a little bit deceiving.  I've noticed that the tangles I work through when using Wen are less intense and less painful than the tangles I had after using regular shampoo, conditioner, and the Nuance leave-in treatment.

My recommendation is to work through the tangles with a wide-tooth comb before blow drying.

As far as hair loss goes, I haven't noticed any difference in the number of strands I lose in the shower.  It looks like I've lost the same amount as always.  

 

This is what my hair looks like after blow drying.  I just used my fingers to blow dry before brushing my hair into place.  

So, what are the results?

My hair is sooooo soft and doesn't get as many tangles as it did before.  I'd also say the feeling I get at my scalp is a light and airy feeling.  My hair feels like it has better movement and more volume at the top.  The one time I didn't completely rinse out the cleansing conditioner, the hair at my crown looked like it was greasy but it still had a light and airy feeling.  

As far as color retention goes, I don't think this conditioner retains color any better than a shampoo/conditioner set made for color treated hair.

I feel that this product is doing a well enough job at keeping my hair clean.  My hair still gets greasy after 24 hours, so this product doesn't have magical cleansing properties.  :-P

I'll follow up in a few more weeks.  If my opinions don't change, consider this the official Product Review.  

Has anyone else used Wen and what do you think of it?

Thanks for stopping by and thanks to Mr. P for being on call to take these photos of my head.  

 

Kusanagi's February Beauty Box

Hi Everyone!

The goal to use down my makeup stash by limiting myself to a few makeup items per month continues.  I have to admit, that I got bored with my January beauty box and opted to go several days without makeup at all.  I figured my boredom came about from a lack of color, so for February, I decided to use a palette with a lot of color.  

So, here are the items in my February beauty box, brushes not included.

 

 

 

So, wish me luck on sticking to this regimen!

Is anybody else doing this?  

 

Impulse Purchase, Boots No. 7

Hello Lovelies!

I hope you all had a great weekend!  It's been rainy here in SoCal, which is my favorite.  It's cool here and there's nothing better than being home in my pj's and trying to stay warm. 

Everyone, meet Gaara (yes, named after the bad-good guy Gaara of the Desert from Naruto).  Gaara the Cat has dark rimmed eyes just like the character.  Gaara the Cat's personality is so cute and loving, the representation of the Chinese character for "Love" on Gaara of the Desert's forehead.

 

 

Gaara the Cat

 

Gaara of the Desert

Anyways, Mr. P and I went to Target to look for tools for the house.  Just casually, he asked if there was anything I wanted to see in the beauty aisles.  I didn't go to Target with the intention of sticking my nose into the beauty aisles, but since he asked....

 

And then we walked out of Target with these two Boots No. 7 toners and no tools.  The one on the left is an Organic Face Rosewater Toner.  The one on the right is Complexion Refining Toning Lotion.  It has rosemary and Amazonian clay in it to help remove sebum.  

I'm very curious about this brand because I've never tried it before.  It seems like you get a lot of product for under $9.  I'm not exactly sure when I'll get around to using it but I'm planning to do a product review of these 2 toners.

Well, that's it for this post.  If anyone has any experience with this brand, can you let me know how you liked it?

Have a great evening everyone!

First Haul Post

Hi Everyone!

Southern California is experiencing a few days of warm (comparatively warm to this time of year) rain which clears the air of our usual smog but also diffuses the light at night.  Mr. P and I met some friends for dinner in Downtown LA and I was just amazed by how beautiful Los Angeles is lit up at night.  By the way, you know you're getting older when you want to call it a night at 9pm.  XD

Anyways, this is a picture of the ride home.  Coming up in this picture is the train station where Mr. P and I started and ended our first non-date 10 years ago.  My, how time flies!

 

Anywho, I wanted to show you my first haul post.  Below are the 3 items I purchased.

 

I've been so diligent in finishing up my toner and just in time too!  I finally got the toner that I've been wanting ever since I saw results with the Ann Karen whitening facials in August of last year.  The Jurlique mist comes in a solid glass spray bottle.  I haven't tried it yet but I will for sure do a review!

Above: I finally caved and got the basic Wen cleansing conditioner.  Again, just in time, as I had finished the Nuance leave-in treatment this morning.  I used it tonight and am impressed that my comb ran through my hair cleanly instead of running into tangles.  But I'm not thrilled that hair from the crown of my head retained a lot of the Wen cleansing conditioner.  And washing my hair with this product that has the consistency of.... thick pudding or vegetable shortening... was definitely a different experience.  Obviously, I didn't rinse my head and hair well enough, which is why the hair is still "wet" after 2 hours.  The hair around my hairline got rinsed well and I think if I rinsed the conditioning cleanser all out, I would be really impressed with the results!  A product review will be forthcoming.

 

 

Here a couple of samples I got with my purchases.  I got 2 cologne samples for Mr. P, just to mix things up a little bit. 

 

 Hope you all are having a good night!

Finished! January is Early!

Hi Everyone!

I thought I might as well post up my Finished! products early for January because I don't foresee myself finishing anything else this month.  I've got the LA Clippers vs. Phoenix Suns on and getting a great laugh out of Shaq and crew making fun of Charles Barkley's comment that he waxes his eyebrows.  Did anyone else see this?

Anyways, here are the products I've finished this month!  Get your smiles on, my fellow beauty lovers!

 

This was a sample size that came with my Clarisonic Mia.  I finally used it.  It's ok.   Don't have anything good or bad to say about it.

 

 Finished a couple of hair care products, mostly conditioners.  The Neutrogena conditioner on the left was actually pretty good to use when I had virgin hair.  But I had to use a larger than normal amount due to the damage my hair sustained and it started weighing my hair down.

The hair mask on the right was "meh...."  Again, I had to use a lot to deal with my damaged hair and it weighed my hair down.  

Tangent: I recently went in to get my hair cut and the stylist tried to color the lighter damaged part darker to match my natural hair color.  He promised that he wouldn't get the dye up into my new virgin hair but his assistant brought it up to my scalp!  ARGH!!!  So, even though I left the salon with a great hair style that I can't reproduce on my own, I'm only calculating in my head the amount of time it will take for my hair to grow out again.  Does anyone else get annoyed by this??

OK.... back to the main show.

 

This moisturizer was something I kept in my office at work to use after washing my hands.  It only took TWO YEARS but I finally - FINALLY - finished it!  It's okay.  It did it's job but I was ready for a change.  

 

On the left is a toner I got from Sasa.com in August of 2011.  I had it put away for a while.  It's an okay toner.  It had a very strong perfumey fragrance, which I wasn't too crazy abount.  I'm glad it's done.

The Nuance leave in condition (Salma Hayek's line) was great.  Apparently, I can NOT use it alone.  It worked better for my hair if I also used a rinse out conditioner in the shower prior to using this one.  I'd still repurchase this though!

 

 

On the left, body wash.  It's okay.  It did its job.  

On the right, a Clarisonic brush head, the softest and most gentle brush head.   I put this through the wringer by using it for more than the recommended 3 months, but it still did its job!  I have a backup already!

OK, it looks like I'm ending this post before the game is done.  Phoenix Suns are up, so if the Clippers are going to win, they'd better pull out a massive spurt of 3-pointers in the next 3 minutes!

GO CLIPPERS!!!

Have a great evening!