Product showdown

Up today are two value size L'Oreal conditioners I found:

• L'Oreal Elvital dream length
• L'Oreal Elvital color-vive

I'm going to compare them on a few different factors:

• First impressions
• Effect: Shine and manageability
• Ingredient analysis and interesting ingredients such as "actives": Oils, fruits, keratin, sunscreen

First impressions

L'Oreal Elvital dream length
Has that sort of clean and "soapy" scent. Mr Igor approves of the scent. Good, thick formulation.

It has a pretty cute ad campaign going about "saving the last three centimeters". I've been trying to find the leave in-conditioner but with no luck.

  

The colours used on the package and the name itself really reminded me of the Garnier Fructis Goodbye Damage, but on second look maybe not so much.

L'Oreal Elvital color-vive
Also has that sort of clean and "soapy" scent, that automatically gets approved by Mr Igor. Really thick formulation, almost deep conditioner texture which makes it almost drip free.

Effect

L'Oreal Elvital dream length
This left my hair incredibly soft and slippery, so much that it was actually rather hard to handle for me!

L'Oreal Elvital color-vive
Soft and slippery, but not as hard to handle as the anti-breakage.



Ingredient analysis

L'Oreal Elvital dream length
Aqua / Water, Cetearyl Alcohol, Dicetyldimonium Chloride, Cetrimonium Chloride, Niacinamide, Ricinus Communis Seed Oil / Castor Seed Oil, Sodium Benzoate, Hydroxycitronellal, Hydroxypropyltrimonium Hydrolyzed Wheat Protein, Hydrolyzed Corn Protein, Hydrolyzed Soy Protein, Hydrolyzed Wheat Protein, Phenoxyethanol, Steareth-6, Acetic Acid, PEG-100 Stearate, Trideceth-10, Trideceth-3, Trisodium HEDTA, Chlorhexidine Digluconate, Dimethicone, Limonene, Panthenol, Benzyl Salicylate, Linalool, Benzyl Alcohol, Isopropyl Alcohol, Amodimethicone, Alpha-Isomethyl Ionone, Tartaric Acid, Geraniol, Cetyl Esters, Citronellol, Coumarin, Hexyl Cinnamal, Parfum / Fragrance, (F.I.L. C214649/1)

Applying the Beauty Brains "First five ingredients rule"
Water, Cetearyl Alcohol, Dicetyldimonium Chloride, Cetrimonium Chloride, Niacinamide

When only looking at the top five ingredients, this is a emollient and moisturizing product.
Which means I would want to use this as a CO cleanser for the surfactant to dissolve scalp oils. I would also use this as a deep conditioner for a moisture booster.

Interesting ingredients

• Cetearyl Alcohol is an emulsifier which means it can dissolve oils and be used for cleansing.
• Niacinamide aka vitamin B3 is a very effective skin-restoring ingredient against ageing and environmental stress. Not entirely sure what good it would be for hair, but I can't protest against having it in a product that touches my scalp.
• Castor oil is an oil often found in products for the scalp and is said to boost hair growth.
• It has some different proteins in it: Hydroxypropyltrimonium Hydrolyzed Wheat Protein, Hydrolyzed Corn Protein, Hydrolyzed Soy Protein and Hydrolyzed Wheat Protein,
• Benzyl Salicylate is a sun screen ingredient and hurray for that. I love seeing sunscreen, any sunscreen, in my hair products!
• Amodimethicone is a cone particularly prone to build up.
• Panthenol does maybe-maybe not penetrate and strengthen hair.
• Cetyl Esters is an emollient.
• Alpha-Isomethyl Ionone, Geraniol, Citronellol, Coumarin, Hexyl Cinnamal and Parfum / Fragrance, (F.I.L. C214649/1) are fragrances. Why so many?

I would expect this conditioner to result in some very soft hair from the ingredient list. Unless my hair decides that the proteins are too much.

36 ingredients in total
1 marked as a "2" for acne-trigger. 3%
3 marked as a "2" for irritation-trigger.  8%

18 marked as "green" for safety. 50%
11 marked as "yellow" for safety. 30%
4 marked as "red" for safety. 11%
And one marked as "green-yellow" for safety. 3%

L'Oreal Elvital color-vive
Aqua/Water/Eau, Cetearyl Alcohol, Behentrimonium Chloride, Cetyl Esters, Tocopherol, cocos nucifera oil/coconut oil, Ethylhexyl Methoxycinnamate, Trideceth-6, Chlorhexidine Digluconate, poly (linseed oil), benzyl alcohol, benzyl salicylate, linalool, Benzophenone 4, Amodimethicone, isoprpyl alcohol, alpha-isomethyl ionone, geraniol, citric acid, potassium hydroxide, butylphenyl methylpropional,citronellol, cetrinonium chloride, BHT, hexyl cinnamal, parfum/fragrance.

Applying the Beauty Brains "First five ingredients rule"
Water, Cetearyl Alcohol, Behentrimonium Chloride, Cetyl Esters, Tocopherol

When only looking at the top five ingredients, this is a emollient and surfactant product.
Which means I would want to use this as a CO cleanser for the surfactant to dissolve scalp oils. I would also use this as a conditioner for a moisture booster.

Interesting ingredients

• Cetearyl Alcohol is an emulsifier which means it can dissolve oils and be used for cleansing.
• Cetyl Esters is an emolient and should result in soft hair.
• Tocopherol is an antioxidant. Questions is if it will rinse out or leave on.
• Cocos nucifera oil. Coconut oil. Love it or hate it. For me, it results in closed comedones and irritation. This means I would avoid using this as a cleansing conditioner and getting it on my scalp!
• Ethylhexyl Methoxycinnamate is a sunscreen ingredient. Nice!
• Linseed oil. Does this penetrate?
• Benzyl Alcohol. Another sunscreen ingredient. Very nice indeed!
• Amodimethicone is a cone particularly prone to build up.
• Benzophenone 4. Three sunscreen ingredients in one conditioner. Very nice!

Also I find it quite interesting how different the two ingredient lists are. Often it's basically just the "active"/selling point-ingredient that has been swapped out along with a few ingredients for stability or scent. But these two have very different ingredient lists.

Since this conditioner contains coconut oil, I would not want it on my scalp. This is a protein-free moisturizer and I would use it as such.

26 ingredients in total

2 marked as a "2" for acne-trigger. 8%
1 marked as a "4" for acne-trigger. 4%

1 marked as a "1" for irritation-trigger. 4%
2 marked as a "2" for irritation-trigger. 8%
1 marked as a "4" for irritation-trigger. 4%
And one marked as a "0-2" for irritation-trigger. 4%

10 marked as "green" for safety. 38%
12 marked as "yellow" for safety. 46%
3 marked as "red" for safety. 12%
And one marked as "green-yellow" for safety. 4 %



Lady Igor says
I actually like both in each their own way, but... The L'Oreal Elvital color-vive is awesome for the SPF, but since it contains coconut oil I would limit using it to the ends. The L'Oreal Elvital dream length is a good deep conditioner all around and I could use this on my scalp to CO too. However, my hair can be quite sensitive to proteins, so this is not a product I could use too much.

So I guess L'Oreal Elvital dream length wins. But reluctantly, since I really do love SPF in my hair products. The risk of irritating my skin isn't worth it though.

Package II

Since the package made it safely to France and fellow longhair Charlaine, I can reveal the contents.

I found these scalp scalers in a portion of my hair/skin storage and didn't even know I had them laying around. Hmm, says something about how much stuff I have in storage!

Since Charlaine likes scalp scalers and we traded some a few years back, I thought it would be fun to surprise her.

Today's hair

I really like this bun!
It's very flat and creates a good silhouette. It's very comfortable. And as opposed to the nautilus bun, it shows off the thicker part of my braid, instead of the thin ends.
But it really needs that French "layer" instead of a plain English braid to avoid that "blob" sticking out in the middle.

But... What should it be called?
Pretzel bun is already taken and it's not really an infinity shape either (Also taken).
Overhand knot bun? Omega bun? (I feel like the omega symbol would come the closest to describing the motion I do to secure the bun)

Today's hair

Following my idea from the other day: A single braid with a "French" layer.

Going to see how this works as a base for the modified Nautilus bun-idea.

Hot date

...Nah, not really.

Going to stay in tonight, order food, do a Nodosaurus and otherwise do nothing useful at all.

Package

Hehe. Just teasing the yet unknowing recipient. 

Going to send out a package today with some secret contents.

And just for fun, going to add the prettiest candy I've seen in a very long time.

Nautilus bun issues?

Lately I've been having some issues with my Nautilus buns. It used to be my absolute go-to bun, but the last months they have become increasingly irritating. They pull or pinch or slide for me.

The Nautilus bun was never the prettiest or most elegant bun, but it has its good angles.

But at the same time as I've been having issues with it, it also seems like its bad angles have become... well, worse.

The bun formation always had a tendency to get that weird "blob" going on, but it seems to become harder to smooth down.

My best guess is, that I have too much hair for the "inner" bun part compared to the "outer" bun part, where the braid wraps around it. I guess the "inner" bun part pushes and destabilizes the outer part, which makes it lose the nice, flat silhouette?

I got so frustrated with it today at work, that I ended up messing around with it on the toilet.

After a few attempts to push the "blob" back in place, I wrapped it up in a simple cinnamon bun.

And... That looked pretty nice?

Which is weird, because braided cinnamon buns stopped working for me around... hip length?
But now they work for me again?

It did get a little "blob"-formation in the middle, but I think that could be completely removed by basing it on a single french braid instead of an English braid.
Hmm. Interesting!

So that made me wonder: What if I "tied" the braid around my Ron Quattro fork in an overhand knot?

But then instead directed the "leftover" braid back in the same direction to compensate for lopsidedness, sort of like how I did with the infinity bun.

First forming the knot....

...Then wrapping the braid back in the same direction and tucking it under.

That actually got pretty good!

It shows off the slightly thicker part of the braid inside the bun, as opposed to the Nautilus that tends to show the thinnest.

Fairly smooth and flat silhouette with a few slightly less flattering angles.

The difference doesn't look so big in comparison, but I still like it.
Overhand knot-bun-thing on the left and Nautilus on the right.

Least flattering angle in comparison and the difference gets bigger!
Overhand knot-bun-thing on the left and Nautilus on the right.

I think I will be doing this more often...

And I promise a better tutorial for this bun if anyone wants it!

Mildly interesting

The little Bed & Breakfast I'm staying at for work has a few "leftovers" from previous visitors. One of the things is a Garnier Fructis shampoo bottle from Russia. I only know for sure because the only thing I can recognize (Other than "Garnier" and "Fructis") is that it directs to garnier.com.ru in the middle of the cyrillic script.
There is something kind of cool about finding a Russian shampoo bottle in south-west Denmark like this.

A challenge to myself

I have turned my project in. Three days early actually. At this point I was getting no more work out of it, just messing around with pointless, minor details and driving myself crazy over it.
(Today's Danish lesson: This is called "Flueknepperi", literally "f*cking a fly")

So, for better or for worse, I'm done with it for now.
Wow. It feels strange.

I have some busy time at work ahead of me, because I'm going on vacation in mid week 27 and week 28 with Mr Igor, author-friend and engineer-friend.
But after that, my schedule is pretty much just work and free time. That's going to feel really strange...
I have between week 28 and 38 completely free of any other responsibilities than work.

So I find myself wondering what I should do with that time. What do I want to do?
Catch up on TV? Learn something new? Practice a 7-strand braid until I nail it?

There are quite a few challenges floating around the internet: Feel good challenges, healthy living challenges, zen-challenges, self care challenges etc. Maybe I should do something like that?

What do I really want to get out of those 10 weeks?
I would like to spend some time having fun with hubby. Go see some things, experience something new, go on some of the guided tours they offer here.
And I would like to train some more. I'm actually beginning to enjoy it, and it is very good for me.

So... A weekly plan of:
One day out and away with hubby to do and see something fun.
And two days where I visit the gym to burn some calories.

Pretty simple, right?

I have actually semi-planned our "date days" out already. There is 1-3 goals in each day, but there will be room for improvising like eating out and such.

This could be very good for me. I need some time like this. Just focusing on myself, hubby and enjoying the summer.

Feeling good, destressing and having fun carries it's own reward. But maybe I should treat myself to one of the skincare tools I found myself drooling over some time back if I can stick to the plan?

Today's hair

Hmph. I had to run an errand today despite having planned to stay home and study.
Luckily the braids from yesterday held up very, very well, so I could waste as little time as possible on putting my hair up in a bun.
Hairstick is from an Etsy shop called Elk and Iron, that apparently doesn't exist anymore?