About two weeks ago I tried to write something about the perfect hair diet. It was really difficult!
Human nutrition in itself is really complicated, and I have never really studied it.
I had the required level of chemistry and high level biology in Gymnasiet but there were little focus on this. So I really feel like I lack some background knowledge on this. And now when I try to read up on it, I just feel confused at how complicated it all is.
Anyways. As I tried to compile a list of food sources for the amino acids, I was struck by how many times egg whites were mentioned. And sea weed. And cheese (Maybe that's why cheese is such a running joke in the longhair circuit?)
I then remembered that I had a bag of seaweed I bought ages ago because it claimed to taste like bacon. So I thought "Hey, why not try to put some perfect hair food together?"
I decided to try to make egg white muffins with sea weed, bacon, spinach and parmesan. That should almost cover all the amino acids from the attempted list I made. Which is pretty cool!
I knew sea weed was a "super food" that should be especially good for minerals, so it was as surprise for me that it would be good for amino acids too. I mean, it's not that high on protein content, but if all the protein it has is from essential amino acids, that's good!
This kind of seaweed was supposed to taste like bacon, which is why I bought it.
It didn't look too appetizing though!
And it just smelled really old and dusty. Like, not unpleasant, just really dusty.
It didn't get any better once I chopped it up and mixed it with defrosted spinach, parmesan and a little bit of leftover shredded cheese.
Mixing in egg whites and fried bacon only made the whole thing look comically disgusting!
I used 250 grams of bacon, 85 grams of parmesan, 40 grams of the leftover shredded cheese, 200 grams of spinach, 25 grams of the bacon seaweed and 500 grams of egg white.
Mr Igor took one look at this and went "Yea, you're on your own". He usually loves my cooking so I felt a little insulted. Only a little though, since it does looks like chunky toxic sludge.
Once cooked, it was pretty good though!
The bacon taste was really, really strong from regular bacon and the bacon sea weed. Next time, I would make it with less of the strange seaweed, or maybe less regular bacon.
I had lots of sauces ready in case I needed to dampen some weird taste, but it was good enough that I will try to make it again.
If we calculate that half the fat content of the bacon is melted off and drained (I think it was more, but let's keep it simple) each of the "muffins" lands at 155 calories and 16 grams of protein.
That's really good! When I try to cook high protein, low calorie foods, a 1:10 ratio of protein to calories is considered good.
This was tasty, easy and probably covers most of the amino acids I need. I could see myself make this again! It still looks nasty though.
My massage therapist who has spent the last many years moving the big, heavy snakes of my braids out of the way, asked how long my hair really is the last time I went.
So since I have a massage time today, I have put my hair in a ponytail and then turned it into an unbraided Nautilus bun that I can take down to show her.
I used one of the new leather-based Flexi 8's for it.
I'm now less happy with those!
The end of the stick turned out to be pretty sharp and it nicked my hand when I pushed the stick through my hair. Only a shallow cut that didn't bleed, but still.
Last year I did The 29 hairstyles in February challenge which was was hard, but also a lot of fun! It was a good method to make myself check on what variation I still have with my updos at my current length.
So why not try a new challenge? I'm joining the Blogging from A to Z challenge to work through some of my hair knowledge and maybe inspire someone else too.
I wore my hair in an orchid bun today with the hairstick with the little bee-dangle. It's so very close to being too short for me! Half a centimeter less and I would have been unable to use the stick because it would slip entirely into the loop from the figure 8.
Well, wow. Just when I thought the Swedish mail couldn't disappoint me more than it already has... It did.
I bought these Flexies in two orders, one back on the black Friday sale (!!) and that one didn't show up until two weeks ago! That is how incompetent, awful and deliberately useless the Swedish mail is.
I thought of composing the timeline of exactly how bad this has been, including multiple rude and useless customer "service" reps contacts and a customs website that plain didn't work in any way whatsoever, but I think I have made my point. 3 months to get my order. 3!
So that was one thing that has sucked really, really badly.
The next thing is Lilla Rose.
They suck too.
They sucked as Flexi 8, and they suck as Lilla Rose.
All the way back in 2011, I wrote this to Flexi 8:
A fairly reasonable thought from a super-longhair, right? Like, a big part of their market... Right?
And... Basically what has turned into their Flexi Flip today... Right?
So, a really good idea from a customer, right?
Nope.
I received the following reply:
Basically: "LOL, are you sure you're not just too stupid to work our product correctly?!"
So condescending. They can hide behind nice words, but that's their message.
I especially liked the part where I'm being informed that the stick curves like it does because it "provides more comfort" despite me contacting them because it doesn't.
Basically:
Me: "Hey, your product hurts me, but here is an idea to make it better"
Flexi 8: "No, you're wrong. Also, you're probably too stupid to use the product right. Here's how to use it correctly."
I refused to buy another Flexi for almost 10 years after this.
Anyways. I was dumb enough to order more Flexies through their new website (New owner?) and using an affiliate link from someone I thought was a nice person, someone I had even talked to through Instagram before. Someone who even took the time to thank me directly for the order using her link.
The first order I received was actually the last one I ordered:
Two Flexi Flips, a hairstick and an XXL Flexi.
Notice how neatly all the products have been hand-crossed out on the order form. Check, check, check and check.
The flips are super tiny, even thought I bought the largest they had.
"EX compares to MD, LG, XL"
Meh. More like large maybe, definitely not the XL.
In fact, it was so small that it hurt my hand trying to push it into my hair. Look at the bruising in my palm! Ouch.
They work for two smaller buns, not for a single one for me.
Begrudgingly I have to admit that the Flexi flip has amazing hold once it's forced in place.
I tried my best to get some good photos of the Flip-construction.
Part of why it can "flip" is that it doesn't have a decorative centerpiece like the regular Flexies.
I would however be a little worried that the "semi-open" construction of the center piece would be really good at catching on hair. It would have been nice if it had been closed, but I can see how it's impossible to construct the Flexi without having an open centerpiece. I would want to turn the open part away from my hair.
Second part of why it can "flip" is that they have little indents to secure the "8" into on both sides of the stick-part.
It's nice to have the option of doing this.
But as I wrote in my original mail to Flexi almost a decade ago, this is something more needed for the extra large Flexies. As in: Not this size. More and heavier hair needs a larger and studier tool to hold it, and then you really need to distribute the weight a lot better. You especially need to stay clear of having a single contact point for the tool on your scalp. That's a lot of pressure on your scalp and hair.
Still though. The "flip" is good for hold and stability.
A "true" XL and XXL Flexi flip would be very welcome though.
The hairstick I got for free was actually the prettiest part of the order, and the one I was most excited about. Simple with a nice choice of wood and a cute little bee-dangle.
Anyways. Back to things that suck.
Remember how someone had neatly crossed out the products on the order form?
Yep.
Someone put this abomination of a Flexi together without noticing how badly they had screwed the construction up.
Someone packed it in a little plastic bag.
Someone put it in my package.
Someone crossed it out on the order form.
And no one noticed the problem?
The stick can barely reach the decoration in the middle! How could they not have noticed it? It can't even close on itself, much less with any hair inside it.
And worst of all: When I contacted Flexi about this obvious production error, they ignored me.
I contacted the person with the affiliate link. She ignored me. Repeatedly.
I contacted Lilla Rose by the email on their website. They ignored me. Repeatedly.
I contacted them on Instagram. They ignored me. Repeatedly.
And just to clarify: I went something like a week between each attempt to contact them.
Lilla Rose has a return policy with a time span for how long you can return your items, and since the Swedish mail was so useless and awful, I was over that time. Hence, why I needed to talk to them before returning the production error Flexi.
Not until I contacted them on Facebook, did they react. And then only to first "defend" themselves by saying they had nothing to do with my lack of replies the other places. After that, magically I got a reply by email from the website.
Whatever.
I was obviously right to judge them for being awful back in 2011 and I should not have given them a second chance.
I will not ever give Lilla Rose/Flexi 8/whatever any of my money ever again. They have taken too much of my time, effort and money already.
The order I placed first was the order that I received last thanks to the Swedish mail:
The size difference in the Flexies is pretty fascinating to me.
Regular XXL (Gingerbread man design)
Flip EX (Green and blue beads)
Regular medium (Fly Agaric design)
Regular Small (Seahorse)
The medium and small are almost identical in sizes!
And look at the size difference between the XXL and the Flip EX, which "compares to MD, LG, XL" according to Lilla Rose.
According to Lady Igor, the Flexi Flip compares to a large regular Flexi. No more, no less.
The ones I was most interested in were the leather or fabric based Flexies, and they turned out to be pretty nice. The wooden sticks actually match the colours really well.
I really like that this one doesn't have any weird bling or details that can get caught in your hair!
Newly converted curly haired coworker who I have mentioned before kept talking about this brand, but I wasn't going to try any of the products due to the lack of success I've had with curl-specific products before.
But then I saw that a lot of the products were shea-based. Wow, talk about a blast from the past! A million years ago in internet years, shea butter what the absolute rave in the longhair circuit. This was The It Ingredient for the first many years I spent on hair groups and forums. I was really frustrated with this, because I had trouble getting products with it myself. I think I actually had to buy/trade with some other LHC member (Or was it on a Yahoo group?) to try a shea product for myself the first time!
As I wrote: It's a million years ago in internet years. International shipping wasn't really the standard, and so the products available to me were very different. Back then I really struggled with finding interesting hair products because 95% of supermarket products and even salon products were made for the fine and volume-challenged native Scandinavian hair. I don't think I need to explain just how far from my hairtype that is. Every time I ran into something different, I was super excited about it.
I remember the first time I ran into a product containing cholesterol at this chain called Rema1000. It's a discount supermarket chain in Norway and Denmark, and their "thing" was to begin with, that the store only carried a thousand different items to keep the price down (Hence the name). Some times they have these limited time products, often from surplus or going out of stock from their suppliers. I think the conditioner was from Wella? It was a big, bottom-heavy 500 ml bottle with a screw on lid and a beige/blue colour theme. Anyways. I loved it, so I went all over town to buy every single conditioner in every single store I could. I totally blew my budget for the month on this, but I had no regrets. Ah, back when I was a poor engineering student working towards my first bachelor. Wow, that's so long ago.
Like,
this long ago....
Strangely, now that I'm typing this down, it makes me nostalgic for the time when I couldn't just order a shipment of Korean 헤어 컨디셔너 and have it delivered by DHL before the end of the week.
And a time where I couldn't just swipe a credit card and not even consider the impact on my budget. As frustrating as it was at that time, I miss the excitement of getting my hands on a product that was so hard to access, and took up a portion of my budget for me.
So, boring backstory of why I ended up getting these products anyways aside...
I got the Shea Butter Leave in Conditioning Repair Cream, the Shea Butter Hydrating Cream Conditioner, the Avocado Hydrating Cream Conditioner and the Shea Butter for Natural Hair Deep Treatment Masque. I got them from Matas and they seem to usually have more in stock than this, but as I was told, the covid is still an issue for their supply chain. So I'll have to just compare the two conditioners for now. I can always return for more if I like it.
I'm going to compare the two conditioners on a few different factors:
First impressions Effect: Shine and manageability Ingredient analysis and interesting ingredients such as "actives": Oils, fruits, keratin, sunscreen
Shea Butter Hydrating Cream Conditioner
First impressions
This one has a really funny smell to it. Like the toner we use at the printers at work. It's not unpleasant, just really odd. Very... Not-conditioner-like?
Good texture to work with. Not too thick, not too thin.
I like the bottle size of 400 ml. Always a really big plus to get a decent bottle!
Effect
Mildly disappointed, sort of what I expected I guess? It didn't really clean so well, it didn't really add shine, it didn't really make my hair feel more manageable. Just kind of meh, really.
I ended up feeling unqualified to really write anything specific about this ingredient list, because there
are so many unfamiliar ingredients on it. It was quite weird actually. I mean, I can google the ingredients and write about them based on that, but there were so many I don't think I have ever really encountered before? Like, this product contains polyester. Is it... like the polyester we see in clothing? I'm so confused.
COSDNA is pretty positive towards the ingredient list though.
Avocado Hydrating Cream Conditioner
First impressions
This one has that classic conditioner smell to it. Sort of clean and fresh, like fabric softener or something. Not too strong, not to weak. Not a particular scent you can put your finger on. Sort of soapy maybe?
Good texture to work with for this one too. Not too thick, not too thin.
Effect
This one was just as much meh as the other one. I mean, maybe my hair did feel hydrated, not that I'm really sure what that's supposed to feel like?
It didn't even manage to get rid of all the flakeys I had on my scalp, so, yea, meh to this one.
Ingredient list of Cantu Avocado Hydrating Cream Conditioner
I loved that the product that advertised itself as an "Avocado conditioner" also had shea butter in it. I mean, yes, it also says shea butter on the front of it, but way less prominent than the avocado.
Benzyl salicylate is a sunscreen and I'm an absolute sucker for sunscreen in my hair products. Skin can (To some degree) heal itself after sun damage, for hair that damage is forever. SO I tend to seek out products with sunscreen when I can.
In conclusion..
Lady Igor says
I'm not really impressed with either, which I expected to begin with. So no surprise there. But hey, it was fun with the nostalgia is brought on. However, if I have to recommend one it will have to be the Cantu Avocado Hydrating Cream Conditioner for containing shea butter, avocado oil and a sunscreen ingredient.
Yesterday when I made my shoelace bun, I picked a leave in conditioner only to add shine and make the updo really pretty. Usually my base braids holds up pretty well and can be re-used the next day. But because I picked a leave in conditioner with like no hold, today my hair is a really fuzzy mess. It actually amuses me, because I always assume the braid(s) will hold up nicely and I forgot how uch the leave in conditioner matters!
