MOROCCANOIL RESTORATIVE MASK

If there is one hair mask you should definitely have, it is Moroccanoil Restorative Mask. All the myths were true, this is really something. Longing to try this mask for some time now, I felt like buying the (let´s admit it) bigger pricey pot in the times of moving apartments and cities would not be very economical; I opted for the travelling version. The 250ml pot is usually for something around £32,  this 75ml tube was for around £9 and lasted me 3-4 applications (depending on length of hair). 

I will not go into too many details as I know Moroccanoil has been around for some time and many of you know about this brand, the miraculous hair oil and about this magical treatment, But I still want to mention this mask as for me it´s a new thing and definitely worth the mentioning. And definitely worth the hype! The magic trick here is the protein that does most of the job. You can find protein naturally in your hair. When using colorants and styling tools like straighteners or wands, the hair gets damaged and it lacks the main thing: protein. So then this brilliant product full of proteins comes to help restore your poor hair. 

Smells absolutely incredible. I mean, the smell is so gorgeous you just want to leave this on your hair forever. The directions say to apply generous amount into your strands and leave for 7-10 minutes. This treatment for me is a real treat, so I leave at least for an hour to make the best of it. And followed by conditioner. The smell usually stays in my hair for a day or two more (yay!). You can see the change in your hair already when rinsing your hair. It feels smooth, strong and sleek. The quality is instantly better, hair is shinier and the split ends are gone. Brilliant mask.

DAMAGED HAIR PRODUCTS II

And here we go again, my favorite topic! No, I am kidding I would prefer if I had nothing to say about damaged hair, but unfortunatelly that is not the case. In my pursuit of healthy hair, I tried some budget friendly hair treatments/masks and I will share with you what I think about them. 

1. TRESEMMÉ KERATIN SMOOTH

When picking up this one, I liked the "intensively replenishes each strand". That sounded like something I needed. Especially I liked "intensively" and "replenishes" because I am all in intensively replenishing. Aaaah. Again, the smell of this mask was just not good. It actually was not good at all. The mask itself has white colour, it' s not too thick, but not runny either. The pot is quite big, so it lasts quite some time. The effect... I must say I did not see any difference. My hair was the same, did not notice any change in my hair regarding smoothness, condition or feeling. And the smell is just bad. I would not recommend this one. 

2. HERBAL ESSENCES BEAUTIFUL ENDS

This little red pot full of pinkish mash inside was quite good actually. It is very budget friendly as I picked up this one from Superdrug for something like 2 quit. Smells very lovely, like fruits or berries, but I believe some poeple may feel the smell overwhelming. It is quite nourishing, soothes the ends a bit, but I would say it is only immediate effect and it does not really treat the split ends. Maybe if used frequently, but I think you should be using deep conditioning treatment only once or twice a week. For feeling of nice hair I would give it a go.

3. DOVE REGENERATING MASK

When picking up this mask, Doctor Who came to my mind, so I just to take it - as you may see the regenerating mask, haha. I have to admit, this one would be the winner. Smells incredibly lovely, it has sort of yellow-ish colour and medium thickness. The pot is slightly smaller - only 200 ml and I feel like this mask was gone bit quicker. I usually left this mask on for an hour, maybe two and it made my hair feel very nourish and smooth and soft. I could see difference with this one. I would say it is something like Aussi 3 Minutes Recovery. So some results were here, but still not what I would expect from deep conditioning mask. 

DAMAGED HAIR PRODUCTS

Now you know about my damaged hair. The purpose of my previous article was to tell you something about the products I used. Everyone can make a mistake. I know many people will say I am stupid I did this at home by myslef, but let's face the truth - half of the Youtube girls bleach their hair at home and I believe I am not the only one who messed that up. 

So now to the products ! This time, let' s talk about shampoos and conditioners.

1. TRESEMMÉ PLATINUM STRENGTH

This looked to so great, something I needed. Shampoo and conditioner that has the power to recover your hair from 2 years of abusing. Two years of damage gone by using these? I had to give it a try. What a dissapointment. Thank god it was so chaep, because oterwise I would be very upset. I found it in a deal 3 for 2 or something like this and the bottles are bigger - 500ml than usual hair products so it looked like a bargain. What a waste. Did nothing to my hair and the smell makes me sick. Have been using these for couple of months and then I just gave up. Don't want to be mean and if you have a good experience with these products, it is good, but did nothing for me. 

2. JOHN FRIEDA BRILLIANT BRUNETTE

Even John Frieda did not save the day. I had the red shampoo and conditioner before and then I tried this one  - colour protecting, moisturising. Not really good one. The product itself is brownish, smell bit better then Tresemmé, but still, did not see any difference after couple of months of using. The red ones (I think hair recovery) were even worse. I generally don' t like John Frieda products, everything was so far quite dissapointing. Even the colours as they don' t last very long (only like 3 weeks) and grey hairs are showing up very soon as well. No.

3. AUSSIE MIRACLE MOIST

Aussie did the best job all of the products I have used. My hair felt better, the ends were not so crispy and split and overall the feeling was very nice. Reconstructor is a really good product and if you wan a budget hair shampoo and conditioner (and treatment) - put your hands on these. They are 3 for 10 all the time in Boots, or 2 for 7 in Superdrug, also very often. Worked quite well for me, the smell is absolutely amazing, like bubblegum and I was quite happy. I just wanted something more. Something I could be really happy about and make sure it helps my hair 100%.

DAMAGED HAIR STORY

Guys, this is a story. Haha. Seriously. I have always had beautiful long hair. I used to dye it every month black, because this colour suited me and I really liked the outcome. My hair was always in an excellent condition, using a deep mask treatment once week. I used to also straighten my hair almost every day, using a heat protector it all was pretty much okay. Last October I decided to change my hair colour for chocolate brown. I have always been thinking about what it would look like to have brown hair (my natural colour is dark brown). 

As I did not want to spend fortune in salon I decided to do the job at home. I did not know much about hair colors, but after watching few tutorials on Youtube I considered myself as an expert. What a mistake. I wish I could go back and change history as this step made my life and confidence very bitter.

Now little info about what I did. First, I bought Jo Baz hair colour removal. Two boxes, following the instructions, nothing happen. Some bits of my hair were still black, my roots gingery-brown, the whole thing not pretty good. 

Next step was bleach. I think I used to Be Blonde one, applied on my hair all over and left it do the job. Black colour was gone, I was left (as expected) with orangey-gingery-yellow colour with black strands and patches, ouch. I bought in advance Garnier Olia hair colour in Brown 5.0 and dyed straight away. The outcome was not bad, brown colour, with black bits here and there but with massive brassines. 

Let' s focus on the condition of my hair. My ends were absolutely fried, dry and crispy. Looked terrible. The hair in general was thinner than I remember and I noticed massive hair loss. I tried many things to fix it, mainly focusing on split ends treatments etc. Nothing really helped and month later, I headed to hairdresser to tidy up the mess. The hairdresser was not very happy to see the mess and had to chop my hair 15 inches shorter. This made me very sad but I knew there was no other way. Soon, my colour needed a fix, so I applied the John Frieda 5A Medium Ash Brown. The outcome was quite nice, hair was quite okay. 

I still used all the deep conditioning treatments, hair masks, hair oils, heath protectants, but in two weeks, my ends were split and fried again. I decided not to do anything for two months with my hair. That means, no styling, no colouring, no cutting. Nothing. I wore my hair in pineapple bun every day which made my self confidence absolutely low and I was not feeling good at all, because I was used to beautiful long healthy shiny locks. In February I went for cut and Brazilian Keratin Treatment. The hairdresser had to chop my hair significantly again, made it very short, like under shoulder length. The BKT did nothing to my hair to help and my ends were frizzy and my end still split, the overall feeling terrible. 

I was not happy with the colour either, as the roots were so much lighter than my ends, trying to fix it I dyed my hair with darker hair colour, made it all brown-black. Not bad, but my hair looked almost black again, so another sad feelings. 

Soon, in April I headed to hairdresser again, because I needed serious get-rid-of-split-ends again. My hair did not even have time to grow back and yet I had to visit the hairdresser again. This one, he cut it even shorter saying that once more and all the bleached areas and strands should be gone. 

I was still very cautious, did not style my hair much, just sometimes, wearing them in a bun most of the times. Did not make me feel very pretty at all. Not sure what happened, because couple weeks later, in June, I just needed the cut AGAIN. And I decided to say good bye to long hair and chop it for long bob. Longer bob was quite in back in June and many celebrities wore their hir shorter. I thought let' s give it a try, let' s get rid of the damaged hair for good and let's start from the scratch. 

The cut was perfect, suited me very well. It looked wonderful. Soon after, I dyed my hair with Casting colour - Chocolate Brown. I found out I was never happy with lighter hair, but I did not want to go back to black. Now my hair is very nice. The longer bob is growing out slowly and now my hair is slightly undeneath my shoulders and 1 inch under my collarbones. Looks very cute, hair is healthier (but still not what it used to be). I miss my long hair so much and the healthy condition as well. In September I had my last cut, telling the hairdresser that I want to let my hair grow now and won' t cut my hair for couple months so she got it ready for growing out period. 

Like I said, the condition is quite nice now, my hair colour is deep bronw black - suits me very well with my black eyebrows and I feel well in this colour. Everyone likes my shorter hair, but I still miss my long hair so much so I will definitely let it grow. I threw away all rubbish products and invested in salon brands hair products (seeing the difference immediately) and I colour my hair less, only with amonia free hair colours. I just wanted to say, this year regarding my har was very difficult and sad. I hated my hair and it was only my fault. I would recommend, do not bleach your hair, do not experiment if you want to keep your hair healthy. It is just not worth it. It is waste of money and energy. I can not even think about how much I spent for all the rubbish treatments and all the cuts, still worrying about my hair. I would never do it again. Never never never. I really regret doing it. 

So please, before you do anything to your hair, think about it first. It might be good, but it also might be bad and if it goes wrong, then it is very difficult, expensive and painful to get things back. 

Thanks for reading!

THE HAIR FOOD

Since I have damaged my hair last November (completely and irreversibly), I had to try really hard to get my hair into the condition it used to be. Sigh. I am telling you, stay away from bleach, and all the chemicals and cherish what you have and don't risk. Well at least I will never ever do anything with my hair that involves bleach. During the last year I had to chop my super long hair (almost waist length) into long bob and my hair is still not healed completely. But I hope soon.

Now, I am trying to re-grow my hair and maintain it and keep it very healthy. The condition of my hair depends on many things. First, if I use too much of curling wand or straighteners, my hair get super dry and I get split ends. Second, if I color my hair more then once in 6 weeks or with permanent hair colors, it becomes very dry as well and coarse. And finally, if I eat rubbish, my hair turns rubbish. 

So. I focus on what I eat. To help it a bit, I picked up two packages of "hair food". One of them is Biotin and I found this in Holland and Barrett. There is 100 tablets for 6 quids. Taking one pill a day it makes it more than 3 months and I think that it good. This is my third box already and I can see a difference. I have always been taking some vitamins or tablets for my hair and skin as I know that I could eat better. Biotin helped my hair in the recovery process, in the beginning I used to take two tablets a day to boost the growing and healing proces. Will purchase again, for me it is almost as a hair insurance.

Recently I picked up vitamins for skin, face and nails. It is called Perfectil Triple Active from Vitabiotics. I read so much about this on the internet and I wanted to speed up the growth of my hair even more so I am taking these right now and I will keep you posted about the results. But if you are looking for something similar, maybe read the reviews as this seems like a good one for a good price. There are 30 tablets, taking one a day with meal it makes it one month. Not bad at all. 

If you are not keen on any vitamins and similar stuff then it is a good to just think about what you eat and help your beauty with your food.  So next time in Tesco definetely pick up some fishy fish - salmon is the best, then veg and fruits - bananas, strawberries,brocolli, spinach and then also  nuts and eggs. Drink lots of water and add some green tea.

Let me know if you like to read more about food/healthy?

LITTLE HELPERS

Do you see the five ordinary looking bottles on my cute face cloth? Those are my beauty heroes. You might have actually heard about all of them. I would like to mention them just one more time, because they have important place in my first aid kit! 

1. Boots Build Up Removal Shampoo

I noticed few bloggers were raving about this little shampoo. I was bit sceptical first, as it is quite cheap - something around 3 quit, it´s Boots brand and the bottle looks let´s say boring. Mistake. This is my third bottle already and I will keep repurchasing until I die. I feel in love with this shampoo, it does a proper cleanse, hair feels so clean and fresh after. This does wonders, really. I try to use once a week or when feeling like my hair is bit tired from all the hair stuff I use. Go and buy it. 

2. Baby Shampoo

I use the one from Jonhnson´s and I keep one bottle in the bathroom all the time. First, I use this shampoo for brush cleaning. I am not sure if it´s okay. Really. But it gives them perfect wash, smells nice and leaves the brushes in a perfect condition, really. Second, I use it after I dyed my hair. I know, seems strange, but I colour my hair dark brown which almost everytime appears black. So to get rid of the black hue that stays in the hair for the first couple of washes I use this. Followed by conditioner. One quit ladies and gentlemen, one quit. Priceless. 

3. Bio Oil

Here comes the pricey one. If you find spare 6 quit in your pocket (or maybe rather on your credit card), "invest" in bio oil. I really think this does help. Smells nice. I apply on any little scars I have on my skin (like little cuts after shaving my legs) and also on my face. Again, not sure of this is okay. But after a spot attack (that comes at least once a month) I am left with scarface (not the movie one). I have big red supernovas all over my cheeks as a result of dead spots. Applying this makes them all disappear within a day, two. I also apply when I feel my face needs a little oomph after party/stress/bad diet etc. Basically, masage into face before going to bed and follow with moisturizer. Sweet.

4. Lip Butter

My lips, my poor lips, so dry and so damaged from all the bad habbits. I love this lip butter from The Body Shop, the "taste" is shea butter and makes my lips so soft. Using it before sleep and waking up with baby lips, haha. Any kind is definitely enough, but I just think lips should get some extra moisture and lip butter is the best source! Yummy.

5. Tea Tree Oil

Another oil. Oils rules, haha. This is such a helper in the battle against spots. It is like a first aid when the spot appears (sometimes you can not see it but you can feel it). When my skin is really bad, I apply on the spot areas before going to bed. Smell so good, sometimes bit itchy but it is because it works! Now I have one from The Body Shop, beefore I tried the one from Superdrug and they all are good. 

HAIR HEROES

Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you: My Hair Heroes. They always save my hair on a very bad hair day. And I just need them in my life. I love them. I admire them. And I just can´t imagine life without them. Hahaha. 

If you were also wondering what is the best hairspray to get from a drugstore, seek no more. Elnett hairsprays are the very best ones, especially one particular hairspray. I mean, we all want the same thing. Something that can keep our hair tidy all day long, without any little flyaways, but without the feeling of heavy sticky hair as well. Something that can dissapear after brushing your hair. Yep. It´s a list. I tried many. And I mean many hairsprays. But none left me satisfied (haha), usually the hold was nothing special and as soon as I left my house, the precious hours of doing my blowdry were all lost (yes, it takes me quite a whille to do my blowdry). Or, the feeling. The glue like feeling in my hair. And the texture. Like a stone. Yes, some of the hairsprays just turned my hair into a stone. Or helmet. Not good. You don´t want that. You want a perfext hairspray that can keep your hair in order and yet still feel natural. 

L'Oréal Paris Elnett Satin Hairspray Lumière Supreme Hold 

What a name! And what a size! Looks almos like a trophy between the other hairstyle products on my shelf. Seriously, this is my favorite hairspray. Sometimes I try a different one just for the sake of trying a new thing, but always running back to this one. In case you are just about to start a hair products base and need one piece of everything, give this hairspray a go.

Another savior, a piece you need in your base as well: dry shampoo. It´s a thing you just must have in your house/ handbag/ pocket/ anywhere. Just for the case. You know the plans - today I am defnitely gonna wash my hair. And then you end up falling asleep on the couch in the living room at 9pm and in the morning wondering what was the last thing you wanted to do before going to bed. Or another scenerio, planning to do your hair in the morning before going to work/ school? And suddenly wondering how come it´s already 8.15am and yet you are still in your PJs with half of the cup of coffee. And your hair looks like you can fry some fish´n´chips up there. Well, for these occasions (rare occasions) you should just have one dry shampoo at home. 

Batiste Dry Shampoo XXL Volume - Big & Bouncy 

I opted for Batiste one XXL Volume. When doing this quick saving my roots thing, why not to add some extra texture, some extra volume and just make it look a bit more done, hm? I say yes. You can have one with nice smell, one for brunettes (thinking about this one!) but I think this is two birds one stone - saving a bad hair day and greasy looking roots and adding some fluffy texture and volume. Again, thinking about building a hair ensamble? In need for a dry shampoo? Give it a go.

Has anyone tried the Aussie dry shampoo? Curious what they are like!!!

HAIR GROWTH BOOST MIRACLE

One day, I will tell you my hair story. It is very long, annoying story about how I bleached my hair, completely damaged every bit of it, could not find any suitable hair dye that would last longer than two washes, and most of all, two traumatising hairdresser visits. I bet everyone went through this horrific experience when a lovely looking hairdresser, chatting and smiling cut the hair a bit more than one inch. Maybe more like two inches. Or three. Or five. Or ten. One day, I will tell you my hair story and I will probably make me cry again (my boyfriend doesn´t understand why I cry everytime there is something wrong with my hair). But not today. Today I want to mention two products I started to use after the hairdresser (not my hairdresser, just a random one) chopped my hair a little bit way too much and left me in tears. I was always proud of my long lucious locks and I wanted them back asap.

After hours spent on the internet, googling every possible treatment and method how to help your hair grow a bit faster (including scalp massage, not washing your hair for like a week and keeping it in fishtail all day long, vitamins, tablets, drops,...), I found many girls recommended Lee Strafford mask witth a very remarkable name: "For Hair that never Grows past a certain Length". Well, did not put many hopes in that one, but desperate to try anything I gave it a go, thinking something like "How can possibly a hair mask help to boost my hair growth?!".

Guys, it can. It actually does an amazing job. Not that I had 15 inches of my hair back over night, but the difference after couple of weeks was there. My hair grew faster. Really. Now I am using this mask every week, at least once (because I had a terrible hairdresser experience last month again). This time I also picked up the little spray with the same effect.

Lee Stafford products smell amazing. They smell absolutely incredible and I love it. The mask is not too thick, but not too liquidy either. Haven´t noticed any difference in the quality of my hair, mostly because I usually use it mainly on my roots (that´s where the hair grows from, right?) and leave it sit for let´s say 15-20 minutes, sometimes even longer. The spray is supposed to be used on the roots area as well, on the wet hair. No, none of these products make my hair greasy or oily. They both leave my hair smelling incredbly, ahhhh!

Honestly, I love this stuff. I pick up at least one mask everytime after "hairdresser accident". But really, I will tell you more soon. About my hair. My poor poor hair. 

Any good tips for hair growth? Anything at all? I will be gratefull for anything, haha.