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Hair Care Stories - Health and Beauty

What was your worst beauty buy?

August 28th 2007 01:24

Recently my sister was ~~conned~~ persuaded into buying a plethora of skincare products to treat her acne-prone skin. Two weeks later, she lamented over the loss of $300 of her hard-earned money on products that had only made her skin cry out for hydration as it sprouted a multitude of big, red angry pimples. As much as I was tempted to ask her why she chose to trust a beauty therapist whose face resembled an abstract painting of oranges and blues and who looked like she wrestled with a cheap can of tan spray judging by the zigzag colours of her cleavage, sadly, it’s a tale I’ve heard (and moaned out myself) too often. In our desperate attempt to imitate the flawless, glowing faces of our favourite celebs and retain our youth, beauty products will continue to be a hit and miss and my sister was not the first – or the last – to vow revenge on these beauty companies for false advertising.

In the past several years, I’ve probably thrown out a hundred garbagefuls of useless beauty and cosmetic products. Here are only some of the products I bought in 2007 that I wish I hadn’t spent the time, money and effort on :

Honey Moisturising Shampoo & Conditioner from The Body Shop

The Body Shop Honey Moisturising Shampoo

The Body Shop contains all natural ingredients across their range of products and, after falling in-love with White Musk, I stupidly thought I’d feel the same for the Honey Moisturising Shampoo & Conditioner. Not so. Not only was I not fond of the nut smell (what happened to the scent of the main ingredient, honey?), the shampoo and conditioner combo only made my hair dry and brittle that I actually heard squeaking noises as I combed it. These are probably the worst shampoo and conditioner products I’ve ever used and that’s saying something considering my mum used to buy those $2 strawberry shampoos from The Reject Shop. And for $17.50 each, you’d think they’d do the job.

Volume Shocking Mascara by Loreal

With its dual applicators (lash definition and a top coat) and shaped like an eye, the packaging was attractive. Of course, it also helps that someone like Aishwarya Rai is promoting it on TV. Which makes me wonder how long her make-up artist took to untangle the black clumps created by the top coat because it made my lashes stick together and were really clumpy, trying to separate them with a brush didn’t work. And what’s with up with making the base coat grey? As I didn’t want to apply too much of the top coat due to the clumpiness factor, it didn’t cover up the greys created by the base coat so my eyelashes looked like they were growing old with me. I am a fan of Loreal cosmetics but this was gets a thumbs down.

Veet Hair Removal Cream for Sensitive Skin

Shaving apparently only makes your hair grow back thicker and waxing hurts like hell. So why not try a hair removal cream? Apply it to a hairy patch, wipe it off after a few minutes and voila! Hair gone, leaving your skin feeling silky smooth – as the promo would have us believe. While I was prepared to accept that this hair cream didn’t make all my hair completely disappear – sometimes it resembled a forest with the trees chopped halfway down, I didn’t understand why the cream made my skin itchy, red and irritable, resulting in a scar (similar to one you’d get if you’d been distracted shaving) the next day. If this cream is for the sensitive skin, I would hate to try out the one for normal skin. So back to waxing I go.

Any of those backless, strapless adhesive bras

If you’re a size bigger than a C, do not try any of these bras that supposedly offer all the support you need for your fuller size. Even though the cup I got was a size D, the cups didn’t even cover a quarter of my boobs and hung limply at the bottom like sagging excess skin.

What was your worst beauty buy so far for 2007?

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Posted By: Aimzster - Category: Skin Care, Hair Care, Stories

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#2 Stupid Thing I've done for Beauty's sake

July 17th 2007 20:49

#2 Cooking Oil for shiny hair, anyone?

I once read in a book (a romance of all things!) where the Italian heroine was admired for her black, straight, shiny and manageable hair. Her secret was, after shampooing and conditioning, she would put oil in her hair and leave it there. There was no mention of what type of oil it was that made her hair so silky and smooth. And, as young and naïve as I was, I assumed it was whatever oil was available in the household. And the only available oil in our household was cooking oil. But not just cooking oil, mind you, but pure olive oil. So I put two tablespoons of olive oil in my hair straight after rinsing off the conditioner, distributing it evenly from my roots to the tips. When the oil started dripping on my shoulders, I simply wiped my shoulders with a towel. When the oil continued to drip down onto my shoulders three hours later and I saw that there were now pimples on my shoulders, my neck and parts of my face where my oily hair had brushed against, I simply pulled my hair up and away from any exposed skin. But when my head, which was now filled with limp, stringy oily strands of hair, started to get itchy and people close to me began asking what it was that smelled like spring rolls, I realised that the ‘beauty tip’ wasn’t quite such a beauty tip after all.

*image taken from www.wikipedia.com

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Posted By: Aimzster - Category: Hair Care, Stories

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The 3 Worst Haircuts I've ever had..

July 16th 2007 20:31

I've done some pretty bad things to my hair... believe me. I've gone through massive mats in my hair and horrid hair cuts and awful orange. Here are the three worst hair cuts, the biggest mistakes... the first one anyone with a working brain should be able to figure out.

1. The 'my friend was doing my hair and the brush got stuck in part of it, so she chopped that part off' haircut. Um, bad idea. I had to go and get it cut evenly... my beautiful, shoulder-blade-long hair which was really not that beautiful, but which happened to be my pride and joy at the time, went to just-above-shoulder length.

2. The 'my mom dragged me to the haircutters because I wasn't doing it properly...and just happened to take me to an awful place' haircut. Magicuts was the place. I ended up with a mushroom around my head, which didn't get fixed for about two months. The people there didn't even care enough to make it look nice. The only saving grace was that I died it red the next day...so it was a red mushroom instead of a blonde one.

3. The 'I-butchered-it-myself' haircut. I've actually only done this once, and I've been cutting my hair for about a year now. When you cut your own hair... it's a good idea to use your fingers to form straight lines and cut as straight as possible. Don't get fancy. I've done that and then had to fix it a week later. No fun.

There you go... the three worst haircuts on the planet.

On a side note... I'll be on temporary hiatus-ish status. More details at my blog.

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Posted By: Dianna G - Category: Hair Care, Stories

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#8 Stupid Thing I've done for Beauty's sake

June 28th 2007 17:12

#8 Snip those stray hairs away!

What beautiful braid you have...

Ok, this little beauty faux pas was, thankfully, done when I was at a tender age of 11. You’re probably wondering why I hadn’t learnt from this mistake of concocting my own beauty tips through my teen years but then I wouldn’t have anything to write about on this post, will I?

While every other girl in my year had their hair in a plain, boring ponytail or wore one of those frilly headbands that were designed to make you look like a fairy princess but ended up making you look like a creative bird had just made a massive poop on your head, my own hair was swept back in graceful, interwoven strands – aka, a braid.

In a world of ponytails and bird poops, I got a lot of compliments on my braid. Having just arrived in Australia and with my limited understanding of English, I was still able to deduce that 1) they really liked my braid 2) they wanted to know who did my braid 3) they wanted to know how long it took to do my braid and 4) when I would stop merely nodding and smiling and answer their questions about the braid already.

To answer these questions belatedly, it was my older sister who did my braid which took her only ten minutes to do and which she could only do on Monday mornings. And when you only have one friend in the world who also couldn’t speak English and also couldn’t speak your own native tongue and the only way to display your friendship was through a series of nods, smiles and grunts, you’d want to keep these compliments coming.

So, on a quest to gain more English-speaking friends, I decided to retain my braid for one whole week. How, you ask? Simple. 1) I didn’t wash my hair for the week. 2) I slept with the braid. 3) When stray hairs would weave their way out as they’re wont to do when I woke up in the morning, I would take out the scissors and cut the stray hairs away, leaving the braid, you guessed it, intact. And when the stray hairs bunched up into thick strands or knots, I would snip them away too. By the end of the week, when I finally pulled that elastic band out and framed the remnants of my hair around my face, I looked like an 80s rocker with layers upon tufts upon layers of hair. Which made me consider going bald – for only a second.

*image taken from www.wikipedia.com

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Posted By: Aimzster - Category: Hair Care, Stories

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Say NO to Bleach

June 21st 2007 18:10

To those of you with long, jet-black hair, I know what you’re thinking. I’ve been through it too. I’ve also stood in front of my bathroom mirror in frustration with an empty bottle of dye in my hand and wailed, “Why, oh, why hasn’t my hair turned out French Roast?” I, too, have cursed the stubbornness of my hair colour and envied my friends traipsing around with their new blonde or reddish highlights. Several times, they would try to appease me and tell me that the dye did work – if the sun was directly behind me or if I was directly under bright lights. But unless I walked around with a torch in my hand and beamed it at my head, my hair remained black. Boring, basic black. I would flip through glossy magazine pages and stare wistfully at Beyonce and JLo with their beautiful, bountiful honey-coloured hair which seemed to light up their faces. And I wondered : to bleach or not to bleach?

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