Jose Eber crazy European flat irons

My newest obsession (of the moment) is the Jose Eber flat iron. I already had a nice flat iron (a CHI) before I bought this one, but as I was walking through the mall the other day I somehow got roped into “testing out” another one at the Jose Eber kiosk. I was practically ambushed by those charming but somewhat obnoxious European men who work at the mall and call out to you “pretty lady, is your hair naturally curly?” (In a heavy European accent, naturally).

At any rate, one thing led to another and five minutes later my naturally curly, frizzy mess of hair was straight. I’m telling you, it only took FIVE MINUTES. With my $120 CHI flat iron, it takes me 15-20 minutes to straighten my hair.

But when my lovely new European friend told me that Jose Eber flat irons cost a whopping $250 each, I laughed in his face and told him when hell froze over I would spend that kind of money on an iron (in a nicer way, of course).

“For you, pretty lady, a special deal…” he said. Right, I’m sure he’s never said that before. “How much did you pay for your horrible CHI?” he asked.

“It’s not horrible, but I got it on ebay for $80.”

“Your CHI is ruining your hair! Jose Eber makes it soft and shiny! For you, I will match the price of your CHI, but don’t tell anybody because you are robbing me blind!”

Sadly, I’m a sucker for a good deal. I got the price down to $75 and I bought the damn thing in hot pink. But as soon I as I got home I looked for Jose Eber on amazon.com and found irons for as little as $69.99, so don’t be fooled into paying anything close to the $250 the men at the mall are asking for it.

At any rate, it’s been a week since my impulse purchase and my hair still straightens in five to ten minutes, which is a huge feat for someone with as much curly hair as I have. The iron also makes my hair softer than it’s been in years, and much shinier than my CHI makes it. So yes, I would highly recommend Jose Eber flat irons.

The dealio:

Price: $69-$250

Colors and design: Tons!

Warranty: Lifetime!!

If you’re on the market for a flat iron, Jose Eber is the man!

Sarah

Bumpits Website Isn't Worth It

Image borrowed from bumpits.com

I was going to wait until my Bumpits arrived before I blogged about them, but my experience on the website made it pertinent that I blog now.

As some of you probably know, Bumpits are the little comb-like, clip-like things that promise to create the perfect “hair bump” or “bitch poof,” as my dear friend Brittany calls them. It seems as if you can’t turn on the TV without being bombarded with a dozen commercials for the damn things. Naturally, I had to try them.

The TV commercials promise an inexpensive product for $19.99 plus p&h. Once on the website, www.bumpits.com, I see that I only get two Bumpits for $19.99 and p&h is $7.95. To get the product advertised on TV that is supposedly FREE, an additional p&h of $6.95 is added to your bill, resulting in a whopping $34.89 total. As you can see, that is a huge jump from $19.99.

But of course, I love products too much to pass up the opportunity for the Bumpit. I’m sucked in. Once my credit card information is entered, I am bombarded with five pop-up windows asking me to purchase more products, most of which have nothing to do with the Bumpits (and all of which are very expensive). In order to confirm my original order, I need to sift through all of these other propositions and find the tiny, faintly colored “No” button on each page. Needless to say, the Bumpits website is a time-consuming, expensive pain.

Hopefully when they arrive, it’ll all be worth it ☺. Perfect poof, here I come! I’ll take pictures as soon as they’re here!

The Secret to Healthy, Shiny Hair: Mayo??

When I was a child I read on some crazy website that putting mayo in my hair would make it shiny and soft. The thing was, at the age of eight, I already had shiny, healthy hair. My daddy, well intentioned but no hair-care expert, allowed me spread a cup of mayo all over my eight-year-old head like it was a Subway sandwich. The end result was a traumatic week at school with wet-looking, stinky, greasy hair. It was a week I never lived down.

Now, at the age of 21, I'm older and wiser. Or am I? I've dyed my hair a different shade of blond, brown, and blue-ish, blond-ish, brown-ish every month for the past two years. As most of you know, I was committing hair suicide.

My hair no longer has the shine and health it had when I was eight. But whose does? And now that I'm seeing some serious breakage in my ends, and having difficultly getting my hair to grow much longer than my shoulders (which I've never had a problem doing before!), I'm once again considering the mayonnaise trick. But dare I risk it?

According to online sources, mayonnaise is made up of a blend of egg yolks, oil, vinegar, and lemon juice. When combined, they help add strength, moisture and shine to hair. Many other hair treatments lack the protein that mayo has, which why it’s used to add strength to weak hair.

MY EXPERIMENT:

1) Add ½ cup of full-fat mayo to dry, unwashed hair.
2) Cover with a plastic cap (or warm towel if you’re cap-less), and let penetrate for 15-30 minutes.
3) Rinse thoroughly with cool water (be careful not to use hot water, you don’t want to accidently cook the egg into your hair!)
4) Shampoo and condition as usual.

Despite the nasty smell of mayo in my hair for the 20 minutes I left it there, the overall experience was not all that unpleasant. The end result is that my hair really is a little bit SOFTER, SHINIER, and possibly stronger (but how do I really test that in just one day?). I plan to use the other half of my mayo jar in a week to do another treatment, and I'll report back.

-Sarah

Horse Shampoo-- Does it really make your hair grow faster?

What’s the deal with Horse Shampoo?

I laughed out loud the first time my friend Kelsey told me she was using horse shampoo to make her hair grow faster. Shampoo designed for horses?! Whaaaat? A few months later, wonder upon wonders, her hair was significantly longer.

Being a product junkie myself, I needed to do some product research.

The brand of horse shampoo everyone’s been talking about is called “Mane’nTail.” When I first went to manentail.com/home2.asp, I was initially a bit thrown off. The website asked me to select whether I was using the products for “personal” or for “animal care.” I scanned over the picture of a well-groomed horse and selected the picture of a bored looking girl with very long hair and the words “personal care” plastered across her picture. I chuckled to myself that the website even had to ask.

According to the Q&A part of Mane’n Tail’s website, its products were originally developed for horses. Horse owners reported seeing “significant improvement in the health and appearance of their horses’ manes and tails.” The improvement in their animals’ hair prompted horse owners to try the shampoo out on themselves (which wouldn’t have been my first inclination, but hell, why not!?) Animal owners supposedly had the same results.

Still, I was skeptical.

After looking at the Mane’n Tail website, I did a bit more research into the success of the product from outsiders’ perspective.

Can horse shampoo really make my hair grow any faster than it already does?
The answer is “no.” Nothing you put on your head can increase growth (at least nothing that has been discovered thus far). However, Mane N’ Tail does give us Long Hair Hopefuls a few good reasons to buy it.

First of all, those of us trying to grow out our hair need a shampoo that moisturizes and helps to prevent breakage. Mane N’ Tail does just that. It also comes without the sticky and unhealthy residue that many other shampoos leave behind. All Mane’n Tail leaves behind is clean, healthy hair. And best of all, it’s CHEAP (A few bucks per bottle at most grocery and drug stores!).

So, I obviously had to purchase a bottle of Mane’n Tail to try on myself. Just so that I could write a fair and accurate review, I used up the entire bottle before commenting. As promised, the shampoo cleaned my hair without leaving it dry and brittle. It didn’t smell bad, and it didn’t turn my hair blue (as I’d heard a rumor it would). However, it didn’t do anything amazing to my hair, either. My hair grew at its normal rate, and for now, I’m going back to my old standby, SunSilk Captivating Curls shampoo (until I find something else intriguing, of course!)

More later!
Sarah