At the beginning of January, I was starting to despair about the state of my hair (oooh, that rhymes!). Here’re my recommendations for winter hair – colour and care.
Winter didn’t seem to agree with it: hats, wind, central heating took their toll. My long term plan (dyeing it platinum in summer) seemed out of reach, the intermediate plan (peach-coloured balayage) didn’t work out. My favourite conditioner was discontinued. In short, I didn’t like my colour, my length, and the general appearance and healthiness of my hair. If you can relate, here’re a few things I did to give it a boost.
Purple and frizzy
My hair has some kind of purple ombre situation going on: bleached and then dyed purple in the lengths, my natural brown (also dyed purple from time to time) at the roots and crown of my head. I don’t wash it every day, don’t use hot tools but blow-dry occasionally and sleep with it in a bun. Neverthless, my wavey strands are frizzy, while my ends are comparatively healthy (maybe because my hairdresser gets a little trigger happy with the scissors every time she sees me).
Colour: Goldwell Dualsenses Color Revive in Cool Red
I colour my hair with Goldwell products (Elumen) and love them. I don’t know why I didn’t thought before about using a colour conditioner to give my colour a boost before, but having tried that, I’m totally on board. Cool Red is made to give reds and purples a boost, and that it does.
You’re supposed to leave it in for two to five minutes, and after giving it five, my hair looks freshly coloured. Sadly, the effect lasts only for about two washes. I definitely want to try the warm red option as well and see if I end with the coppery peach I wanted in the first place.
There’s a downside…
Word of warning: this is especially created as a booster for Goldwell colours so I’ve no idea how the conditioner works with other hair dyes you might’ve used. Also, this STAINS. Hardcore. Your hands when using it, and your white tiles, and then your towels. Soap and a good clean will do for hands and tiles, and the washing machine takes care of the towels. But oh boy, I was a bit shocked upon seeing my burgundy hands. Tip: clean stains quickly, and in the case of tiles, the quicker the better.
As a conditioning product, I wasn’t very happy with the Color Revive. For me, it’s a colour product and nothing else.
Care
Part 1: conditioner
When it comes to haircare, I’m usually a drugstore person. I mean, I have a pretty pricey makeup and skincare habit, so usually there’s no money left for expensive haircare. (Also, colouring your hair is expensive enough.) When my fave, cheap-as-chips conditioner was discontinued, I started to circle through all kinds of conditioner brands (L’Oreal, Wella, Guhl), but all fell short. My hair became a knotty mess. It wasn’t pretty.
Langhaarmädchen Intense Repair Conditioner
I finally settled on a Germany only, drugstore chain dm-only (I’m sorry, international readers) product. A young brand, founded by two hair stylists, called Langhaarmädchen (I know, it’s a mouthful – it means long-haired girl). Their intense repair conditioner with coconut and buriti oil is the the anti-frizz solution that works on my thin, damaged hair.
There’re indeed lots of different oils in the formula, and also a lot of silicones. I personally don’t mind them. There’re also some amino acids in there that help with moisturizing damaged hair. The Intense Conditioner has a pleasant coconut scent and doesn’t overly weigh my hair down.
Part 2: mask
When über-blogger Christine from Temptalia tells you she uses Briogeo on her galaxy hair, you listen. At least, I did. She told me she uses Briogeo’s Don’t Despair Repair deep conditioning mask once a week on her ridiculously shiny and healthy hair. (Honestly, how does she do it?!) So, OBVIOUSLY, I bought the mask. Briogeo is a very buzzy brand and has a lot of very trendy claims: No sulfates, silicones or parabens, gluten-free, cruelty-free and so on.
Briogeo Don’t Despair, Repair
Nevertheless, the formula is full of moisturising oils (rosehip, almond and argan oils) and Vitamin B and proteins. There’re no studies at all that say that Vitamin B externally helps your hair in any way. But you might know of Biotin (aka Vitamin B) supplements that might help strengthen hair and nails and promotes growth.
Now, proteins in hair care are great if you have colour treated hair: the bleaching damages the hair strands, and products with proteins in it help to repair that. But: use too much, and your hair becomes brittle and prone to breakage. A LOT of hair care products for colour treated hair include proteins: take care not to use them too much.
Good? Good.
The mask itself is very pleasant to use (I hate a runny mask!) and did make my hair silky smooth with a lingering pleasant flowery scent (it uses a shedload of fragrances like limonene and various citrus oils: If you’re sensitive, beware).
Result: winter hair – colour and care
I’ve realised that there’s less hair in my brush and that my hair looks generally healthier. I plan to give it a rest until later in Spring when I plan to take that next step on the road to platinum hair and go lighter. Nowadays I don’t feel that bad about thinking about that and I also am not that afraid of killing my hair doing that. (Although I guess there’ll be a lot of Olaplex in my future.)
Please note that this post is not sponsored in any way. We buy products ourselves, with our own money, and don’t accept exchanging goods or money for reviews. We are completely independent, and our reviews reflect that.
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