Posts with tag conditioner

Ever since Kelly Clarkson hit the scene on American Idol, we've been following her hairstyles.

We have a special, personalized giveaway from a very special source: Nick Arrojo, the amazing stylist and makeover king of What Not to Wear, is giving away an autographed copy of his new book Great Hair.

We'd like to introduce you to Raiquel Cole, CEO of Amourai Organique, a company specializing in all-natural beauty and hair products. Their shampoos and conditioners are free of harmful toxic chemicals like sulfates and parabens, and instead contain natural and organic ingredients to moisturize, strengthen and protect hair. We caught up with Raiquel to find out more about her company's mission and how she got started.

We're pretty sure some of you are sister-fans of Sebastian Potion 9 (which we still refer to as Potion #9, but corrected in this post so we don't look dumb.)

Remember the sticky, gluey consistency, that was so hard to get off your hands? The orange color? The way you could use in on wet or dry hair, and how it was the one product you could count on to give your Rachel-do the perfect mixture of smoothness with body?

Oh, those were some good times. But inexplicably, we were lured away from our reliable Potion 9 by the novel temptations of Pureology and Bumble and bumble.

We'd forgotten just how good Potion 9 was, until a box of review samples for the New Sebastian Professional line arrived.

Having curly hair is like having an unpaid second job, with all the time it takes to find the right product and the right technique to make your behave and be beautiful.

Atlanta-based Keneesha Hudson got tired of living a double life and decided to make it her first job. She opened Urbanbella, a "Curly Hair Apothecary" that specializes in curly, kinky and wavy hair textures.

Adding to her own experience (her hair looks awesome, and isn't she pretty?) Keneesha and her team of experts find and test the best products.

If you can't make it to Georgia to have an in-person consultation, you can at least check out Urbanbella's favorite products, like Kinky Curly Curling Custard and Miss Jessie's Stretch Silkening Crème, and follow Keneesha's tips for bringing out the best in your curls:

Today over at Stylelist there is a great gallery that reveals the hair care secrets of some of the best-headed celebrities out there, like Jennifers Aniston and Lopez.

Even better, most of the gallery descriptions include the drug store equivalents of the pricey Hollywood treatments.

I wash my hair with good-old-fashioned shampoo, and I figured I was lookin' alright. But today I learn that if I want my hair to really shine, I need to spend the big bucks.

At least, that's how it works for Catherine Zeta Jones, who apparently has so much money that she can spend more than £200 (about $400) just washing her hair. How is this even possible, you ask? Does she light her bathroom with fires made from burning money?

Not exactly (but almost). The actress believes she got her shiny locks by lathering her scalp in truffles and caviar. A spa near London flies in the fish eggs from Iran five days ahead of every treatment, then, upon Miss Zeta-Jones' arrival, washes her hair in a truffle-based shampoo before smearing on the caviar -- all while the star sips champagne and nibbles on culinary delicacies.

According to a source for the UK's Daily Mail, "The eggs are packed with omega-3 fatty acids necessary for the formation of structural proteins" which are supposed to repair dry and damaged hair.

According to me, this salon is scamming rich people and getting away with it.

Salon products -- the ones that actually work -- often cost in upwards of $15, and that can be a high price to pay for great hair when you're on a limited budget. But that's why Burt's Bees Pomegranate and Soy Very Volumizing Conditioner feels like such an awesome deal.

First off, the conditioner works incredibly well. The pomegranate extract -- which happens to smell amazing -- adds light moisture while sugar ester and honey condition your locks with a natural humectant. Toss in some soy amino acids for lift and body, and result is soft, shiny and voluminous hair.

The best part? It's only $8, baby!

Last summer I wrote of my secret love for PureOlogy. I hoarded the bottles I got at a PR event for months. Delicious, wonderful stuff but it was hard to justify $20 bottles of shampoo to my frugal life. Perhaps that will change now that PureOlogy has been sold to L'Oreal for an undisclosed amount. The company PureOlogy Research LLC, did $207 million in retail sales for the most recent 12 months. The brand will now join the L'Oréal Professionnel, Kérastase, Matrix, Redken and Mizani brands. I've got my fingers crossed that the end result of this buyout will lead to PureOlogy, magic recipe unchanged, available everywhere for a lower price. Oh well, a drugstore beauty queen can dream...

You know how it goes. You've tried three different foundations in the last four months and still, none of them seem to have that perfect, well, je ne sais quois that makes your face a perfectly smooth blank canvas for the rest of your makeup. What do you do? You ask your friends, your sisters, your sister's sister-in-law and every person in your office who wears makeup, even John in Accounting. You want to know what everyone else is using.

We're not saying that any single person or source has the final answer on the best of anything, since each of us has our favorites for whatever reason, but for the next few weeks, some of us will be taking time to share with you our personal lists of products we swear by for hair, skin, and makeup.

To get us started, this are my favorites, which I've pulled from my list over on ThisNext:

We might look to some of the glamour glossies for lists of the best beauty products, but Health magazine has named their choices for Best Beauty Products, that not only do their job of cleaning, moisturizing, covering up, lenthening or plumping, but are also healthy for you. They've tested hundreds of products and came up with these, everything from the drugstore to the department store:

• Best Facial Cleanser for normal to dry skin - Aveeno Ultra-Calming Foaming Cleanser ($6.99)
• Best Eye Cream for all skin types -Prescriptives Intensive Rebuilding Eye Cream ($65)
• Best Sunblock for all skin types - Neutrogena Ultra Sheer Dry Touch Sunblock SPF 55 ($9.49)
• Best Makeup - Almay Smart Shade Makeup
• Best Body Moisturizer - Vaseline Intensive Care Renewal Age Redefining Body Lotion
• Best Shampoo - Garnier Fructis Body & Volume Fortifying Shampoo ($3.79)
• Best Mascara - Ramy Triumph! Mascara Revitalizer ($19)
• Best Conditioner - Burt's Bees Grapefruit & Sugar Beet Conditioner ($8)
  
• Best Lip Moisturizer - Elizabeth Arden Ceramide Plump Perfect Lip Moisture Cream SPF 30 ($27.50)
  
• Best Hair Styling Product - PureOlogy DryShine Styler
• Best for Pedicures - OPI Feet By OPI
• Best for Manicure - Carol's Daughter Lemon Ginger Mint Manicure in a Jar ($10)
  

I wouldn't currently define my hair as color-treated. I might instead call it, in color recovery, after all, I've been slowly growing out my highlights for the last few years, gradually learning that I am not now, and truly have never been, a blonde (since I was about six, at least) Nevertheless, I recently checked out a line of hair care for color treated hair. I received a sample of the PureOlogy line when I was working behind the scenes at a pre-Emmy event last month.

The PureOlogy products are designed to help hair retain color and the shampoo and conditioner contain something they call nanotechnology. The products also use a zero sulfate formula that is both salt-free and vegan. The product is pricier than what I am used to (it seems to sell for $18 to $20 per 10-ounce bottle online) but it does an amazing job leaving hair full of body and very shiny and manageable. It also has a wonderful scent that is sweet and flowery without being overly chemical. They have a complete styling line and several different types of shampoos and conditioners. If I were going to start coloring my hair again, this would be the product I'd be saving my pennies for.