WELLA

Two Hundred Days of Sexy Hair: Wella SP Luxe Oil

/ brightandbeautyfull / Leave a comment

THE LUXE OIL ITSELFI cannot even begin to tell you how I had been yearning to try this stuff. I’d gone through a small can of Luxe Light Oil Spray as they say, for a short cut. I loved it, and used it as a finishing gloss, but I wanted something that was going to really get in there and keratin-ised my hair.

When I had my colour done at Mane Salon, Andrew had used some of the Luxe Oil on my locks, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. Among other things, of course, but still. I think it was the word ‘elixir’ on the label. Don’t you just love the word elixir? Combined with ‘luxe’ and ‘reconstructive’, it sounds delicious and sexy and strong, all at once.

It can’t be said often enough: if it costs more, you use less. I know that you can bop into the chemists and get some hair styling product that is significantly less costly than €29.00, but srsly: you need like the barest breath of this on the hair, an eighth of a pump — you need to dispense the slightest rumour of this glorious elixir, and you will have more than enough coverage.

I use even less than the above prescription and it is sufficient unto the hair itself. Oddly, even though it feels so sleek that it might turn up greasy the next morning, I do get second day hair out of it — with the help, of course, of dry shampoo. HEY WELLA! How about some dry shampoo in this formula? I would die.

So, the littlest bit goes the longest way for the guts of two days. If you are barely using a ml of the 100mls on tap, you could have Two Hundred Days of Sexy Hair. Imagine that!

***

 

The Hair + Mane Salon = Swisssshhhhhhy! {Frontways}

/ brightandbeautyfull / 2 Comments

The back view is on Twitter, and Facebook, too.THE HAIR FRONTWAYS

‘Frontways’ is not a word, I know, I know, don’t get yer knicks in a twist. I guess I am feeling a bit giddy from the fresh Illumina colour via Wella Professionals and Andrew Dunne of Mane Salon. Beautiful blowdry via Aideen.

Another day of boldfacey-ness! Must be the sunshine!

***

Mane Salon is located in The Grooming Rooms building, 16 South William Street {next to Grogans.}

***

THAW and Nioxin: Scalps are the New Black

/ brightandbeautyfull / Leave a comment

Did you know? Scalps are totally the New Black. I’ve been trying out a whole buncha products that target the roots of the hair, and I must say, The Hair has been, overall, pretty happy about it.

THAWTHAW = Thinning Hair Awareness Week, and Nioxin and the Institute of Trichologists have teamed up to expand our awareness of this issue. Now, okay, you may look at my head and wonder What’s she care? but in this, I am all about prevention — as opposed to my coming very late to the eye cream party, for example. I got my hair from my dad’s side of the family, which is the way it works, I think? While he hasn’t gone  bald, his hair has thinned. Sure it’s a by-product of aging, but if I start now, I could possibly add on another decade of thick, healthy hair.

^^That’s my wishful thinking, anyway. Who knows? In twenty years, Science may have figured out a way to non-invasively recreate the hair we had when we were twenty. Or is that what is more commonly known as a ‘wig’?

Anyway: when I went to get my colour done — no, not done, created — with Andrew at Mane Salon, he was already talking to me about scalps. He recommended that I try Nioxin’s Scalp Renew Dermabrasion Treatment, an in-salon facial for yer head. I was happily given that opportunity last month, and let me tell you, it puts the ‘treat’ into ‘treatment’.

I got did at Wella Professional in D8. Clarie Doyle, the Field Technical Trainer for the studio, took care of me before, during, and after the treatment. CLAIRE IMAGEWith thirteen years of experience in haircare and styling, including long-term gigs with Dylan Bradshaw and Foundations, I couldn’t have been in better hands.

Claire hopes that THAW, as an event, will ‘give people who suffer with thinning hair, or scalp concerns, the confidence to take the steps they need to get help for fragile hair and problem scalps. Many solutions currently on the market are either drug-based, or look to camouflage the issue. Nioxin aims to take a skin-care inspired approach to create thicker, fuller looking hair.’

I had been given a sample of the 3 Part System. ‘The Cleanser removes follicle- clogging sebum and residues from the scalp and hair,’ Claire explains. ‘The Scalp Revitaliser is a lightweight conditioner that provides resilience and controls moisture balance, and the Scalp treatment, which contains antioxidants to provide a refreshed scalp environment,’

The last is a spray, and I was certain that it was going to weigh down my hair — after all, that’s where my hair gets greasiest, right? I duly tried it out, and found it to be only okay. Then I got my scalp dermabrased my Claire, and everything changed.

The treatment is applied by your salon professional: it feels cool on your head, but if you hold your hand close to it, it feels warm. Weird! Claire massaged it in, and left it for about ten, fifteen minutes. I got rinsed and shampooed, and blow dried, and honestly, my hair has never looked healthier — and my scalp has probably not been in such a pristine state since the day I was born.

In the following days, I went back to the 3 Part System, and the difference was noticeable in the extreme, soft-focus iPhonage notwithstanding.

NIOXIN IN ACTION

That’s with nothing but the scalp spray — no styling oil or gel or mousse or anything. As well as sprucing up my cranial skin, the treatment also gave my hair colour a new lease of life.

I am very conscious of my scalp, now, which is the point, and I’m hoping to feel the good effects of this for as long as I can. It’s been about a month now, at least, and I would dearly love to get another blast of dermabrasion sooner rather than later.

***

Nioxin 3 Part System kits have an RRP of €33.99.

See nioxin.co.uk for stockists.

***

There’s an excellent online diagnostic here — figure out which one of the six systems suits you.

***

Mane Salon: How to Achieve Hairvana

/ brightandbeautyfull / 5 Comments

Back in… hang on. Yeah, okay, it is totally understandable that I couldn’t place this particular event. It really could have been any time this year, because the weather has all been the same, and I guess many rooms of my Mind Palace classify information with attendant meteorological elements. Which, after all this time living here, you’d think was pointless in the extreme.

I was trying to visualise the Wella event that yielded me those RayBans, and I thought, Hmmm, this memory feels a bit chilly, but not exactly like winter. Crazy ol’ me, I tend to think of that as ‘March’.

Back in July, Wella took a rake of us beauty gals out to a fancy meal, to celebrate the launch of Illumina Color, which, if you are too busy to click through, is ‘a new range of natural looking hair colours that increases the level of light reflection and shine when the hair is dyed. We saw several representative treatments — blonde, red, brunette — and they were very, very Wow.’

In a bid for some of that Wow, I went to Mane Salon in The Grooming Rooms in South William Street, and took it for a spin.
Continue reading →

What I Was Going to Put on My Face Yesterday

/ brightandbeautyfull / Leave a comment

And what actually got there.

I suspect that a lot of people who don’t like to wear make up are put off by how much you have to put on. I totally get that! I’d argue about the ‘have to’ so much as ‘choose to’, and particularly with the advent of BB creams — more about them, someday, hopefully before they get replaced by something else even more allegedly magical — you don’t really have to trowel on the slap to get a look that is ‘you’, just all shined up.

And yet. Even I was rather appalled when I laid out everything I thought I’d put on my face yesterday afternoon:

In the words of my very first Mac Classic: Eep! We’ve got your Bourjois 123 Perfect Foundation, which is on tap to review for my tried & tested column in the Herald; Sisley Instant Primer, which I didn’t fancy so much the first time I tried, but wanted to give it a second chance; new Maybelline Colossal Smoky Eyes Mascara; a gorgeous palette from Yves Saint Laurent, as seen on new representative Face, Jessica Chastain — this will make me look just like her; a YSL illuminator pen thing, for around the eyes; Sisley lipgloss, with the option of the NYC lipstick; Dr Hauschka Illuminating Powder, even though I am not a huge fan of loose powder… And a whole bunch of eye pencils that I can’t even see what they are. And an AVON lipstick I found in a coat pocket. And the Shine So Bright from Lush.

No blush, I thought, since it was going to be all about the Smoky Eye.

Also not pictured, the combination I am using on the brows at the moment as the HD Brow dye wears off: Speed Brow by BeneFit, and the super excellent AVON Glimmerstick Brow Definer in Soft Brown.

Then I lost my nerve.

See, I had to go to the theatre to review a show, and it was opening night at the Abbey, and there would be loads of people I knew, and I didn’t want to pitch up looking like Morticia Addams. I don’t have a lot of confidence in my Smoky-Eye-creating ability, so I ditched the entire plan, and feel back on the one I am liking so much at the moment:

Red lipstick. Can’t put much else on the face when you are working that, IMHO. Went with everything as planned, primer-foundation-powder-wise, used the Maybelline mascara > LOVE, and then plucked up my old-faithful eyeliner, L’Oréal Superliner Luminizer for Blue Eyes, which, in fairness, seems to luminize. I also ended up using a Wella concoction on The Hair, I think it is so old it is not even on eBay. Still works though!

I am very impressed by the Bourjois foundation, judge as best you can from the pixilley iPhone image. I was underwhelmed by the Dr Hauschka, and ended up giving myself a going over with a new Clarins palette, Odyssey Face Palette, which: more about that later, too.

Now. The thing is, I don’t carry all this around with me in the course of a day. For an evening out at the theatuh, one bring only one’s powder, black pencil to touch up the liner on the upper inner eyelid, the brow pencil and, of course, the lipstick/gloss. One means, come on! Don’t need to lug around the whole face, as it were.

I’m going to declare a Smoky Eye Day, and stay in and practice. There will be pictures to prove it happened…

***