Review: Darcy's Botanicals Natural Coils Curling Jelly

I got this as swap from a forum member on British Curlies. She was offering it at a discounted price so I moved in for the kill.  Was it worth it? Read on…

Regular Price: £10.95 for 8oz.

Availability: British curlies and Etsy. Only available online in the UK.

Ingredients shown in picture below: 

Packaging: It comes in a simple white jar with a white screw top. I personally think the packaging was inadequate. Which brings me to my next point.

The Texture: Very liquidy snotty texture, infact so liquidy that I ended up pouring out the jelly into my hands everytime I need some. Otherwise dipping my hands into the jar would have been as useful as dipping my hands into a jar full of water. On that note I must say this. Do not let the watery texture of this jelly fool you. With this stuff a little went a long way for me.

Scent: I didn’t feel like mine smelled of anything. I think I must have got the unscented version. Despite this  I believe I  still got a faint whiff of something that reminded me of paper glue. The faintness I actually liked because it gave my leave-in conditioner olfactory dominance.

Darcy's Botanicals Natural Coils Curly Jelly On my hair..

Pros: 

On applying this to my hair with my leave-in i.e. Hawaiian silky gel activator +castor oil + aloe vera gel mix, it seemed to get absorbed into my hair almost immediately. I liked that it gave a tiny bit of slip. It dried fairly quickly around my ends, but about 3-4hours later it was mostly 80% dry. It did not give me a flash dry effect. There was no crunch, but there was a light hold. I got second day hair with this. On the second day, my hair had about ½ its definition and some hold.

In terms of elongation, it did not offer any of that. My hair shrunk, but stayed in place.

Cons:

Flaking - I noticed some flakiness whiteness around my part section where I may have possibly being a bit heavy handed.

Price - I wish this was £10.99 for 16oz rather than 8oz. If it was I would put this in my staples list.

Repurchasing probability - I liked the light hold and effectiveness of this jelly. But I shall only re-purchase this if it is on sale at a cheaper price. Because I have other stylers which are just as effective and cheaper.

If you are looking for a  styling product with stellar natural ingredients or a stickler for natural ingredients in your hair products .Then I would recommend this product to you.

Review: III Sisters Of Nature - Curling Gelo (Comparable to Kinky Curly Curling Custard!) - Errr

Cost : £9.99
Availability: Ebay & Some Local Hair Beauty Stores.


Product Description

III Sisters of Nature Natural Curling Gelo helps to define and elongate your curls and enhance your hair's natural wave pattern.Formulated with all natural ingredients to give the best conditioning, strengthening, nourishing, softening styling treatment, the Curling Gelo naturally brings out the lustrous shine in your curls and waves.
Curling Gelo is very concentrated to give it that added value. The natural humectants inside the Gelo naturally extracts moisture from the air keeping curls/waves/kinks/knots/twists soft to the touch, moisturized, and healthy.


Directions
Apply the Curling Gelo to wet hair. Make sure to thoroughly shampoo and rinse hair. Use your fingers to apply the Curling Gelo all over your hair. Finger style to achieve knots/knaps/kinky/tight coils.

"Curling Gelo keeps your hair frizz free, leaves no greasy residue, keeps hair moisturized, and allows for long-lasting curls,waves, and twists."

Ingredients

Water (Aqua), Vegetable Glycerin, Polyquaternium 37, Polyquaternium 10 and PEG 14, Polyquaternium 7, Polysorbate 20, Sea Grape Extract (Vitis Vinifera), Argan Oil (Argan Spinosa), Avocado Extract (Persea Gratissma), Oat extract (Avena Sativa), Sage (Salvia Officinalis), Chamomille Extract (Anthemis Noblis), Bay Laurel Extract (Lauris Noblis), Phenoxyethanol (And) Caprylyl Glycol, Fragrance (Parfum).

Smell 
Sweet smell-like cotton candy


Texture

Like 'jellified' sprite/7up. It looks like Ecostyler Krystal - with the transparent jelly look.
It's lighter in texture than the former but more filmy. Infact very filmy.




On my hair
Since it claims to match up against KCCC, lets compare shall we?


Like KCCC
Smoothes onto my hair very nicely and even delivers a little slip. (like KCCC)
Excellent coil clumper. (like KCCC)
Gave my hair alot of shine (like KCCC)
Sweet scent (not comparable in notes to KCCC, but sweet all the same)
Goes white on application with most of my leave-in conditioners. i.e. TIGI cherry almond, Andrew Barton, EO conditioner (like KCCC)
Took a long long time to dry. (Definitely like KCCC!)


Unlike KCCC
Clear transparent look (unlike KCCC)
Filmy not slimy/goopey (unlike KCCC)
Smell is sweet, but does not smell like KCCC
This gives no hold whatsoever. Only one day hair achievable with some clumped coils, after that its all frizz.(not like KCCC, KCCC gives hold for a few days at least)
Not comprised of all natural ingredients, though some included.





To maintain and also because it still wasn't completely dry on day 1, I put my hair in a shower cap overnight. The next morning my hair was very "juicy". So mushy that the coils quickly dispersed into fluffy poofness when I attempted re-shaping. By the end of day 2. My hair was very soft. Problem is, I didn't like the film it left on my fingers every time I played in my hair.
This is nothing but another curl activator in my eyes. It defines like one, looks like one, feels like one and lacks hold like one.
It falls short of KCCC in a major way as it fails to deliver the hold /stiffness that partly renders KCCC one of the top natural styling gels. It also falls short on the ingredients. Packed full of polyquats.
I dunno what it is about the product, but every time I use it I just want to wash my hair immediately after. I think the last test would be to try it with some Eco-styler gel on top.
If you want major hold, then this is not for you. If you want softness, shine and sweet-smelling products  then this maybe the one for you.
You can find pictures of my hair with this product here.

Wash & Go Trials On Coily Hair 8: Komaza Califia Pudding & TIGI

Freshly applied on wet hair. Really pulls down the coils, partially eliminating shrinkage.

Damp, very little clumping.

Still damp.

80% dry. Still with visible brown patches.

Pretty much dry now

                                                                       Fin.
                                                                     

Product Review: Komaza Califia Styling Pudding, 1st Impression.

This pudding promises to define curls and eliminate shrinkage with dryness so I was intrigued, as I noticed that quite a few reviews by type 4 coily-heads only had good things to say about this product.I bagged this through a cross-Atlantic swap on a hair forum at a good price. Yes! :D

Price: £27.95 for 16oz/ £16.50 for 8oz at British Curlies.
Ingredients: Distilled Water, Shea Butter, Aloe Butter, Cocoa Butter, Sunflower Oil Dipalmitoylethyldimonium Chloride (A derivitive of Palm Oil) aloe vera, hydrolyzed collagen, acrylates, alkyl acrylates, Sodium Benzoate,Vegetarian Fragrance, Potassium Sorbate, Polysorbate 20, Cinnamom Cassia, vegetarian fragrance.

Smell: reminds me of Toffee.

Texture: definitely like pudding that one would eat. Or a lighter "nutella" It took a lot of resolve not to take a tiny bit and taste it! Smooth and very creamy.

On my hair: I think this product delivered. I used a light leave -in conditioner (TIGI love, peace etc) initially as I wanted to see what the pudding would mostly do by itself. Application was very smooth. Dafro seemed to gobble it right up. I smoothed it on from the roots onwards sparingly. Taking about an index fingers worth of product each time and applying to 0.5 inch thick sections.I say it absorbed very readily because by the time I applied the product from my roots to about half my length the product was gone. So I would scoop out more product and apply to the remaining half down to my ends. I wasn't too crazy about seeing brown marks on my towel. Where I had wiped my hands during application.

Pros: It elongated my coils and they almost dried looking the same way they did when wet.My "bangs" were not stiff but compliant and fluffy without being too frizzy?  I had a lot of volume on day 1 hair?! Smells really nice and seems to apply sooo smoothly!

Cons:  Towards the end of the day I still noticed, lighter brown patches on my hair. Maybe I hadn't applied it sparingly enough or the product just didn't dissolve as readily as I initially thought. Delivers no manner of shine/sheen/glint/sparkle. Nothing.

Now on day 2, I became really disappointed with this product. One, my hair felt soooo dry!! Two, All manner of little definition I got on day 1 was gone. My hair was a straight up Fro. (I don't have a problem with afros for aesthetic reasons but have a problem with them more for maintenance reasons. Frizzy coils = more tangles.)
                                                                                           



The bottom line for this product on my hair is that it didn't really define my coils, but almost eliminated shrinkage and kept the moisture in for a day only.


I think this is one product I would reserve for days when I want my wash & go to look very controlled but not too obvious. At least I know I would get a consistent result by the end of the day with this. i.e. leave it to dry with the assurance that Dafro would stay mostly controlled through the course of the day.With that said, I would not expect it to last past day 1 on it's own.
I am in the middle of the road with this product and nearly gave it away,but have decided to try it with AVG/castor oil mix and my beloved curl activator at a later date. So stay tuned... 
If you have any tips for making this pudding work, do drop them in the comments box.