My product review – Twisted Sista farewell to frizz Curl Activator

Tags

curl activator, curl definition, frizz, LOC, natural, natural hair, products, reviews, Twisted Sista

I’ve seen the Twisted Sista brand mentioned in several blogs that I’ve read. I’d never really been interested in trying it, but when I saw it on sale at Walgreen’s, I decided to give it a go.

Product Description
Twisted Sista Curl Activator puts the life back into tired, lifeless curls. Delivers volume, BIG bounce and soft frizz free curl definition. Formulated to block out the effects of troublesome humidity. Ideal for curly, kinky, or wavy hair.

Ingredients
Aqua (Water), Prunus Armeniaca (Apricot) Kernel Oil, Paraffinum Liquidum , Glycerin, Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride, Hydrogenated Soybean Polyglycerides, C15-23 Alkaline, Cetyl Alcohol, Dimethicone, Petrolatum, Lanolin, Glyceryl Stearate, Litchi Chinensis Pericarp (Lychee) Extract, Argania Spinosa (Argan) Kernel Oil, Camellia Sinensis (Green Tea) Leaf Extract,  PEG-100 Stearate, Phenoxyethanol, Carbomer, Parfum (Fragrance), Xanthan Gum, Propylparaben, Sodium Benzoate, Potassium Sorbate, Potassium Hydroxide, Ethylhexylglycerin, Benzophenone-3, Disodium EDTA, Tocopheryl Acetate, BHT, Butylene Glycol, Benzyl Salicylate, Eugenol, Hexyl Cinnamal, Hydroxyisohexyl 3-Cyclohexene Carboxaldehyde, Limonene

How to use
Apply a generous amount to the palms and run through damp hair from roots to ends, tousle curls with hands. Diffuse hair to get the most out of your curl or let it dry naturally for a softer effect. Style as usual. Apply more if needed depending on hair type.

Twisted Sista Farewell to Frizz Curl Activator – $5.99 at Walgreens – I got mine on sale for $4.79

OK, first off let me say I didn’t check the ingredients list before purchasing this product. Let me say, some of them sound kinda scary! I will do some more investigation as to what these ingredients are.

I expected this curl activator to be loose and kind of watery, but it has a thick, creamy consistency. It has a nice scent – smells like melons.

White, thick, and creamy

Last night I wanted to moisturize my hair a bit more so I slept in a plastic bag covered with my satin bonnet for the GHE. When I woke up this morning my hair was damp but not to my liking so I LOCed it. Then I applied the curl activator.

My moisturized hair

My moisturized hair

My hair after adding product – used flash on this pic so it’s much clearer

My hair after adding product – used flash on this pic so it’s much clearer

My hair after adding product – used flash on this pic so it’s much clearer

The reviews that I’ve read about this product were mediocre and lackluster to say the least. So, I was secretly rallying for it, hoping it would perform some type of awesomeness on my strands. Needless to say, I was thoroughly disappointed.

Although my curls are decent, they are quite frizzy. My hair felt heavy, extremely greasy, and somewhat sticky at first. After letting it air dry, the sticky feeling went away but the greasiness is still there, my hair feels dry and stiff. Now to be fair, I did add oil to my hair to seal it before adding the activator. So this could possibly be cause of much of this.

Overall, I’m not impressed with this curl activator. I will try it again and use it exactly as directed and without any other products to see if it performs better.

My hair is stiff, frizzy, greasy, and dry – flash used on this pic

This is what my hair looks like after using Twisted Sista Farewell to Frizz Curl Activator. At the end of the day, I was told that I had white residue covering the back of my head. That is so not OK…

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My current regimen

Tags

co-wash, condition, deep conditioning, EASE, hair grease, hair regimen, LCO, LOC, moisturizing, petrolatum, protective styling, regimen, sealing, wash, wash day, washing

Over the course of the past few months, I’ve adapted a much simpler hair regimen. And boy, what a difference has it made in time, as well as my hair! In the beginning, as I was learning to care for my hair in it’s natural state, I was trying to adopt way too many products and techniques. Every time I would watch a video, I would try to incorporate techniques that I saw being used into my regimen, which soon became too taxing and time consuming. Experience is definitely a good teacher! Since I’ve learned more about my hair and what makes it thrive, I’ve been able to tweak my regimen.

As I thought about all of the many techniques I tried to incorporate into to maintaining my hair, it made me think about what my mom used to do to maintain my hair as a kid. She didn’t do all of the co-washing, leave ins, deep conditioning, protective styling, and so on and so forth. She would simply wash and condition my hair and then apply hair grease and brush into my pretty pony tails. And believe it or not, this worked!!! So, I once again decided to make a change to a simpler regimen and do what works for me and not what I’ve seen working for others that was not benefiting my hair in any way.

Here is how my regimen has changed:

* No longer am I washing weekly. I now wash my hair once a month.

* No longer am I deep conditioning weekly. I deep condition when I feel like my hair needs it, which tend to be once a month, on wash day.

* No longer do I stress over trying to avoid “cones” like a plague! My hair likes them, so I use products that contain them. If I start to notice build up, I simply co-wash as needed.

* My hair likes hot water! Yes, that’s right! Hot water isn’t taboo where my hair is concerned. I wet my hair with hot water to moisture. This makes absolute sense to me since heat open the cuticles. Afterwards, I apply my leave in and seal.

* I use hair grease as a sealant! And yes, it contains petrolatum! I don’t grease my scalp with it, so no my hair follicles aren’t clogged up. I simply apply to my ends as I would any other oil. And yes, my hair loves it! My coils are tight, springy, and well moisturized.

* I still moisturize twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening. I’ve noticed that my hair tends to dry out and I have more shedding when I don’t.

* I still DO NOT use protective styling. I do try to do low maintenance styling, however. I love my natural hair and I LOVE wearing it out. Protective styling doesn’t allow for this. So, I just make sure that I’m gentle when manipulating my hair and I keep my hands out of it. (A lesson learned the hard way!)

* I still use LOC, sometimes LCO, and EASE when moisturizing.

Now that I’ve made these changes to my regimen, I’m happier and so is my hair. It’s not breaking, falling out, dry, or unhealthy. My hair is thriving and growing. I think we sometimes get caught up in the ideals and theory that we neglect to experiment and see what works for us. What works for one may not work for another. But we won’t know without experimenting.

My laziness

Tags

ACV, ACV rinse, deep condition, honey, honey rinse, hot oil treatment, LOC, wash day

I’m either going to hate myself or love myself later. Last night was wash night and I did my weekly hot oil treatment and deep condition (protein this week). I got very lazy after this and didn’t feel like washing it out. So, I slept with this in my hair overnight. *side eyeing myself* I got up this morning, rinsed it out, did a regular, non-clarifying wash, ACV and honey rinse, and LOCed. My hair doesn’t seem to have any adverse affects from it as of yet. But time will tell…

My improvisation

Tags

avocado oil, clarifying, deep condition, EcoStyler, Elasta QP, EVOO, gel, hair care, Hello Hydration, hot oil treatment, JBCO, LOC, wash day

It’s wash day…being that my hair has grown so much, it doesn’t fit underneath a regular plastic cap for my hot oil treatment and deep condition. Soooo, how does one improvise? Pull out one of those plastic Kroger bags that’s stashed in the pantry.

Today’s procedure: hot oil treatment, protein deep condition, clarifying wash, LOC using HH as leave in, avocado oil, JBCO, & EVOO, twisted using Elasta QP mango & lime curl pudding  and EcoStyler gel – 2 flat twists along the front and two strand twists all over.

My getting back to basics regimen

Tags

aloe vera gel, Aussie Moist, Cantu, curl definition, EASE, EcoStyler, EVOO, frizz, gel, glycerin, hair, hair care, Hello Hydration, JBCO, jojoba oil, leave-in, LOC, moisture, natural, natural hair, products, sebum, shea butter, Shea Moisture, theory, water, water bottle, YouTube

Cantu Shea Butter, Shea Moisture Curl Enhancing Smoothie, EVOO, EcoStyler Gel, & water bottle

I’ve been noticing lately that for some reason my hair is no longer doing as well with the conditioner leave-ins. It absolutely LOVED the Hello Hydration and Aussie Moist for awhile, but now that my curls hang a bit more, they are not as defined as before. It doesn’t appear to be as moisturized and I’ve also been having more shedding. Even today, after taking down my three day old twists, my curls did not cooperate. The curls were tight, but the style wasn’t what I expected. I was unable to separate the curls without causing to much frizz and they would not hang. The overall look of it just wasn’t as appealing. (I failed to take a picture).

I’ve been going over in my mind what could possibly be the problem. It came to me that my hair did so much better with styling in the earlier stages of my journey. I came to the conclusion that I’ve gotten away from the basics. While trying to incorporate other products into my styling regimen, I’ve neglected the products that worked for me in the beginning. So, I’m going to go back to the initial products that I started with – shea butter leave-in, curl enhancing pudding, EVOO, gel, and my water bottle. I can’t remember when the last time was that I spritzed my hair using my water bottle!

Now, about the EcoStyler gel. In my previous posts I lamented about my strong dislike of this gel. However, I’ve decided to give it another try, but by using it in a different way. In the past, this gel left a white residue in my hair. I’m thinking that was because of the amount of other products that I was using in my hair and also the amount of gel. So I’m going to try it again, but by using less product and less of the gel.

So, this evening, I moisturized using the LOC method and also incorporated the EASE method that I saw on a YouTube video by The Trendy Socialite. Using EASE simply involves LOCing in parts: edges, all over, sections, and ends. I flat twisted each section after it had been moisturized. Being that I didn’t saturate my hair when I spritzed it as I’d done in the past, it stayed pretty stretched. (Shrinkage was the main reason that I’d gotten away from using my water bottle). While I was going through this process, I noticed that my scalp was kind of dry, so I used a little jojoba oil and lightly oiled my scalp to remedy this. Since jojoba oil is similar to the sebum that is naturally produced by the scalp glands, it shouldn’t clog the hair follicles. I also hit my edges with JBCO. Now I’m patiently waiting until tomorrow to see if my theory is correct. Once again, I’m crossing my fingers, toes, and eyes in hopes that this solves my problem.

Contents of my water bottle: mostly water with a little vegetable glycerin and aloe vera gel

OK…so I was unable to wait patiently until tomorrow, so since my hair has pretty much dried, I untwisted a couple of at the front. They looked great!!! Re-twisted and now patiently waiting until morning. 🙂