The Returned, Vol. 4

Adventures in returning continues.

Recently I've been on the hunt for hair products that heat protect, smooth, and style. My hair is really fine but also wiry (which one hair stylist I used to go to back in the day deemed, "Like, sort of the worst type of hair you could have because it has all the problems of thick hair without the volume." Cool, thanks) so it's always a challenge. Because my hair is so fine, most products weight my hair down very quickly.

Left alone to air dry, my hair is really unevenly wavy and to boot, really frizzy. Alex has lovingly called it "Homeless Lady Witch Hair." Again, thanks.

Because of this, I can never get away with air drying my hair. And I work out 4-5 times a week which means I wash my hair and need to style it with heat 3-4 times a week. I'm always on the hunt for a product that does the aforementioned heat treatment, smooth and help keep the style. Because my hair is so fine, the less products, the better. I don't really like to layer product on top of product because it will just weigh my hair down and make it greasy towards the end of the day.

So I tried out a couple products recently. First, a product from Living Proof, whose line I love, called Blowout.

Take a look at it's claims:

And you guys. No.

This made my hair so stringy- I couldn't run my fingers through my hair without running into tons of tangles. But, it did cut my blow drying time down, for sure. That claim it held up to. However, that doesn't really matter if I hate how my hair feels after blowdrying it, right?? And when I returned it at Ulta, the cashier asked me why I was returning it and I told her it was because my hair felt really stringy, she told me that's not the first time she's heard that. So it can't be just because of my hair type.

Before I returned it, however, I tried adding a smoothing serum into the mix, to see if I could enhance the Blowout product's efficacy:

This is the only Alterna product I've used and again...it didn't agree with my hair. It didn't smooth it and it made it way greasy. And I tried this with the Blowout and without it. Both times I felt like my hair was greasy in a few hours. I tried it using LESS product. And still. No bueno.

Then I reached into my arsenal of samples and realized I had a sample of Living Proof 5-in1 Styling Treatment. I've owned this before, years ago, and totally forgot about it. I used it. AND LOVED IT. It's one of those products where you're like, "Why did I ever stop using you, I'm so sorry I've totally abandoned you!"

It does everything I need it to and my hair looks super smooth and my style holds. PLUS it doesn't get greasy after one day, so it's really light weight. And as with all Living Proof products, it smells like a GD dream.

The next product I tried out was bought in an effort to find a dupe for my crazy expensive, but holy grail status, Trish McEvoy Tinted Moisturizer. (Peep that blog post HERE)

So I bought this Erborian CC Cream that my friend Lori and a blogger I follow (The Skinny Confidential) raved about:

I had heard such good things about this so I wanted to give it a shot. And I love products that change color to perfectly match your skin. This starts out gray and then when you smooth it on, the color appears and is supposed to match. Unfortunately for me, it didn't and was way too dark and orange (this comes in a lighter color but I tried that out in the store and it was too light.) And on top of that, it wasn't as dewy as I prefer.

Welp. Back it went and the search continues for a Trish dupe. But I have another product coming in the mail this week that I am planning on trying out and will obvi keep you posted.

So ok, tell me. Have you guys tried any of these brands or any of the products mentioned? What should I be trying next?