Review | J.R Liggett's Shampoo Bar

Happy February!

Sorry for the lack of post's recently, I launched a new blog JENI WREN all about my birding exploits and have been spending most of my days off watching anime and drawing recently, so again sorry for the neglect, but I'm back and as motivated as ever!

Todays post is a review of the J.R Liggett's shampoo bar. If you read my last post you'll know I quit no poo, it wasn't really my bag and you know thats ok, I'm currently really happy with the quality of my hair at the moment on regular shampoo and conditioner and it seems to be growing really long now! (yay!) but I still wanted to review this bar and let anyone wanting to try it, know what to expect,

Information

Brand | J. R Liggett's

Product | Old Fashioned Shampoo Bar Virgin Coconut and Argan Oil

Size | 3.5 oz / 99g

Price | £8.99

Purchased from | Amazon

Made in | Doesn't say

Would I re-purchase | no

Ingredients 

Olive oil, Coconut oil, Castor oil, fresh pure New Hampshire spring water, sodium hydroxide (a binder), Organic Virgin Coconut oil, Organic Argan Oil and Vitamin E added, with natural Coconut fragrance.

First look at the ingredients list every thing looks really good, it mostly just nutritious oils and spring water. As for the natural Coconut fragrance, I wouldn't say I could actually pick that up, it smelt just of unscented soap.

The bar its self is tiny and very hard and square, so the first few times I used it, it was with difficulty. It was hard to roll the bar around in my hands to get a lather going because the square edges wouldn't allow for roll-ability. But after a few washes it did begin to take on a rounder shape and use was much easier. 

I found the easiest way to use it was to get a good amount of product on to my hands to start with before applying it to my hair. Surprisingly enough this lathers extremely well even with a lack of a lathering agent. I would focus all my lathering just on my scalp and leaving the ends of my hair alone. 

After rinsing this out of my hair will feel super, squeaky clean  and  it does feel very very different than it would do with regular shampoo.

A lot of reviews I read said that people gave up using this pretty much straight away, as they were used to brushing out their hair once it was washed and found they couldn't get a brush through their wet hair. Which would be very true I feel had I tried to actually comb my hair, I did run my fingers through my hair and it does have an odd sticky feeling and feels snaggy. But my advice is, if you do try this bar DO NOT BRUSH YOUR HAIR WHEN IT IS WET! Leave it till its mostly dried then brush and I promise it will be fine.

After my first wash with this my hair was horrendous and stringy and gross. But after approximately 3-4 washes everything evened out and my hair was fine. While using this I did notice that I had an awful lot of build up on my combs and brushes but no poo forums said that was normal and its just your hair sort of detoxing. I didn't use a conditioner but followed with an ACV rinse and over the course of my months use my hair did eventually start to feel softer.

I used this for just over a month and in that time, the molecular structure of my shampoo bar changed, it went from looking like shampoo bar to a weird sticky, jelly mess, which I later found out was due to storage. As this bar is oil based, after use it really needs to dry out. Forum advice said to use a wooden soap dish and leave it to air dry well other wise it will turn to a sticky, unfortunate mess like mine. It still worked okish but kept falling apart with more use. 

Hope you found this review helpful if your planning on trying this out. Just remember that its not normal shampoo and there is an adjustment period where your hair does look shit for a while till it gets used to what you are doing.

Jeni xo

Review | Chill* Shampoo and Conditioner

I picked these two up from my favourite place to find cheap random buys, Discount UK, for all of 99p. The bright colour attracted me plus I'm an immense hair care whore. There were several different shampoo's but I picked up the Deep Cleansing Shampoo, Clean Ed and the Reconstructing Conditioner, Repair Ed.

As a brand I hadn't actually heard of I did some googling and found their WEBSITE. I think the products I found may be discontinued as they were not listed on the website. Although I did come across them on Amazon, the shampoo for £7.99 and conditioner for £7.95.

 Chill* seems to focus most of its products on colourful dyes, Ed Stain (I think Ed is a synonym for head, the clever watsits!) as well as styling products.

Shampoo Ingredients |

Water (aqua), Sodium Laureth Sulfate, Coccamidopropyl Betaine, Sodium Chloride, Sargassum Filipendula extract, Hypnea Musciformis extract, Gellidiela Acerosa extract, Hydroxypropyltrimonim Honey, Fragrance, PEG-18 Glyceryl oleate/cocoate, Styrene/scrylates Copolymer, Benzophenone-4, Limonene, Propylene Glycol, Tetrasodium EDTA, Sodium Hydroxide, Magnesium Chloride, Magnesium Nitrate, Benzyl Alcohol, Methylchlorisothiazolinone, Methylisothiazolinone, Blue 1 (CI 42090), Yellow 10 (CI 47005).

" Clean*ed contains blends of surfactants to gently cleanse the hair."

"using this stuff: its simple, whack in the shampoo / get frothy /rinse and repeat until chilled. Clean*ed is a deep cleansing shampoo that removes all the nastiness built up in your barnet. So use it and stop that dirty feeling. Mmm..."

Conditioner Ingredients |

Water (aqua), Cetearyl Alcholo, Cetrimonium Chloride, Glyceryl Stearate, PEG-100 Stearate, Stearalkonium Chlodride, Hydroxypropyltrimonim Honey, Panthenol, Tocopheryl Acetate, Phytantiol, Fragrnace, Benzophenone-4, Benzyl Benzoate, Limonene, Citric Acid, Sodium Hydroxide, Phenoxyethanol, Benzoic Acid, Dehydroacetic Acid, Ethylhexylglycerin, Polyaminopropyl Biguanide, Orange 4 (CI 15510).

"Repair*ed contains a honey derivative with excellent moisture binding properties to penetrate the endo cuticle region and repair split ends"

"using this stuff: apply in a chilled way. Let the treatment work it's loveliness fir a few minutes then rinse the stuff through. Repair*ed is a deep reconditioning cream that will sort out your hair's nourishment needs. Use it when you want to give your hair a fix. The deeper the better."

The shampoo comes in a squeezey bottle with a pull top lid at 350ml. The scent is like a watery bubblegum with under notes of old soap, sounds delightful non?

The consistency of this stuff is unlike anything I have ever used, its so strange. Its like a weird jelly texture that when rubbed between the hands it sort of turns in to a slime. So not a fan.

It cleans the scalp/hair well leaving it feeling squeaky clean but not too stripped and dry.

The conditioner is a 100ml less at 250ml's, (why is that? conditioners are always smaller?!) with a screw top lid. The scent is bland and unappealing to me. I really dislike it. The consistency of this is much nicer, like you would expect a conditioner, nice and creamy. And it does help to leave the hair feeling nice and soft.

When used together they work well, my hair feels clean and is fluffy and soft but with an unappealing soapy/detergent scent, which really turns me off of these products. 

I wouldn't buy them again purely because I don't like the jelly like shampoo and the blah scents, I like my hair to either smell fruity/floraly/fresh or of nothing at all, soap scent just ain't my thang y'all. But I do like the packaging! I think its young and fresh, and as I only paid bargain basement prices of 99p each I don't feel like I've wasted my money.

Have you ever tried any Chill* products? What ya think?

Jeni x