Wet Line Xtreme Gel, KMF gel changes formula!!

I'm not sure what I was doing exactly, but I ran across this video by Healthy Hair Zone about Wetline Xtreme gel.  I was intrigued and went down the rabbit hole of reviews and, like her, found that everyone seems to love it.  It's the number one gel in Mexico apparently and has a strong hold with no flakes.  I saw somewhere that it re-constitutes when wet too, like Kinky Curly custard, and I just had to try it.  My neighborhood "bestway" (latino grocery store) had it in abundance- different sizes, colors, containers... and it's like $3 for a huge, Huge tub or tube. 32-35 ounces!

I don't understand the ingredients to be natural at all, but I looked up the "chemicall-y" sounding ones and none had a hazard rating above a 4 or 5.  I was game.

So this stuff will freeze your curls exactly as they are wet.  It drys hard and shiny, does not flake and mixes with every leave in I've tried it with. I'm a fan of gel in general, but if you are not a fan of a gel "feel", this will be the worst gel ever lol.  For me gel works well because if I can get my curls to hold in my fine hair, I can avoid tangling, de-tangling and manipulating, even in a wash and go, for several days.  I don't mind a bit of crunch!

Here are a few picts of my curls using this gel.  It's very heavy and coating so this is definitely "small hair."  I took these on the day I got my Braces off :-D

 I took these weeks later ~ day 6 of a similar wash & go.  With a little water the gel re-gooes itself so that you can easily create updo's.

I have also been notified on instagram, and since verified that my old favorite, Kiss My Face Upper managment gel has changed their formula.  Most notably, they added Glycerine as the SECOND ingredient. That is a humectant... fine sometimes, but I don't see how it could possibly have the hold I so love.  I do want to get my hands on a new bottle just to see if my fears are unfounded.  Has anyone else tried it yet?

Meantime, if you are a fan of gel, def try the Wetline Xtreme gel.  As far as gel goes, it does the MOST. 5 out of 5.

A Twistout

I have not done a twistout in a long time and having gotten a little bored with my wash&goes = Ta-da! Time to revisit.

I twisted it wet with KMF gel, castor oil and KMF mistreated conditioner as my leave in.

Of coarse it was not dry in the morning so I had to wear my ropey twists to work. I decided to put them into an updo.  I used pins and just made circles all over my head.  The front two twists were dry so I took those apart and looped them backwards... like so... (I wish you could hear how I just said that in my head lol)

So then I took them apart that evening and I was a bit disappointed.  They were super tight and the ends were not uniform.

SO I took them apart very carefully and didn't separate them many times, trying to keep the frizz down, since then ends weren't coming apart cleanly.

So still meh... It was unwieldy and the shape wasn't quite right. I decided to use my blow dryer to streatch it out and I used gel on the worst of the ends to get them back under control.

So I kinda fixed it :-) I was able to enjoy it for a few days. But ultimately the inconsistency of the pattern and the ends took over. By day 3 it was pretty done for :-(

I'd have to make the twists smaller, and I have to re-examine the KMF gel for twists.  It really takes the volume out of them by removing most of the frizz factor, then the frizz that does exists looks inconsistent.

All said, I prefer my wash and go coils better, and its much faster to set it with gel and just let my pattern do what it does.  However I do want to maintain my ends this summer to keep some length for once.  I'll have to figure out some more styling options like this one.

Never stop learning, wash&go coils

My last relaxer was in April of 2001. I've not had any relaxed hair on my head since August of 2001. You would think by now that even something so mundane as a wash and go would be second nature to me.  HOWEVER.... no. lol

Over the years, so many new products have come out, and so many other women have stopped relaxing their hair and trying all these products that the interwebs are now FULL of inspiration and new info.

On my own, I was able to discover a few dozen techniques, processes, tools and products that work on my hair.  Yet using the internet, and inspiration from others I've and perfected or discarded hundreds (yes hundreds) of tips and tricks for kinky/curly/coily hair. But even still, with the assistance of the internet, I sometimes think there is nothing new under the sun, and that everything that can be tried has been tried.

Here was my happy mistake...

I was rushing one morning and gotten sucked into the shower time warp before work, co-washing my hair.  By the time I got out and realized I'd sunk the extra 20 minutes I needed to get dressed, I had a head of soaking wet, product free and rapidly fizzing hair.  I slathered in a generous amount of gel and castor oil but had no time to rake it through! Or even make a sopping wet, dripping bun.  I grabbed the worst offending frizzys and hand coiled them, with one hand, while getting dressed. I left the house with about 7 dingle-coils hanging from the back of my head, that to me, looked decidedly better than the alternative half-fro.  I have no picts to prove my hypothosis lol.

A few hours later I pulled the dingle-coils apart and was pleasantly surprised. They were dry on the ends and damp in the middle, but the frizz was greatly reduced and it looked fine. 

I thought to myself, "self, what if you did shingle or rake through AND dingle-coil (I REALLY need a better name!! lol) I could banish frizz for good!!

So I tried it...

Wet hair:

 Dry:

 Separated:

Stretched:

 3days later!

 

7 days later!!

 

So you see what happened right?  The ends STAYED coiled, even when the insides/roots frizzed, making it wearable for many days.  It also seemed to stay moisturied waaaaay longer than normal without the ends being frizzed out. 

I just did this again today and will post the video I made about it next week! It was only 5 extra minutes of time but I got a huge bang for my effort.