Saturday 10 April 2010

Dead sea spa magik mineral shampoo review


Oh my, where do I start? My hair is straight, just a bit longer than shoulder length, medium thickness...but gets hair frizz at the first opportunity, and is normal to oily I suppose. Although oily is probably not a word anyone would want to use to describe their hair, I guess it's better than greasy!


A few years ago my housemate sat me down, put a cup of tea in my hands and explained why ingredients like Sodium laurel (sometimes spelled lauryl) sulphate is bad for our hair and why I should avoid it. Now I seek out special hair products, make-up (although being half magpie I am prone to being blinded by sparkles and as a result I have bookshelves full of sequin jars and brightly pigmented make-up that I refuse to give away - much to my boyfriend's dismay) and, thanks to a number of insane allergies, new ingredients.

(I should say though, that sometimes I do use SLS shampoos because I can't get my hands on anything else, the result usually isn't bad if I don't use it for long)


I digress...this week I managed to get into town and do some shopping. The checklist went like this;

razor,

shampoo,

honey,

cashews,

shampoo


For some reason, i didn't trust myself to just include it once...but I guess that that is a post for another time. I popped into holland and barrett and found the dead sea spa range. On first appearance it looked good, the packaging is sleek and £7.45 seemed like a good price, so I thought "why not?" and bought one bottle of the dead sea spa magik mineral shampoo. I have to admit, I was pretty pleased with my new buy. I usually order shampoos online, opting to bulk buy and save on time. But now, my hoard has come to an end...


When it came to washing my hair the smell was really chemically and even after I dried it, my boyfriend and even a few of my friends mentioned how overpowering and "acid-like" the smell was. I have to say that I didn't think it was acid-like, it was more like an ammonia based smell.

The initial overall result seemed normal, but within 15 minutes my hair became really flat and despite all efforts there was nothing that would inject any body into my hair.

Within hours my hair got really really greasy. It looked like I had slathered vegetable oil all over my roots and let the rest of my hair slink into dead dryness, the ends looked like they were fraying and became static at the slightest touch. Not a good look, unless you're going to a fancy dress party as the cat that didn't. I tried orris root powder mixed with arrowroot (usually awesome for absorbing oily hair) as a dry shampoo but it didn't work; the grease came back stronger than before, and the ends looked even drier (not the dry shampoos fault, it usually does nothing to the rest of the hair).

The following day I opted for a hair mask and a return to the last morsels of my usual shampoo, the result? much better, but my hair still hasn't fully recovered. I can only assume that the surfactants in this shampoo strip the hair to the extent that the follicles feel the need to fight back!

Lol, I don't know why this happened but I won't be using it again and I definitely won't recommend it to any of my friends.


Has anyone else ever used it?

Image borrowed from http://www.goodnessdirect.com/

First post!

Welcome to treasure boxes and trinkets! First posts are actually quite difficult....hmm...lol, I'm a psychologist with an interest in pretty much everything but I'm hoping that treasure boxes and trinkets will focus on best buys and things! Beauty shopping can be a bit of a minefield now we know about SLS, parabens and all sorts of rubbish toxins, so I'll probably (definitely) be posting about that and online shops!