I'm usually not good at using processed products because of my experience with such products during my transitioning phase (read about it) thus I'm very skeptical of them all. After hearing about Design Essentials the first time, I googled them. I discovered that they have a range called Design Essentials Natural which caters to kinky, curly hair which has not been treated with any chemicals. I was slightly appeased and since it was the first after my previous experience, I figured giving it a chance wouldn't be a bad idea.
At the Beauty Africa pre-event Cocktail, Design Essentials sponsored the goodie bags which were filled with products for mainly relaxed hair. Being the only one with special hair needs, I was assisted to sift through the lot and went home with the Super Moisturising Conditioner (from the Stimulations range which is for both relaxed & natural hair), Curl Stretching Cream (from the natural range) & Argan Moisture Replenishing Mist (which is for all hair types)
I was pretty excited about the Curl Stretching cream due especially to the fact that I'd never used a curl enhancer on my hair before (asides the Argan Oil Ecostyler which gave me pure white flakes everyone thought I had horrible dandruff). I was really looking forward to this. It is a soft, off-white creamy product which one is expected to apply to the hair before styling. After my ecostyler exerience, no one had to tell me to apply sparingly, lol.
I didn't use this until recently simply because I was still being a skeptic and couldn't believe that it would be great on natural hair too. Well, I used it and the Peppermint Oil and Menthol hit me straight up and I loved it. Some of its moisturising properties can be traced to the presence of Panthenol in it as my hair was really soft and luxurious...when I didn't think about the fact that I had used up more than half of the full size tube.
This has got to be my favourite of the 3 products.
When I first saw it, I asked myself "how can this possibly add any type of shine to my hair when I'm just going to spray it on?". Fast forward to the morning after and my hair had lovely looking speckles of shine that the camera couldn't capture but were beautiful to behold.
Here is a picture of the look I did using the Curl Enhancer & Argan Mist. These chunks were the result of Bantu knots which however didn't dry before I had to loosen them for church. I love the definition of the hair as it is can be seen that it would have been a very well defined bantu twist-out if the hair had dried really well.
I'm still going to use both products in the future. Not just together again as I have discovered that my hair has a high porosity level which is greatly increased in the presence of humectants.
Cheers,
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