Thursday 1 March 2012

Lee Stafford Treatment for Hair That Never Grows Past a Certain Length Review and Blog Update

How ironic that I'm posting about this just a day after having a major portion of my hair chopped off at the hair dresser's. There's also a bit of a personal blurb affecting this blog which I've stuck at the end of this post in case you're interested in reading that.


The name is quite a mouthful - it's never a good sign if it doesn't even fit into the title bar on Blogger! When it comes to the packaging I love the hot pink design, as it stands out nicely among my mostly white shower goodies, but I absolutely hate the mixed upper and lower case writing. I feel it's childish and cheap, but of course the packaging is sturdy enough, so it won't crack if you accidentally drop it in the bath. The lid is a screwtop type of lid, so it's safe to throw into your suitcase and take it on holiday with you.


I was stood in Boots for a while, torn between this and the same brand's Argan oil mask, but seeing as I'd already heard a few good things about this hair treatment this one popped into my basket. It also helped that at £7.99 it cost almost half as much as the other one. For that price you get a decent 200ml tub which will last a fair while. It's slightly more expensive than the likes of Herbal Essences and Pantene, but I'd still place it at the lower end of the price spectrum.


The product inside the tub is of what I would call your typical hair mask consistency. It's fairly thick, creamy and rich. Sticky enough to stick to your hair, but you still need to be careful not to grab a huge amount or the majority will end up down the plug. I expected the scent to match the pink packaging and be something incredibly sweet and sickly, but as a matter of fact it has a quite herbal scent which is not particularly noticable once it's on your hair.


The instructions state that you should use an egg sized amount on your hair every time after shampooing, then leave it on for 5 minutes, rinse off and use conditioner as usual. You're supposed to do this every time you wash your hair until its condition improves and then continue using it just once a week.
Obviously I didn't do that. I found that an egg sized amount of product was way too much, even when my hair was longer, as I mainly used it on my tips and only used a tiny amount on my roots, because I didn't want to make my hair all flat and limp. I also only used it once a week from the start.

Now, about my hair... I tried growing it, but the ideal of a long, thick, luscious mane never came true for me. As soon as my hair gets to "that certain length", it loses all its life and becomes flat and dry. Any products that combat dryness make it even flatter, whereas any products that combat flatness make it even drier. A lose/lose situation.

This treatment seemed to make a difference from the very first time I used it. My hair felt nice and moisturised and though it wasn't as silky smooth as some other treatments make it feel it didn't weigh my hair down either. It seems to provide that perfect middle ground between rich enough to make a difference and grease-inducing.

I feel I need to point out that this treatment does include silicones, but unlike some other drugstore hair masks I tried it didn't seem to cause silicone build up on my hair, despite the fact that I've now used the majority of the tub. Unlike those other masks it also doesn't give you that initial high shine that wears off after a day. Instead my hair literally feels a bit thicker and the results last a few days.

What it didn't do was make my hair grow longer. My tips were simply beyond repair, so I got them cut to just about shoulder-length. I actually have high hopes for this product and I feel that if used regularly it could help hair to stay healthy for longer and as a matter of fact grow past that certain length.



In other news:
Unfortunately this will be the last post for a while from me. I know they've been a bit sparse lately, but that's because I had a small backlog of posts which I wanted to spread out as much as I could. Well, this is the last one I've had as a backup.

You may have heard me moan about an arm injury before, which I've been having trouble with since last summer. It turns out it's a lot worse than anybody thought and the only way I'll ever be able to use my right wrist properly again is to have some major surgery, which I can't get on the NHS. I'm currently in Germany to have it done privately, but even here the first doctor I went to refused to do it and just told me to learn to live without my right arm.
I'm now going to go see someone else and if they go ahead with the operation I'll be off the radar for a couple of weeks. If they don't then I'll probably be back to full time blogging in about two weeks, though I'll obviously be pretty upset.

I hope you can stick with me through these depressing times and I promise I'll be back as soon as this is all over.

Edit: I've now found out I'll be here till mid-April, so towards the end of next month normal blogging shall resume with a few new categories thrown in for good measure!