Garnier Fructis Blow Dry Perfector: Day 3

So, I finally did it. I woke up this morning and washed my hair. It had to be done. As you can see by the picture to the left, the ends of my hair were beginning to flip outward. This is stage 1 of my hair's general deterioration process as it devolves into its usual wavy, fluffy mass if I don't input some energy into it.I will admit, first and foremost, that I did NOT use Garnier Fructis shampoo and conditioner to wash my hair. First of all, I realize that very few people in the population use the same brand of hair styling products for washing, styling

, etc. Plus, I just bought brand new bottles of shampoo and conditioner. Sorry, Garnier. My current brand of choice is Tresemme Naturals. The bottles tout that the shampoo is lower in sulfates and that the conditioner is free of silicon. I don't know what this is supposed to mean for

my hair, but it gets the job done and I figure it can't be bad for my hair.

The minute the water hit my hair, I could smell the ammonia/sulfur smell once again. I had not noticed it while my hair was dry, and I suspect that the odor's presence is due more to the fact that I didn't rinse it well enough after processing than any fault of the parent company's hair chemists. Therefore, I cannot blame Garnier for this unfortunate fact.

While standing in the shower, it occurred to me that there were several styling possibilities that could be addressed at this point. Do I attempt to apply a styling product to my hair to endow it with more volume? Do I simply blow dry it and leave it? Or do I apply no product, but both blow dry and flat iron it? In in the end I decided that keeping it fairly simple was best for now, and chose to go with my latter option. No product, blow dry with a round brush and flat iron. I did decide to blow dry my hair upside down until somewhat dry and then complete the drying with the round brush. This put a little more volume into my hair than

did the initial styling. Today, drying my hair took between 9 and 10 minutes.

The observations I made about my hair after drying were:

1) It is still soft, but I question if it is as soft as it was before.

I asked my husband and he concurs, though he concedes that it is sometimes difficult to remember touch.

2) Drying with a round brush does yield a straighter hair style than if I choose to simply dry with no brush or air dry, but the wave is still pronounced. While this hair style is fine, and I could go about my day somewhat content, it's not what I'm really looking for.

3) Drying time was no less than my usual drying time. I don't know if I really expected this to be the case or not, but I feel that it needs to be mentioned.

I think I had hoped that I would be able to simply dry my hair with a

round brush and be able to fore go the flat iron altogether. Clearly, this is not going to be the case.

So, I spent the next 15 minutes flat ironing my hair. Since it routinely takes me 10-15 minutes to flat iron my hair, I have yet to save myself any time. My hair returned to its previous state. I don't believe that the ends of my hair (the parts of my hair that are attacked with a razor blade when I get it cut--I'm sure there's some kind of name for that, but I don't know what it is) are as well controlled as they were after the initial application, but I do suppose that you could still call my hair sleek and smooth. The fly-aways are still gone.

Now the only remaining test was to determine whether or not the hairstyle would last the day. Typically, if I opt out of using styling products on my hair, the hairstyle will quickly be destroyed by the heat and humidity that typifies the southern spring, summer, and

early fall. Sweat and my general inability to keep my hands out of my hair render the hairstyle wavy once again. So, if my non-product influenced hairstyle can stay put on a September day in East Tennessee, then perhaps all was not in vain.

As of this posting, my hair looks the same as it did this morning. In fact, the ends may have relaxed some throughout the day. It will be interesting to see what my hair looks like in the morning after its been slept on. I can only hope it holds up as well as it did earlier this week. Check back tomorrow when I finally tackle the styling product question.