Review: Lee Stafford Hair Products

I wanted to do a review on the Lee Stafford Hair Growth Treatment because I absolutely love this stuff!

I am not sure about it making my hair grow (I wasn’t measuring my hair growth or keeping track) but it has definitely helped the condition of my hair. If you read my “hair story” blog post you will know that my hair was in pretty bad condition after going from brunette to blonde. This product has definitely improved the condition of my hair. It is just so amazing and I would definitely recommend it to anyone needing to fix the condition of their hair. The only con is that it is rather expensive and I tend to use a lot, so it doesn't last very long. I followed the instructions on the tub, which says that you should use the treatment between your shampoo and conditioner. Usually I would have used the treatment instead of my conditioner, but using the conditioner afterwards made my hair even softer. And just BTW, I found out about this product from a blog I follow. The blogger is Harriet and I suggest you check it out here. J

VERDICT: I would recommend this product and I will be repurchasing it.

Whilst I am on the topic of Lee Stafford products, I would like to recommend another two products of his. Since I was so impressed with the hair growth treatment, I decided to give his other products a try. 

The first is his Shine Head Spray Shine (on the left in my picture). I spray this on my hair at the very end of my styling session, so basically I spray this on just as I’m about to walk out the door. It makes my hair so soft and silky. After blow-drying and/or flat-ironing I find my hair can look a little dry and frazzled. This helps to tame the frizziness and just make my hair feel and look good.

VERDICT: I would recommend this product and I will be repurchasing it.

The other product is Lee Stafford’s Flat Iron Protection Shine Mist, which is part of the Poker Straight range (on the right in my picture). This product is basically a heat protectant, so I spray it on my damp towel-dried hair before blow-drying, and again on my dry hair before I flat-iron it.  I love the consistency of this spray. I don’t like using cream/mousse heat protectants because I feel like they just weigh my hair down and I get a build-up of product, and I also find my hair tends to get greasy more easily with those type of products. Not with this product! The spray is so light and doesn’t weigh my hair down. Also, I really feel like it’s doing its job. My hair seems to be in better condition since I’ve started using this product.

VERDICT: I would recommend this product and I will be repurchasing it.

So right now I am in love with the Lee Stafford range of hair care products. I can’t wait to try out some more of his products. The next product I’m keen to try out is his “I Hate My Hair the Day its Washed” Solution Spray. I haven’t been able to find it in South Africa yet, but hopefully we will get it here soon.

I bought all my Lee Stafford products from Clicks (South Africa) and I know that you can get them from Boots in the UK.

If you’ve tried any of his other products please let me know. I’m keen to hear what you thought. 

Lv M

xoxo

My hair story

So, when I was younger, about 6 or 7 years ago, I decided that my beautiful blonde hair was getting a bit dark at the roots. It wasn't really that bad but I was young and stupid then. So my mom and I attempted to use a blonde highlighting kit on my hair. Alas, the result was not what I had hoped for. I ended up with canary yellow roots: 

I was extremely upset so I went to the hairdresser to get it fixed. When I emerged a few hours later, I no longer looked like a canary, but rather a zebra:

I was of course even less impressed than before. Not that I had anything against brunettes, I just did not want any brunette in my hair. I loved my blonde hair! The next day I went to a different hairdresser to fix this, and she did a fantastic job:

Sadly though, that was the start of my relationship with bleach and highlighting. My roots always grew out darker than before, so every 6 or so weeks I would need to get them touched up. For years after that I just did that. I was so particular about my hair and what shade of blonde it had to be. Btw, I kept all the above photos so that whenever I felt like doing something stupid to my hair again, I could look at these photos and hopefully be put off.

Fast forward a few years to the end of 2010. I for some reason had being thinking about going over to the dark side. I'm not sure where this idea came from especially because I was such a blonde fanatic. Without telling my family (as I knew they would have dissuaded me), I went brunette (professionally of course):

 

It was quite a big change and it took me a while to get used to it, but I liked it. I knew what a mission it would be to get back to blonde so I vowed to keep it at least a year. It faded and sometimes it looked nice, other times it was a bit too red for my liking. My hair felt in such better condition and many people said I suited the brunette more. The one thing that did bug me about it was the regrowth: because I had dark blonde growing out, it looked grey in comparison to the dark. I really did not like that. And I found it started looking like this very soon after colouring (my hair grows rather fast). So I was colouring my hair more often than I used to highlight my hair. Grey-looking regrowth is just not my thing.

About 10 months down the line I was done with the brunette. I (ms. blonde fanatic) missed my blonde hair too much. I started feeling like the brunette didn't actually suit me, and I never really quite felt like myself as a brunette. Now comes the fun part: getting back to blonde! Had I known just what a lengthy and painful experience this would be, I am not too sure I would have done the whole thing in the first place. Actually, I probably would have, otherwise I would have always wondered what it would be like to be a brunette. Anyways, thinking that all the bleach it would take to make me blonde again would immensely damage my hair, I cut my hair:

Stupid, stupid decision. Whilst it looked nice with the healthy brunette hair, as soon as I started going back to blonde, the short damaged look was just not working for me. I tried not to do too much styling as my hair was pretty damaged, but a bob with my semi-wavy hair requires styling. And of course I did not go straight back to the blonde I wanted, that took about 5 months. I was rather red/ginger in the beginning:

After some highlighting:

After some more highlighting a few months into it:

This last one was my worst. At least in the beginning it was a decent shade of red. In the above photo it was just plain ginger. I have nothing against gingers, I just don't think that shade suits me and it was not really what I was going for. 

About 5 months down the line I finally got to a shade that I was comfortable with:

The above photo was taken towards the end of October 2011, and I had my hair highlighted that day. I have not done it since, and it actually looks rather nice :) The darker blonde regrowth is blending so nicely into the blonde. I am however going in 2 days to get some highlights and some lowlights (just so that it looks more natural) so that I my hair can look good for my graduation which is coming up this weekend.

My hair is still quite dry but definitely nothing compared to its condition when I did my first session of bleach bathing and highlighting. That condition was horrendous. I have found some wonder products that have helped repair my hair and I will do a blog post on those soon.

So I am finally happy with the colour, now I just want some length again Lol. Waiting for hair to grow is so frustrating! If you are thinking of going from blonde to brunette, maybe have a chat with me first ;)

And that is the life story of my hair! What are your hair stories/nightmares?

Lv M

xxx