Hair Products | Vanity Claire

Good day to you fabulous people

Today I am bringing all of you excellent humans a hair care review. I really love hair products, and while my hair looks monumentally rubbish pretty much all the time, there’s nothing I like more than trying out something new on my head. Hair oils are something I desperately need. As most of you Stylingo followers will know, I tend to change my hair colour quite a lot. While I really like doing this, my hair quality does not like it quite so much. Hence the hair oils and me desperately screaming at them to save my terrible hair.

I’ve been trailing a couple of new oils for the past month or two, at completely opposite ends of the price spectrum. As resident blogging tramps, Claire and I do love a bargain and we like to run around with joy and happiness when we find a good product for cheaper than an expensive alternative. So, I’ve been testing out the Lee Stafford Ubuntu Oils from Africa Repair Oil and the Macadamia Oil Extract Treatment. No prizes for guessing which was the pricier oil.

Lee Stafford’s Ubuntu Oils from Africa – Oil Treatment Review

Right, I didn’t actually buy this bad boy myself (we got it in the Company Blogger Awards goodie bag, huzzah), but if you wanted to do so it would cost you around £10.99. I don’t know about y’all, but I would not pay virtually £11 for a tiny bottle of hair oil. I am aware that its not really the most expensive thing in the world ever, but still DOES IT LOOK LIKE I AM MADE OF MONEY?! I struggle to have more that 20p left in my bank account at the end of the month and that’s just bills bills bills. So, I think that this might be a bit on the pricey side, but is it any good?

Well, yes. Like all Lee Stafford products, it smells amazing – that is, if you can still smell while wrinkling your nose at this HoRRiFic NonSeNse. I like popping it in my hair even when its not feeling particularly dry just because it smells so delishy. In terms of being an oil treatment for dry and damaged hair though, I haven’t really noticed a huge amount of difference. My hair feels a bit softer, but not really anything hugely dramatic. To be fair to Lee, this oil doesn’t claim to be a dry/damaged hair product – it’s meant to protect your hair from colour fade. But in all honesty, you buy an oil for making your hair softy and nice so that is what I will judge it on.

Macadamia Oil Extract Hair Treatment Review

I picked up this bad boy on a whim from Savers and it cost me a grand old 99p. Not even her Maj would shake her head at a 99p hair oil, lets all be honest about things. If you’re thinking ‘Lauren, you are a raging idiot, this will be like putting petrol on your hair’ you are wrong.

For the price, it’s a really good oil treatment and I like to pop a few drops in after I’ve washed my hair. It doesn’t smell anywhere as nice as the Lee Stafford oil, but I do notice that it makes my hair a lot softer and more manageable than the Ubuntu Oils ever really did.

My only beef with the Macadamia Oil product is that it is a lot weightier than the Lee Stafford – you REALLY don’t want to put too much in your hair, because you will look like Severus Snape and Voldy will kill you. You can be a bit more oil happy with the Lee Stafford because its not as heavy – which can be nice as there is less room for disaster.

Which one would I repurchase?

Well, to be honest, I would rebuy the Macadamia Oil Treatment because I can scrape together a pound (not yet that tragic). While I wouldn’t buy the Lee Stafford Ubuntu Oils oil treatment, I wouldn’t say no if someone decided to give it to me for free (greedy, I know). I do like it, it’s just that a 50ml bottle of oil isn’t worth £11 in my eyeballs. And that is what I have to say.

Have you used any hair oils? What do you recommend?

Many of you will know that I have been on a bit of a ginger mission recently. From having virtually black hair, I decided that enough was enough, I will return to my ginger roots and may the consequences follow. For anyone who’s vaguely interested, I lightened my hair using a few rounds of bleach and Loreal Feria Mango Intense Copper. But what I really wanted was to go a peachy pastel shade because I had nothing better to do.

After a spontaneous (and dangerous) trip to Boots during our lunch hour, I invested in another box of bleach and a couple of bottles of Bleach London’s Awkward Beach semi-permanent dye. I’ve heard and read good things from other bloggers, and Claire’s a fan of Bleach London too, so I was MEGA keen to give them a whirl. It’s also 3-for-2 on all hair products in Boots at the moment – rude not to, right?

For those of you who don’t know a lot about Bleach London, it’s a brand that started out as a hair salon (you can still book yourself an appointment if you so wish) but they now offer lots and lots of exciting products too. They’re soooooper cool and specialise in pretty colours and bleachy stuff for us girls who enjoy looking like colourful idiots. You can shop their whole product range here – I’m mega keen to give their hair care products a whirl too, they look AWESOME.

Anywho, I chose the Awkward Peach colour because it looked perfect for my peachy needs. Because my hair was already pretty ginger, I lightened it a little bit more with Jerome Russel’s medium lift bleach so it was a more blondey-ginger in the hope the colour would take better.

They recommend using rubber gloves to apply the Awkward Peach colour. Unfortunately, I didn’t have anything besides a pair of Marigolds. So you know. I used them anyway, and only looked slightly like a raging fool.

While they also said to leave the colour on for 15 minutes, I decided to leave it only for half an hour because I find that the longer you leave these things on the better.

Before | After

And here was my result! From the pictures I’ve seen of other before and after pics, I’ve noticed that the colour can be a little pinky. I didn’t really want a pink tone, but thankfully that didn’t really happen to me. This was partly because I already had ginger tones in my hair, so it just added a bit more of a pastel orange colour. I’m really pleased with it – I feel like it brightens my colour up a lot more and helps me on my way to somewhat fierce. The colour is only meant to last 2-10 washes, so I’m not expecting it to be that long lasting. For £5 a bottle, these are a little pricey to be using couple of weeks but if I can’t find anything that gives the same colour, I’m definitely going to be popping this on my head regularly!

My only beef, that isn’t really beef at all, is that it’s a bit uneven. But that is not Bleach London’s fault, it is mine for being lazy when I bleached my hair.

What do you think? Have you used Bleach London’s Awkward Peach hair dye before? Share in the comments below!

Battle of the Hair Oils: Cheap vs Pricey

Bleach London Awkward Peach Hair Dye Review