Talking ‘bout a hairvolution

Every time I go to a salon, usually for something as minimal as a half-inch trim, I get suckered into getting hair treatments I don’t really want or need. For someone who thinks she has a steadfast idea of how she wants her hair to look, I am, unfortunately, a very easy sell. Over the past 10 years I’ve had my hair rebonded, relaxed, shaved off, blackened, bleached, treated with masques and serums and what not…and it has never turned out as good as when I do my hair myself. No disrespect to previous stylists — it’s just that my hair has a mind of its own and it never reacts the way you expect it to. Color it a fiery #666 red and it turns burgundy. Straighten it and it tenses up, like a Slinky, and ends up even curlier the next day. Over time I’ve learned to tame the rebel beast with a steady rotation of products.

Go play

At the recent Dove Go Play event held at the Mind Museum last week, the subject of hair damage was discussed. Dove’s Intense Repair Haircare range (which includes Dove Daily Hair Vitamin, a post-shower must that my mother swears by — “Touch my hair, it’s so smooth,” she always says), takes care of hair damage caused by a gazillion different factors so you can #GoPlay with your hair without the guilt. “Every day, we damage our hair the minute we step out of the shower. Dove encourages women to go play with their hair because Dove has them covered,” says Julia Ng, brand manager for Dove Hair.

A tried-and-tested damage prevention hair care routine: alternate Dove Intense Repair Shampoo and Dove Intense Repair Conditioner, which rescue hair that’s been colored or chemically treated, with a silicone-free or sulfate-free shampoo to keep color from fading and preventing any chemical build-up within the hair shaft. Coat the ends of hair with Dove Daily Hair Vitamin, which contains purified mineral oil, vitamin E and botanical extract from natural argan, to protect it from damage caused by styling, and yes, that includes seemingly innocent habits like brushing and blowdrying. Hair that’s been subject to chemicals is more porous — it absorbs ingredients as well as more water, which causes it to stretch when wet. Combing or brushing stretches it further, making it more prone to breaking. Blowdrying hair while it’s still wet actually boils water inside the hair shaft, damaging it from both inside and out and making it brittle. Dove Daily Hair Vitamin becomes a kind of force field around each strand that protects it as you style away.

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Dove is available at department stores, drugstores and supermarkets.

Lush locks

Speaking of play, here’s something to break the monotony of daily hair washing: Lush Cosmetics’ new Shampoo Bars. After getting a hair-ducation at Dove, I went straight to Piandré Salon at Bonifacio Global City where Lush introduced its latest flavors of Shampoo Bars (yeah, flavors — because they look and smell good enough to eat and they look like macarons). Experts say you should rotate products anyway, so why not alternate your favorite bottled shampoo with something fun?

The new Shampoo Bars have the most interesting names: Honey I Washed My Hair (five-percent Fair Trade honey shampoo with a toffee sweet scent), Lullaby (scalp-exfoliating ground almonds, softening oats milk and lots of lavender), Brazillant (andiroba oil from the Brazilian rainforest and sunny orange oil, Jason And The Argan Oil (argan oil and rose jam scent), Montalbano (Sicilian lemon oil, olives and rosemary for extra shiny hair), and Copperhead (coffee and melted henna to bring out the tones of color-treated dark hair). These solid shampoo bars are unpreserved — so use them up. They’re also pretty handy (they come with their own tin case), making them ideal for traveling.

Something else that’s ideal for traveling? Lush’s No Drought Dry Shampoo. I never liked the idea of dry shampoo — it seems lazy and gross. Lush’s version grapefruit and lime version, however, really absorbs oil and feels quite fresh. The powder is also on the translucent side, so it works even on darker hair. Just make sure you give hair a good brush after, to get rid of any excess powder.

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Lush Shampoo Bars and No Drought Dry Shampoo are now available at Lush boutiques.

Everything is illuminated

The subject of hair eventually leads to all-things beauty — skin included. If I am to go full-Elle Woods on you, I would tell you that there are two kinds of people in this world: those who whiten and those who don’t. Sometime between Michael Jackson and the Great Glutathione Debate in the early 2000s, skin whitening became a minor taboo. Still, whitening products are flying off shelves, but no one will admit to being a “whitening junkie.” It’s just another one of those things that we don’t talk about, like chin implants. (A friend of mine recently got herself John Travolta’s chin — I told her her new hair color really brought out her features. Don’t ask, don’t tell.)

Fact is, whitening products are popular around the world, not just where people are not “white.” At the launch of L’Occinate’s latest whitening program, Reine Blanche, which I am told is doing extremely well in France and among Caucasians all over the world, no such stigma comes with skin whitening. As a range that’s formulated to even out skin tone and lighten unwanted pigmentation, L’Occitane’s Reine Blanche offers a very persuasive case for getting your white on.

The range addresses skin issues that result uprotected sun exposure, poor diet, skin aging, and other environmental factors. It has nothing to do with not loving your own skin, but more about having a clean, flawless and fair complexion. Like a baby’s — the skin you used to have. The objective is to bring back skin’s original radiance — you can’t whiten beyond your body’s natural capacity anyway (unless you bleach, and that’s a different story). It’s a “key beauty preoccupation,” as L’Occitane claims, and it has prompted the brand to create an illuminating program especially for delicate Asian skin.

Reine Blanche draws its whitening powers from a plant called Reine des Prés or Queen of the Meadow, also known as Meadowsweet. It’s a unique flower whose petals, which are originally brown, gradually become whiter as they are exposed to light. The plant naturally contains salicylic acid, which helps refine skin texture and encourage skin renewal. The skin that emerges is brighter, fairer and more translucent.

The Reine Blanche range includes the Illuminating Foaming Cleanser, Illuminating Toner, Whitening Serum, Whitening Cream, and Illuminating UV Shield SPF 50 — together, these products unify the complexion and improve skin clarity, evenness and luminosity. Think of it as working toward having the skin you’re meant to have: bright, fresh and fair. It’s loving your own skin, and doing something about it.

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L’Occitane Reine Blanche is now available at Rustan’s.