Last summer I got introduced to Kevin Murphy at a hair salon in Antwerp and I absolutely loved the experience. My hair got treated with the Born Again line and it was just so sleek and looked extremely healthy afterwards. I hesitated whether I should keep up going to that hairdresser in Antwerp, but since it was just too much of a hassle to always travel that far I switched to my current hairdresser which I’m now in love with (Bizar in Ghent). At first they only worked with Tigi products, but since the beginning of the year they have also started stocking & using Kevin Murphy which is obviously much to my liking! I will slowly replace some of my daily routine products for Kevin Murphy products now since they’re more readily available and they’re amazing for my hair. I couldn’t resist already getting one product though..

Kevin Murphy’s Damage Manager is a heat shielding spray made with tons of amazing ingredients that are not harsh at all for your hair. Key ingredients are the Kevin Murphy X-HP Complex which basically is the ingredient taking care of the heat protection, Allantoin which is an extract from the roots and leafs of the Comfrey plant which is known for its healing and moisturizing effects & Arnica Root Extract, a natural herb that prevents inflammation and helps healing (is regularly used in reparative creams with burn wounds). The spray smells very herb-y and  is full of these types of ingredients that you don’t normally find in other heat protectant products. It hasn’t been drying out my hair as some other heat protectants have as the special ingredients put a lot of moisture in the hair. I always think we should really watch out with heat protectants with alcohol as the first ingredient, as this can be quite drying on thin or brittle hair! This spray by Kevin Murphy does contain SD Alcohol 40-B as the second ingredient, which is basically denatured (& very high) ethanol that evaporates just milliseconds after spraying. However I don’t find this protectant drying or stripping at all, so the other ingredients do a good job. The Kevin Murphy spray is pretty much weightless and does not leave a sticky residue. It can be used on wet or dry hair and protects up to 220°C (428°F). When using another styling product on wet hair, you can just spray this one on top to add the some heat protecting properties. 

Kevin Murphy does not test on animals & is completely cruelty free! These are the ingredients of Damage Manager: Water (Aqua)(Eau), SD Alcohol 40-B, Propylene Glycol, Sodium Laneth-40 Maleate/Styrene Sulfonate Copolymer, Panthenol, PEG_12, Phenoxyethanol (and) Caprylyl Glycol (and) Ethylhexylglycerin (and) Hexylene Glycol, Polysorbate-20, Fragrance (Parfum), Vetiveria Zizanoides Root Oil (Vetivert Oil), Cedrus Atlantica ( Cedarwood) Bark Oil (or) Juniperus Virginiana Oil (Cedarwood Oil) Pogostemon Cablin Oil (Patchouli Oil), Citrus Medica Limonum (Lemon) Peel Oil (Lemon Oil), Eugenia Caryophyllus (Clove) Flower Oil (Clove Oil), Cetrimonium Chloride, Allantoin, Arnica Montana (Arunika Ekisu), Terminalia Ferdinandiana (Kakadu Plum) Fruit Extract (and) Butylene Glycol, Benzyl Benzoate, Citral, Citronellol, Coumarin, gamma-Methyl Ionone, Geraniol, d-Limonene, Linalool.

I believe I paid about €23 for this bottle at my hairdresser, which is not too bad considering the high quality of the spray and the generous bottle (150ml). I’m super satisfied with it & my next Kevin Murphy purchase will definitely be the Young Again serum to replace my Biosilk serum. And so far I’ve also been eyeing up the Staying Alive serum. I’m quite surprised that Kevin Murphy isn’t better known already, there are so little reviews available on these products.. So I just had to share! 

I’ve been trying out the complete new H3 collection by L’Oréal Professionnel lately; a styling line made by the H3 creative team that gets together during a yearly convention to create the looks they’ll later be showing to all L’Oréal hairdressers. And of course they need amazing and new products to create those looks, or what did you expect? This season six new products came to life: three Tecni Art dust products & three Tecni Art Nude Touch products. I’m still experimenting with the dust items; but I already know that two Nude Touch products are my favorites from these: the Pure Texture Serum and the Natural Finish spray. Let’s elaborate:

The Natural Finish Spray is quite light and brings just a tad bit extra hold to your hair for your daily look. I like adding some hairspray near the roots of my hair to add some volume, because otherwise my hair can look kind of flat and heavy. I wouldn’t say that the full hold is still completely there after a full day at work, but I do still feel the “held together” texture when I brush my hair out in the evening. 
The Pure Texture Serum is a very light (when it comes to expressing the hold in numbers; this one is about half as much lighter than the spray) and emphasizes the waves in the lengths of your hair. This one needs to be applied on wet hair, but I have added it to dry hair as well and it gave some bounce and a bit of extra wave to the ends of my hair. Don’t count on this one taking care of your ends though; this is a styling serum and not a treatment serum. 

And it’s been a while since I held a contest here.. but hooray I’m giving away one of each of these products! What do you have to do? I won’t bother you with a huge list of tweets to tweet or statuses to share. Just check out the local L’Oréal Professionnel Facebook page & send me an e-mail on isabelle@nailsandcupcakes.com. And I’m really sorry for my international readers; but you have to have a valid address in Belgium for this one. I’ll pick a winner on Wednesday the 27th. Good luck!

Update: It looks like the win@nailsandcupcakes.com address wasn’t working properly, so please send me an email again if you participated in the first few hours the contest was up.. Sorry! 

I’ve been curious about salon keratin hair treatments for a while now, but I’ve never really had the guts to do it after reading some horror stories on the internet.. From what I’ve heard, it’s important to have keratin treatments done by true professionals with a lot of experience, as it’s easy to mess it up. A little too much heat and your hair will end up fried and completely ruined. These kind of treatments are absolute heaven when done right, providing the very best results possible, but are also quite expensive.. Another huge downside, as I’m not planning on paying €250 a few times a year to relax my hair. So that’s where other solutions come in: keratin products you can use in the safety of your own home. I haven’t really ever tried any at-home keratin shampoos or conditioners yet, so I was super curious when I read about the L’Oréal Professionel Pro-Keratin Refill range. 

This range promises to protect your hair against external aggressors, especially during the wintertime when your hair gets frizzy and dry really quickly. I strongly recommend conditioning your hair more often than you’re used to during winter; so this means using different masks twice as much as during summer! 

I’ve tried out the shampoo, conditioner & masque in this line. There’s also a leave-in conditioner available & in the UK I’ve noticed a salon super treatment to be available (so curious!). Here are my thoughts:

• The shampoo is very gentle and leaves your hair feeling clean, but not squeaky clean (due to the protective layer, I think). You have to use as much product as with any other regular shampoo. The downside? Your hair weighs down pretty easily & gets greasier slightly quicker, but it’s kind of to be expected with these kinds of reparative ultra-moisturizing products. 
• The conditioner is a mild conditioner and doesn’t weigh my hair down any more than another type of conditioner would. It smells great and needs a couple of minutes to works its magic. It’s not super spectacular compared to other conditioners, so if I had to choose I’d rather buy the masque than the conditioner. 
• The masque is very thick and  nurturing, and my personal favorite of the range! Leaving this to work for about ten minutes really gives a salon-like effect with hair that is ultra smooth. Use this once per ten days tops, as it’ll easily leave a residue on your hair that’ll build up over time and make your hair weighed down and dull. Don’t forget to use your detox shampoo of choice often enough to get rid of all that build up so you enjoy the perks rather than the downside of this awesome masque!

Prices are on the lower side of salon brands: €13.80 for the shampoo, €15.90 for the conditioner & €18.70 for the masque. If you’re ready to try this range out but you’re only buying one product, I’m recommending the masque. 

I’ve written about hair oils before, just because I really love using them so much. My first one was L’Oréal’s Mythic Oil, which was also the first hair oil I had heard of at that time (even before I started this blog). It’s the only thing that keeps my hair healthy, especially since I do need to use heat styling a few times a week. A friend gave me the pink version of the Kérastase Elixir Ultime a month or so ago and I was impressed! My (dry) hair absorbs the oil quickly & smells great after using it. You can also use these oils on wet hair of course, which will make your blow dry a lot easier. I recommend using hair oil as often as possible (preferably daily) on the ends of your hair. Daily, before rushing out the door, I work one pump of whichever oil I’m preferring that morning through the ends of my hair. Whatever you do, don’t rub this on your scalp as it won’t look pretty. 

The newest addition to the Elixir Ultime family is the Jade Jagger limited edition gold bottle with the lip pattern on it. Because, of course, lips are a recognizable feature of the Jagger family. It smells a bit different than the pink one (I like the pink smell the most), but it does exactly what I expect it to do: it absorbs quickly (no-one likes greasy hair ends) & nourishes my dry hair. This pretty limited edition has been available since this month & goes for €35. This indeed is not a very budget proof product, but I can honestly say that hair oils take forever to finish, so expect this to last you at least 6 months. I even still have my first bottle of Mythic Oil (budget friendlier: retails for around €20) laying around, so go figure. 

I’ve been quite busy the past few days and I’ve just packed my bags for a weekend abroad for work, so I’ll keep this short and I’ll have to promise some more fun posts next week. I went beauty shopping in the Holiday collection isle, so I promise it’ll be worth the wait. In the meanwhile, let me ask you this: do you ever use detox shampoos? Until about a year ago I had never even heard of it, until I came across a YouTube video of someone talking about detox shampoos. I looked it up & found relief: so there is something to be done about hair that feels like it’s still full of product even though you washed it twice! I love this one by Naked. This one is only sold in the UK, but I’ve seen some sellers on eBay. The scent is great, it lathers up smoothly, does not contain heavy chemicals and makes my hair completely light-weight and breezy. However, don’t use shampoos like these too much! I use this once every two weeks to get rid of all the product build-up. And that should be enough, or else you’ll strip your hair of all of its natural oils and then you’re off way worse than before. Try a detox shampoo if you haven’t before, I promise you you’ll be amazed at how awesome your hair feels all of the sudden. 

I’ve been a fan of Mythic Oil since the the original product launched. It smells amazing, it does great things for my hair and one bottle lasts forever. Soon, two more products followed. An oil for colored hair, which I also own, and a milk for all types of hair. And now there’s another expansion of the clearly very popular line: shampoo (€15.20), conditioner (€20.40) and an intensive mask (€21.80) are available since this month. Obviously I was quite happy to be able to test them out. 

Mythic Oil Shampoo: The formula contains argan oil, grape seed oil, avocado oil and cotton seed oil which are responsible for the same gorgeous smell as in the original mythic oil. My hair feels nourished and clean, but not overly dry. 
Mythic Oil Conditioner: Containing the same oils as the shampoo, this one smells great again and makes my hair super soft and nourished in just a couple of minutes. Great for morning showers!
Mythic Oil Mask: This creamy mask uses the same oils again, but the formula is very thick and extremely nourishing. This one does a great job after just a couple of minutes, but leaving it in for at least five to ten minutes will make your hair miraculously soft. It’s super rich, so I’m not sure how very thin hair would respond to this.

Love how that gorgeous Mythic Oil smell has stayed in these products! I adore how soft and nourished my hair feels when using these products, but I would say that it turns heavier than normal on the second half of the second day (hey, I’m being precise here). I’ve been trying to keep it a third day lately, as washing, drying & styling my hair adds 20 minutes to my morning routine and I love my bed too much! That plan mostly fails, though, as I’ve been reviving my hair with super nutritive styling products and these things don’t like third days. Same for these. The brand recommends the mask for thick and coarse hair & the conditioner for thinner hair types. My hair type is somewhere in between the two. Earlier this week I applied the mask generously on hot, damp hair in the evening and kept it in my hair overnight. Washed my hair twice in the morning with a regular shampoo and added mythic oil conditioner on the lengths for a couple of minutes. My hair was super soft, manageable and shiny when dry. I even got a few compliments on how great my hair was looking, and I do believe in compliments. :)

My verdict? I’ve always loved Mythic Oil, and these new products are a great addition to the line! They’re a must to try if you’re battling dry and brittle hair. The prices are quite alright for a salon brand, so I do reckon it’s worth a try if you want to regain those shiny locks.

So your hair is damaged.. Now what?

The last few months before Summer I hadn’t been taking care of my hair enough. Brushing my hair with extra hot heat (I kept pushing the turbo button on my hair dryer, bad me), not applying straightening creams when using the straightening iron because I was in a rush, not using any thorough masks because I was too lazy, .. Yes, I am guilty. My hair (which I used to get compliments about) turned coarse and the ends began to split. When a colleague asked me what happened to my hair I knew exactly wat to do: I had my hairdresser cut off quite a bit of my long locks. Now it still isn’t perfectly healthy, but I am taking good care of it. And in the meanwhile, I want to share some tips for you to keep your hair healthy.

Wash your hair with products that treat your hair right. It might take a few buys to figure out which kinds of shampoos fit your hair the best. Some are quite drying, so try to limit those to one wash each one or two weeks tops. Find shampoos that will nourish your hair & that will add moisture: you really need to treat your dry locks. 
Yes To Carrots & Yes To Cucumbers: These are over 99% natural and very gentle for your hair. This is great for regular washes, when you don’t feel you need to add anything extra. This conditioner is perfect for hair that weighs down easily as it’s quite light weight.
L’Oréal Professionel Couleur Botanique: This is a great shampoo with added linseed oil, made especially for color treated hair. I haven’t colored my hair in over half a year, but I still keep using these kinds of products as they are so nourishing, which can never be a bad thing. I love the smell of this product; its a very natural scent (and you know I love those!) that really emphasizes the idea of using natural products to treat your hair. Don’t forget to use a conditioner or mask afterwards! 

Treat your hair even more! It deserves some special attention at least once a week. Take your time to enjoy a hair mask: take a bath while letting it soak in for at least fifteen minutes, or wrap a towel around your masked-up hair and watch your favorite tv show while letting it work some miracles. Leave-in masks are the perfect solution for when you really haven’t got the time to wrap that towel around your head. Tip: most intensive masks and leave-in creams will contain parabens because of the formula. Don’t waste your time looking for paraben-free solutions; as you might miss some really good treatments that way!
Redken Smooth Lock Butter Silk intensive rinse-out treatment (gifted): When I received this one to test out I was so incredibly excited as I just knew that this one was going to be pure magic. It smells great (think almonds because of the almond oil!) and is very nourishing and rich. It also contains proteins, which my hairdresser told me is one of the first keys to reviving your hair. At first I was worried that this would weigh my hair down; but surprisingly it did not at all. Although the packaging says you can leave it in anywhere between five and fifteen minutes, I really do recommend leaving this one for the full fifteen minutes or even longer.
Aussie Take The Heat leave-in cream: Aussie’s products make my hair so incredibly soft & this product is no exception. I got to know this brand while living in London and still sob about it not being available in Belgium. Luckily I bought three products during my recent trip to London, so I can manage for a while. Tip: use just one or two pumps when you plan to air dry your hair. 

One of my most important tips to prevent unnecessary breakage: use a wide comb when detangling wet hair. Never, ever (and I mean it!) brush wet hair with a regular hair brush. I have sinned against this for a long, long time and have fizzy hairs all over my lengths to prove it. I’ll have to grow these out which can take a while, so it’s really worth the effort to switch to combs.

Protect your hair against heat and sun. I will admit that I still use my straightening tools a couple of times a week because I just can’t handle my hair without. Never forget to apply protection before using any kind of heat on your hair!
Kiehl’s Heat-Protective Silk Straightening Cream: I use this on wet and dry hair. Can be used on the second day without weighing your hair down. Review here.
Redken Color Extend Radiant-10 (gifted): This is a very light weight bi-phase spray which smells divine, and it’s to be used on both wet and dry hair. Shake before spraying some product on your hands: using your hands will make it easier to evenly apply the product. I usually take four or five pumps, rub my hands together and work it through my hair avoiding the roots. I love using this on dry hair after having done all of my heat styling as the proteins in the formula will add strength to my hair and will make it shiny and smooth.

I am quoting Lisha on this one: “Oil, oil, oil! Don’t forget using oils!”. And she’s very right. You can use oils on wet hair and dry hair, as intensive treatments during the night or as a pick-me up for unruly hair in the morning. 
L’Oréal Mythic Oil for coloured hair: I won this oil in a contest a few weeks ago, and as I already owned the original Mythic Oil I knew it was something to be excited about. This one is quite light weight and is perfect to apply evenly on your hair just before heading out the door. Your hair will soak it up and won’t turn greasy. Don’t use more than two or three pumps depending on the lengths of your hair, though.
Kiehl’s Deeply Restorative Smoothing Hair Oil Concentrate (gifted): This one is my go-to for nightly treatments. It smells great (told you I love these natural scents) and is full of goodness for your hair. I’m quite sad that this one doesn’t work for me when I still need to head out the door (turns all greasy), but it’s my number one nightly leave-in. The different oils added to this blend strengthen your hair and help you battle that horrible frizz. Review here.

And last but not least: don’t wash your hair too much. Try to go two days without washing in between each shampoo. I know this is really hard, I personally prefer washing my hair every other day as it doesn’t look too good on the third day. However, using dry shampoos has made this easier for me. Just don’t forget to brush out all the white powder as you don’t want to have a powdery do (been there, done that: pity me!). 

I’ve already told you about how I got invited to discover Procter & Gamble’s new products for summer 2012 a few weeks ago. I also got some shampoos & conditioners to take home with me; and I have put them up to some testing. For your reference: I’ve got long, not so thick but neither very thin, dry hair that needs to be washed every other day. 

First up is Head & Shoulders’ Apple Fresh. The marketing campaign for this new product is based on scents & how they influence your life. I absolutely agree on scents having such a huge impact on life - I put on perfume every day and I choose products by their scent (for skin care not as a primary factor, of course). This shampoo smells like fresh green apples, and I must say: it’s lovely! I already use Head & Shoulders as it’s the single best product for me to treat dandruff, so I’m quite happy with this new product. The smell stays in your hair for a long time, it even holds after using styling tools up to 200°C! The first time I had used it & went to work (and this is honestly a true story) my colleague gave me a compliment about my hair and said how good & fresh it looks. Good grades for this shampoo! One small remark about Head & Shoulders, though: it can be quite harsh if you use it daily. I prefer to use it once or twice a week which is just enough to enjoy its anti-dandruff characteristics. And be sure to use the complimenting conditioner, which will treat your hair & has the same gorgeous scent. 

Next up in line is Wella ProSeries’ Frizz Control. I was very excited about this one as I’ve got really frizzy hair. I really need to heat style my hair, as it looks terrible without. Every woman with this type of hair recognizes the following problem: my hair turns a tad bit frizzier whenever it’s really damp outside. Well, Wella created their response to that problem with this shampoo and conditioner. I like how the shampoo feels on my scalp and it does do a very good job, however I find the conditioner to be quite heavy on my hair. There indeed was no frizz (hooray!), but I also lost the breezy, jumpy volume my hair normally has straight after styling. So I’ve got mixed feelings about the conditioner & love the shampoo! And it’s a great product for a bargain price (just 4 euros for a huge bottle).

The last shampoo & conditioner I got to try out are from the Sebastian Professional’s Trilliance collection. It’s a quite light shampoo & ditto conditioner which makes my hair look breezy & healthy. There are a few other styling products in this collection as well that all focus on making the hair shiny & healthy. 

Et voila, I guess it’s quite obvious that Head & Shoulders came out as the absolute winner in this one! Go out and be fresh! 

Just a quick update to let you know that I’ve been working on a new layout for Nails & Cupcakes! I’ve also been waiting for some extra time to do some extra nail art for this super cool blogpost that is coming up.. Next to that, I’ve got loads of special posts coming up concerning the products I use daily & why. So stay tuned, and in the meanwhile.. Why not opt for curls today?