John Freida 3 Day Straight Review

I was lucky enough to win the February giveaway on the gorgeous Love Lust & Fairy Dust Blog recently. Among the gorgeous goodies I received was a box of the latest product in the John Freida Frizz Ease collection - 3 Day Straight. It's described as a semi permanent styling spray, and as I battle daily with very curly frizz prone hair, I couldn't wait to try it!

They say
Transform curly, frizzy hair into a straight, smooth style that lasts up to 3 days.

Designed to work with your hair straighteners, this weightless spray with heat protection blocks out frizz as you straighten. A revolutionary blend of polymers with keratin protein wraps each strand, sealing in straight style for up to 3 days.* Keeps hair glossy, smooth and swinging with body.

The instructions said I needed to spray onto damp hair, blow dry and then use with hair straighteners. I normally use a wide variety of styling products - I have a drawerful of partly used lotions and sprays including Tresemme, Paul Mitchell, Redken and Tigi, but I must confess my usual styling routine is to apply the product, roughly dry my hair without blow drying, then brush through and use straighteners. Actually, now I've written it down, it's no wonder I don't get the sleek look I want! It takes ages to section and blow dry though, so I usually only bother for a night out!

However, as I was going to be reviewing this product, I thought it was only fair to follow the instructions, so I applied (about 15 sprays) then sectioned, blow dried with a ceramic brush, and straightened - again in sections. It turned my usual 15 minute styling routine into more like 45 minutes, but I have to say the results were well worth it.



I was really really impressed with how smooth and straight my hair was. I didn't even get the 'ear kink' I usually get from continually pushing my hair back behind my ears! It looked just as good at the end of the day as it had when I first styled it.

So far so good, but this product isn't called 1 Day Straight, it's 3 Day Straight, and since it promises that it's 'blend of polymers with keratin protein wraps each strand, sealing in straight style for up to 3 days' I was looking forward to waking up on day 2 with shiny swishy straight hair, and not needing my daily battle with my straighteners.

I have to admit it looked better than it usually would the day after washing, but it was nothing like day 1!



A quick whizz through with my trusty GHDs though, and it wasn't looking bad - no need to fasten it up as I often would on a non-wash day



So, finally on to day 3, which I did photograph purely to give a full review of the product, but day 3 was definitely a hair wash day!



Verdict
Although the product didn't fully live up to it's claims, overall I was very impressed, and I would use it again for a night out. It did take a lot longer to style though, so I think for general day to day wear, I'd rather stick to my usual fluffier style, and have the extra half an hour in bed! I'd also add that in order to be sure that 3 Day Straight really does give better results than my usual products, I'd really need to do the time consuming blow drying routine with them too. Perhaps in the summer when it's easier to get up early!

Kitchen Stools!!

As some of my followers will know, I had a new kitchen fitted last year. I desperately needed more storage, so in the redesign, I sacrificed the table I had in the kitchen, and went for a breakfast bar instead.

I spent a long time choosing two really nice bar stools. I knew I wanted comfort, without too much bulk, but they also needed to be easy clean, given that they would be in a busy kitchen!

I chose some nice ones online, and have been really happy with them EXCEPT they look like I've had them for six years not six months! The back of the stool just catches under the edge of the breakfast bar, which is fairly sharp, and has shredded the back! They look dreadful, but are quite an expensive item to replace, so I'm living with it for now.



However, today I found out about an amazing giveaway over at Shopaholic They're giving away £300 worth of bar stools from Kitchen Stools Direct All I have to do to enter is to blog about my favourite item from their site. Not easy when they have so many fantastic products to choose from! Since I know exactly what I don't want after my last experience though, I was able to narrow it down to stools that were either backless, with nothing to catch, or those with a back that would be too high to catch under the counter. I finally decided that if I was lucky enough to win the giveaway, I'd go for the gorgeous Giola Stool in cream. The colour would go perfectly with my cream cupboards, and I'm as sure as I can be that it wouldn't catch. It looks really comfy too!