Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Homey So don't play that! AKA a Very Bad Product Review

I am shallow.  We know this.  I am obsessed with two things.  The first thing is lip gloss.  It took me almost two years to find the PERFECT day shade and night shade of red in lip gloss.  Day shade is L'Oreal Infalliable Le Gloss 465.  The night shade is the same brand 320 (also happens to be one of Gwen Stefani's go to shades since she is contractually obligated to wear that brand).  I only wear lipgloss despite having a bazillion tubes of lipstick that people seem to give me. I like soft and shiney lips - what can I say?

The second thing I am obsessed with is my hair.  I have always had a very wild, almost untameable mane.  If I let it dry naturally - on a humid day I look like Rosanadana.  Unlike most people though - going blonde actually helped it as opposed to drying it out and making it frizzier.  I have gone to great lengths to get it to the perfect shade of multi-tonal buttery blonde.  This is my signature.  Seriously - between the blonde hair, the boobs and the red lip gloss I could have made a killing as a pin up girl back in the day. 

I also admit that I am totally a do it yourselfer.  The kind that make even the most patient of hairstylist cringe.  I will butcher my own bangs because I don't want to shell out $5.00 every three weeks as they start to creep past my eyebrows and into the vision zone.  I also do my own coloring.  Yes I know that when doing a root touch up you are only supposed to color the roots, then after it has processed for a bit, run the rest of the color through.  Yes I failed beauty school, but not coloring .  I have a LOT of hair though.  I mean Texas sized, mother of all manes sized hair.  I don't have the patience to do it the proper way.  It's bad enough that it takes me an hour just to flat iron it!  So I target the roots first, then take the 2nd bottle and attack the rest.  Process for 20 minutes, wash it out, condition the hell out of it & voila - the hair even a goddess would envy. That was until Sunday (insert sinister DUN DUN DUN here)

Since it takes two packages to reblonde - I always try to look for sales on product.  Garnier introduced a new product called Olia claiming to be oil based and not as harsh as the other products out there.  Anyone who has ever colored their own hair can tell you that the worst part is the ammonia smell and sting.  Garnier claimed to have minimized it.  So even though it wasn't on sale - I decided to try Olia  The shade 90.3 matched my hair color, so twenty dollars later I am out the door ready to reblonde myself.  The bottle was fancy and the gloves were black,  Good OOOH AHH factor.  The product didn't have the horrible ammonia smell and was very no drip.  It was almost lotion like which I acutally didn't enjoy because it didn't feel like it was covering properly.  I left it on the correct amount of time and went to wash it out.

When I saw myself in the mirror pre-shower - I was alarmed.  My hair looked darker.  I thought maybe it was just because I hadn't washed the gunk out. I rinsed, used their special conditioners and rinsed again.  When I came out of the shower - my hair looked light brown.  This didn't please me at all.  When it dried - it felt dry and went from my beautiful, shiney, buttery blonde to a dull dirty honey blonde.  I was PISSED.  I easily went about three shades darker.

I called Garnier and they were closed.  I left a message on their facebook page (I don't leave nice messages) and was told to call back.  I tried calling back the next day only to be hung up on by a recording 5 separate times.  When I finally did get through, their rep wasn't exactly helpful.  I'm trying to explain why I am unhappy and she is trying to give me tips on coloring. "Well ma'am, I can tell you this, if you purchase another product to do an all over lightening - it isn't going to work."  Uhm, if I go purchase a platinum blonde shade and do my hair - it most certainly will. I've done it before. It might fry it, but L'Oreal has pretty amazing conditioners with their kits. Then she tells me that I have to get a quality control number from the box and could I call back tomorrow?  REALLY?  You have an uber pissed customer on the phone and you want them to call you back with numbers?  I'm sorry - how many more minutes on my cell do you really want to waste?  Tell me you are sending me two coupons for  2 boxes of their Nutriusse line and now we are talking.  In the end - I ended up hanging up on her and I doubt I will get my compensation.

So as a public service announcement - I am of the opinion that if you are planning on trying one of the light shades of Garnier Olia line -  skip it and find another product.  It isn't worth the darkened hair and well I missed the just colored feel your hair has with other products. My mane always seems a bit more manageable the day after a coloring.  With Olia - my hair felt frizzy - not that I don't have 4 different bottles of  smoothing serum to fix that - but that is beside the point.

So Garnier, USA - you have lost a customer.  As I promised the customer service person - I am spreading the word as to how unhappy I am with your product.  If I can save one person from having to deal with the agony of "That wasn't my hair color an hour ago!!!" - then I have succeeded! To top it off; since it is significantly darker - my silver roots are going to be more prominent when they start to grow back in.  Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned by hair products and I am currently one pissed off she-devil!  You don't mess with my tresses!

No comments:

Post a Comment