The one where she throws up her hands in despair ... about her hair.

OK, so it has taken me a month, but here I am, back to tell you about products I've used up, and give them short reviews, at least so far as I mention whether I'd buy them again, and why or why not.

The problem is, today's subject is shampoo and conditioner. And honestly, at this point, I could wash my hair in Woolite and it wouldn't matter.

For years, my number one concern was preserving my expensive (and I think, very attractive) salon color, with the highlights and lowlights and such. And I was going in for a root touch up almost every three weeks, which meant that I was getting a salon shampoo, conditioning treatment, and blowout very frequently. So I would buy the products they used, because why spend less??? When you're already dropping so much money on the color, are you really going to go home and wash it with Suave?

So I bought the color preserving shampoos from  Kerastase, Living Proof, and Oribe. Sometimes in a normal store I'd buy one from Frederic Fekkai.

They were all good, I guess.

But now I am taking advantage of the pandemic to grow out my color. So I don't really feel any reason to preserve all the artful tortoise-shell-colored stuff that also (I feel the need to mention) hasn't been cut SINCE SEPTEMBER.

Here is a quick refresher:

I last had my hair colored on March 17, 2020.

Here it is in May

June

July

Ok, I messed around with images a little, and now I think I look a little greener than I do in real life.

But here we are, heading towards August, and my social calendar is still pretty empty. I'm in it for the long haul, although you'll probably be glad to hear that I'm thinking of having some baby highlights in a nice gray/ash tone done, to break up the demarcation.

Meanwhile, it's so long--honestly, it hasn't been this long since I was in college--that I wear it up or in a ponytail every day.

So ... the products I've used up?

Living Proof Conditioner 8 oz./$28.00

Oribe Masque for Beautiful Color 5.9 oz./$63.00

Ouai Thick Hair shampoo and conditioner (not shown) both at 10 oz./$28.00

Briogeo Don't Despair, Repair Super Moisture Deep Conditioning Mask 8 oz./$36.00

were all perfectly adequate ... although the masks (or, in the case of the Oribe, masque) were better than the Living Proof conditioner at turning straw into gold.

As for preserving color ... if I didn't think I'd end up looking like one of MacBeth's three witches, I'd go at my hair with dishwashing liquid in the hopes of stripping at least some of the color.