Saturday, March 29, 2014

Paul Mitchell Neuro Cell review

As alluded to in my previous post about my haircut, I now have a Paul Mitchell Neuro Cell Premium Hot Roller System.

When I went to get my hair cut, my hair stylist was pretty excited about this product because apparently it pretty much does zero damage to your hair while still giving you the look you want due to this thermal heat technology. I was pretty wary of it because when I curl my hair with my flat iron, the curls will last for 4 days, but of course, that also damages my hair quite a bit. Anything that does less damage, I'm willing to try. Apparently, my mother just went ahead and secretly bought it the day before when she went to get her hair cut and set it up for me to take it home with me after my appointment lol. So here I am doing a review. I must admit, I'm not much of a beauty/hair (or make up) person so this post will be kind of rough. Most of the information/technique is what I learned from my hair stylist. Unfortunately, I didn't know I would have this product while he was going over everything and applying it to my hair so I wasn't super attentive, but this is what I remember.

My hair before

Here's the box

Inside the box is this carrying case with all the contents already packed inside

This is the Neuro Cell chamber. The rod in the middle is where you put the rollers to heat them up. The outside of the chamber doesn't get hot so that's why I just placed it on the carpet. (Also because this is where the lighting happened to be best, but that's beside the point.)

Here are the contents - Neuro Cell chamber, 6 hot rollers and 6 clips. I turned on the chamber by pressing the middle power button. The default setting is "Coarse" but you can use the buttons on either side of the power button to increase or decrease the heat setting. The rollers have fabric on the main body which is part of the reason why it's less damaging than any metal/ceramic heat products.

The chamber needs around 30 seconds to be ready for use after powering on. After waiting for the appropriate amount of time, place one of the rollers on the rod in the chamber

 The Neuro light on the front will turn white

After about 8 seconds, the chamber will beep to signify that the roller has been successfully heated. The dot on the roller will turn red and so will the Neuro light in the front.

Section off a portion of your hair based on where your ear is. Pluck the roller from the Neuro Cell chamber, put in your second one and, starting from the middle of your length of hair, wrap first the bottom portion, then roll up. Secure with one of the clips. Because of how the rollers are made, they're not hot besides the rod in the middle which isn't easily accessed for obvious reasons. Once you take one of the rollers out of the chamber, it's most efficient to just place the next one right in so it can start heating while you apply the roller to your hair. However, if you forget, it's not a big deal because they only take 8 seconds to heat up anyway!

 Do the same for the other side, (section off based on your ear) and apply the second roller
lol my face idk


With your remaining hair, split it in half between top and bottom and clip the top portion so it's out of your way

Separate the bottom portion in two (left and right)

 Apply the third roller to one of the sections
 

Take the other side and apply the fourth roller

 Release the hair you clipped out of the way

Make two sections and apply the fifth roller
 
 
 

 Finish with the sixth roller

 All 6 rollers in! (Not super neat but this was my first try!)
 
 

Red dots on the curlers means they're doing their job

Wait around 15-20 minutes. Basically, you take out the rollers when the red dots on the curlers turn back to black which means they're cool!

No red dots

Simply take the rollers out. I think it was suggested that you take them out vertically(?)
 
 

 And.....
 
It didn't turn out exactly how it's supposed to. Which is entirely my fault lol. I was hurrying to make this blog post because I spotted some sunlight (and actually only had like 20 minutes of it because a freaking thunderstorm came rolling in fml). In my haste, I somehow managed to forget that I straightened my hair the previous night and also forgot to use the products that my hair stylist suggested to go with it. So the hot roller curls really didn't last since my flat iron really does its job. Also, it's probably worth noting, my hair is pretty thick, and I fortunately have quite a bit of it which makes each of the 6 sections quite full. If I had had my hair thinned a lot more during my last haircut, the curls would probably form more easily.

Lol, here's how it's supposed to look! These were taken the day I came home from getting my hair cut and after my hair stylist used the Neuro Cell curlers on my hair + products.
It's a nice loose wave. I think I need to practice portioning off my hair correctly/evenly + use a light hairspray. And I can pretty much practice as much as I want because these curler don't damage my hair like my flat iron does! If you want tighter curls, you need use more rollers. This product only comes with 6 rollers and clips in the box, but you can buy more in sets of 4. It was suggested to me that instead of buying more rollers (they're a bit expensive), you should just use the 6 for a portion of your hair, and then reuse some/all of them after you're done for the rest of your hair. Takes more time, but you're going to save $45 lol.

Hopefully I can update this post later, after I get a bit more practice in and perfect my technique! I've never used hot rollers before but truthfully, it's not that complicated. Especially because you're only using 6 rollers. All in all, I feel that this product is really easy to use, but if you have a lot of heavy, thick hair, you might benefit from sectioning off your hair a bit more so each roller has to deal with less.

Thursday, March 27, 2014

So....I got a haircut


Yeah lol. I went to get my haircut on Saturday, and I was delaying this post because I thought I would want to take pictures of it with my DSLR, but I decided this crappy haircut doesn't deserve that kind of time or effort. Plus, better quality pictures won't make the haircut look any better lol. It might even make it look worse (if that's even possible).
My previously side-swept bangs had grown out to about my chin so I decided I just wanted to chop them. My bang inspiration was semi-short blunt bangs with longer bangs on the sides that frame the face. If that makes sense. I was thinking something slightly similar to/inspired by what I see a good number of Japanese (gyaru) shop staff have.
https://twitter.com/tsunpo0627
on the left and right (click photo for source)

  from @senyarin11's twitter

from @ayana0526's twitter
Anyway, enough inspo pictures because my hair didn't turn out like this!

I did, however, basically get straight across, blunt bangs that are kind of poofy for some reason. Maybe it's because there's too much of it or maybe it's just because I haven't learned to style it right (probably not because I left the salon that way). In any case, I don't love it and I've started flicking it into a side part even though it looks a little weird if you look closely because my bangs are really a little too short for that right now. Sigh. Also because of this slight poof that I can't get rid of, (my) right side looks shorter but if you press my bangs flat, it's all the same length wtf.

 Okay various selfies in lieu of the DSLR photos -
immediately after hair cut
after air drying and then slight straightening
 

"side-swept" versus straight down
 

windblown + ocean air messy bangs with hair up
messy "sideswept"?
basically how I'm trying to wear it from now on
I feel like this length and thickness of bangs would be fine if they didn't extend so wide across my forehead if that makes sense. Like, if maybe 1/8 or 1/10 from each side weren't chopped and instead remained at the chin length that it was pre-cut, I wouldn't hate it so much and it would look a lot more like the inspo pictures...My hair stylist kept insisting that the long side framing pieces that I thought were part of the bangs was actually part of the main body of hair and just styled forward to look like bangs, but the more I look at what I ended up with, I'm pretty sure they're bangs wtf.
Basically I'm just wishing my bangs were narrower -___- and less of it was cut because I swear they were already a good length for the side things. But, of course, too late! I guess I can live with it. And I *was* looking for a change. I was thinking of a change that I liked of course, but this'll do I guess. Haha. It's going to be difficult to grow it out nicely, but I'll deal because I'm not keen on keeping up this length. I look super freaking awful when I first wake up and don't have make up on wtf. This particular hair cut is not for me.


Oh and my mom decided to buy this Paul Mitchell Neuro Cell thermal curling kit thing.
I hope to do a review on it in the next few weeks. Supposed to be good for curling hair because it does very little damage due to the process and the tools used (metal never touches your hair).