Rusk w8less Plus Extra Strong Hold
Shaping and Control Hairspray
I should briefly describe my hair. It's pretty resistant to hold. Naturally straight, medium thick, pretty strong, and I have a medium amount of hair. Curling iron curls would always fall out by midday.About 6 months ago, I curly-permed my hair. Well of course, hair dressers never give you what you ask for, whether it's because they don't listen or some other inexplicable reason. So instead of loose curls, the kind you get when you do a french braid and let it out, my hair turned out curlier and the spirals smaller. But it has loosened up a bit since then and I'd say it's now between at 2B and 3A. See here for curl typing.
The main point is that my hair was different so I needed different products. I looked into scrunching gels, but they make my hand all sticky and are difficult to distribute evenly. I found this hairspray, and it's truly wonderful in every way you can think of.
Effect: It manages to define my curls. I think it does this by preventing each strand of hair from separating out from the curl. As a result, it also decreases some of the flyaways and frizz.Texture: This hairspray is not sticky and not hard or crunchy at all, despite the fact that it's "Extra Strong Hold". When I touch and play with my hair, it has a slightly stiffer feel as if you sprayed a light mist of stiffener, which is exactly what you did. So hair moves, falls, and looks like it's completely natural but invisibly, your hair is being supported by the spray. There's never that "wet" look.
Hold: It keeps my curls from becoming limp or falling out of curl-formation.
Spray: This is an aerosol can so the spray is very fine. (According to my cursory research, CFC's are banned so aerosols no longer hurt the ozone layer. Okay, back to hairspray:) It has the perfect spray radius and the mist is directed thanks to the pressurized air. I usually douse this all over the outside of my hair and tip my head to the side so I can spray the underneath. I don't play with or touch my hair while spraying, so I can't report about what that's like.
Industrial-looking. They're not messin'.
The mist has a pretty strong scent but doesn't linger for more than half a minute. If you breathe in the mist, it has a pretty bitter taste, so I spray in another room, try my best not to breathe much at all, and then walk out before I take a big inhale. I accidentally got some spray near my eye this morning and I didn't feel anything - no stinging whatsoever. I cover my hair in this about once or twice. I don't layer much more than twice as there really is no need. But I don't think it'll hurt much in the way of crunchiness. Your hair will look less natural and more stiff, but you can always shake it out/press it out. If you really soak it, it'll get shiny and/or clumpy and your hair will hold like no tomorrow.
I got lucky and ran into a whole shelf of these hairsprays at Marshalls, a regular-sized can of 10oz for $9. 10oz is huge. I also saw it on Amazon for about $11 and you'll have to pay $16 at Target.
Overall: This is good stuff. This is the rare occurrence: that something I buy to get the job done actually does the job without any complaining. You might choke and spit if you breathe in all the spray, but hold your breath and it's the best everyday-but-also-buildable product you've ever met. 9/10
