Curlsmith: In-Shower Style fixer

A brand i have forever got my eye on, is Curlsmith. I have loved this brand since the start of my journey way back in 2016, and over the last couple of years, they have been growing and expanding their range. 

Offering a gourmet range of products designed at moisture, they now also have a range aimed at detoxing the hair. 

This past week i was excited to see that some of the newer products are now available in the UK. I am forever watching on Instagram and seeing the products launch over in US, and patiently waiting for them to come here. 

One of these products, was the In-Shower Style fixer. 

I have seen reviews of this product for a while, and i loved the idea of it. The idea of a gel that you apply while hair is soaking wet in the shower, to hold those curls, sounds perfect. 

Curlsmiths co-wash, is my absolute favourite, and i love the way my curls look after using it before i apply product. Could this strong hold gel be the only thing i need to keep those curls?

This styling gel creates strong definition and hold that really lasts

I found this product on Naturalistic Products. A website i always purchase my hair goodies from, but didn't know they did Curlsmith. It was available in travel size of 2oz for just £10, and they also stock the 8oz size for £22. I haven't actually seen this product on the UK Curlsmith website, but the prices are usually the same. 

As i have never used this before, and it is a strong hold gel, i purchased the mini 2oz. 

The instructions for this product are: Use on soaking wet hair. Take a dime sized amount per hair section, rub between you palms first, smooth down the length of your hair using the praying hands method. Scrunch gently upwards, then air dry or diffuse. When fully dry scrunch again to break the cast. No residue, greasiness or crunch.

Reading these instructions i was worried about the breaking of the cast. I am not usually a fan of strong hold gels, this one claims to be a 10 on that scale, and it lets you know there will be a cast. 

After washing my hair with the Curlsmith Co-wash, i applied it as instructed in the shower. The first thing i found was that it was VERY sticky. It has the texture and consistency of an edge gel. 

I left my hair in my towel to dry a little and then when i took it off, i was actually happy with the results. 

My curls looked how they do after using the co-wash, but i could already feel the cast forming so i had high hopes for the end result. As my hair started to dry, i realised that it wasn't working the same on certain parts of my hair. The tube does say that this is for curly and wavy hair, and my hair is multi textured. My top back section the curls are coarser and react to product different. For me, this gel did not work on this type of hair, but it worked brilliant on the rest. 

I definitely found more pros than cons with this product.

Pros:

- My hair was left with really soft and full curls. I looked in the mirror and obviously looking at the front sections, was in love with how my curls looked exactly how i had hoped. 

- The definition that my curls had was as promised. 

- My hair had a lot of volume. As it had dried fluffy (not exactly what i expected) my hair was huge. This was especially true the next morning. My pineapple was bigger than I've seen it in a long time! 

- This gel left NO FLAKES in my hair. Not a single flake in sight even days later. This is always a plus with me, and my worry with strong hold gels. In the past i have found gels with strength like this one claims to have, always flake the next day. 

- My day 2 curls were popping! It was so big, yet so fluffy. There was no need to scrunch out any crunch with this, my curls had no problems with this. 

- I found that with this gel, i didn't have too much shrinkage once my hair was fully dry. It still maintained a lot of the length it had when wet. 

Cons:

- I wouldn't rate the strength of this gel as a 10. I didn't find it had as much hold as expected, which meant that my curls were very fluffy. To me this was a positive, but if you were expecting more of a hold, then this would have been a little disappointing. 

- Where this gel left most of my hair defined and frizz free, it did not work on other parts. I found i had to rewet some sections and apply more, but the end result was the same. It does how ever say that this is for curly and wavy hair, so the textured part i am talking about, fits more into the coily/kinky texture and could be why. I just found this section looked odd compared to the rest, and dried out very quickly. 

- This gel was very sticky. Thankfully this didn't reflect in the hair as much, but it did mean that it wasn't very fun applying. It says to use the praying hands method, which means that it gets all over your hands. Once the hair dried the stickiness was gone, but up until that point you could feel it. 

- No hydration. I feel like this gel could have been a little more hydrating, considering it is to be used "in-shower" and on soaking hair. I just found that personally it dried out very quickly and didn't lock in moisture. I am going to next time perhaps try with a leave-in instead and see if i get a better result. 

Would i repurchase this product?

Yes.  I think i would stick to the 2oz bottle however, just because it isn't something i will use every day and i feel like this is a big enough size for me personally. 

I did find some cons with this product, but as with all new products, it takes some times to figure out new ways of using it, to get it to work for you. 

This review was a first impressions review, i have only used it over the last week or so. As you can see from the last picture, my next day hair was huge, and for me, that is a win! 

Curlsmith products are available direct from their website, or on Naturalistic Products if you are in the UK, ULTA if you are in US. 

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UK Buy here
USA Buy here

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