i don't usually 'review' products, but...

so i haven't shampooed my hair in just under three weeks.

yup, you read that right.  how's that for an attention-grabber?

about two and a half weeks ago i got my first taste of wen.  i had been considering the no 'poo crusade for some time.  back in florida, i tried co-washing ('washing' your hair with conditioner only) and had horrible luck with it.  i have very fine hair, but i have a decent amount of it.  it's not too thin - just each hair is so fine.  it's naturally medium brown (the non-pink parts of my hair are my nature color) and i strip my roots every few weeks then dump the color of the month on the hair from the crown of my head.

mah hairz.  pink on the top, brown everywhere else.  and white, when samantha's rubbed all over me.

lathering up every day was annoying because the lather would turn bright pink and i'd watch my color swirl down the drain.  so i started using dry shampoo and only washing my hair every other day.  this extended my color a bit, but it was annoying because, well, my hair is fine.  my scalp gets a bit oily.  my hair got nasty fast.  i wanted to wash every day, but getting my hair wet and then using dry shampoo didn't change anything.

i switched to the ol' standby of baby powder in the hair.  it didn't cake up or weigh my hair down as much as the dry shampoo did (i'm thinking because it actually had CLAY in it.  srsly.) but it was still, you know.  NOT clean feeling.  so i started looking into wen.

wen doesn't have shampoo.  it's conditioning cleanser.  no lather.  a lot of reviews were like 'i can't deal with it not lathering'.  you know what?  I CAN'T DEAL WITH MY NASTY HAIR.

there, i said it.  fine, very soft, but not very manageable i guess.  flyaways.  not shiny and lustrous.  i used to think maybe i SHOULDN'T wash my hair.  maybe all the oils is what makes the model's hair so shiny and lustrous (not so much, at least in my case).  it always looks okay, but that's because i was smothering it with chemicals and sulfates that suck the color out of my hair and leave it listless and dull.

so i bit the bullet and got the wen.  i got it at a major home shopping website (hey, i'm not plugging EVERYONE for free, bitches).  $50ish later, i have two 6oz bottles of cleansing conditioner, 2oz bottle of replenishing spray (wtf?), and a 2oz bottle of styling creme.  NOT cream.  CREME.

that's some fancy shit right there.

so three weeks ago this friday, i stripped my roots and laid in some cherry bomb and hot hot pink (and got some on our carpet.  but it came out - no matter what awesome husband says.  IT CAME OUT).  i washed with shampoo to get the lightener out.

saturday morning i pranced to the shower ready to play with my new hair toys.  it said 20 pumps for my hair length.

twenty. pumps. from a 6 oz bottle?  this shit's running like $2.50 an ounce, and you want me to use THAT MUCH?? the math almost made my head explode.  that's like $2 a wash.  my blood pressure started to rise and i figured, you know what?  let's try 14 pumps.  the reviews said it should feel really thick and creamy in your hair.

14 pumps did it.  incidentally, i'm down to around 10 for some flavors and 16 for others, and it really seems to cover my scalp and hair well.  so i massage that shit in, let it sit for 3-5 minutes, and rinse THE HELL out of my hair.  you know how things are 'squeaky clean'?  my hair was squeaky clean.  fo' realz, yo - it was SQUEAKY in my hands.  amazing.

and shine?  LIKE THE SUN, BITCHES.  i could NOT stop looking at my hair.  we went out to dinner with my aunt, uncle, cousin, and her bf and i COULD NOT stop playing with my hair.  it was so soft and silky and shiny and i was in love.

it said to wash every day to start with, because it will alter and correct the pH of your scalp/hair.  i have the cucumber aloe and lavender flavors.  lavender seems to cleanse better for me, but i want to try the other flavors too because I AM HOOKED.

i am a wen girl.

my hair after one week?  LUSTROUS.  it feels stronger.  it's lush, silky, my pink is still vibrant and my mousy medium brown even looks shinier and like it came from a very expensive bottle.

after one week of washing with wen

that's my natural brown  it's never looked so good.

i wanted to try all five flavors, so i went to the same shop-from-home network and ordered another kit they had that contained three 6oz bottles of the other three flavors - sweet almond mint, tea tree, and pomegranate.  i love the way they smell and i think they all cleanse my hair great.  the cucumber aloe seems to be the least awesome for my hair.  i'm still trying to decide which are best for my hair, but they all seem to help my color.

slightly creepy photo of me taken on my macbook pro 13 days into wen.  i'm not creepy, i promish.

and now, here we are at almost the three week mark.  i'm still washing my hair almost every day, which is really annoying, but it's been hot.  i know my hair is cleaner than it has been, and honestly?  my hair is awesome enough with the wen that i can't imagine going back to shampoo.  took this photo last night and i have NOT touched up my color.  that is 19 day old color, manic panic mixed with special effects.  anyone who's colored with semi-perm pigments like that before knows how fast that shit fades.  LOOK AT MAH HAIRZ

still so pink! so vibrant!  so AWESOME!

i am not using ANY extra product in my hair.  i have that fancy styling CREME that i put in my hair from mid-shaft to end once in a while to help with the few flyaways i get, but seriously.  no hairspray or anything.  i've needed hairspray for over a month and stopped using it the day i started using wen.   i love it.  i love it so much i might buy it by the gallon after i decide which flavors are best for my hair.  i've read reviews where women who used to get their hair cut and colored every 6 weeks because of split/dead ends and color fade who now go over TEN WEEKS between cuts and colorings.  TEN WEEKS.  that's two and a half months.

do you remember what happened the last time you didn't cut your hair for two and a half months?  and forget about the inch-long roots, do you remember how shitty your color was? 

i'm a wen girl now.