Kelly Bonanno

Your soulful coach for wellness, clean beauty & eco lifestyle Savvy | Sexy | Beautiful | Healthy | You

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Illuminate Your Hair Naturally With These 7 Tips

Guest post by Cassie Brewer

Your hair is your crowning glory, it should be beautiful and bright just like your diamond rings. Achieving tantalizing tresses is a lot like looking after your skin. Follow this natural routine and you’ll enjoy good hair days every day.  

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  1. Shift Your Shampoo Routine  You shouldn’t wash your hair daily, 2 – 3 times a week is plenty. When you apply shampoo, take time to massage your scalp. This is an important step because it boosts blood flow to the scalp, which stimulates your hair’s natural oils that coat the hair and let it shine.
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2. Use a High-Gloss Conditioner Conditioner is a must to ensure smoother hair and coconut oil is a brilliant deep conditioner that promotes softness and shine thanks to its fatty acids. Just a small amount is all you need for detangled, gorgeous hair. Apply, leave on for at least 30 minutes then shampoo.

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3. Eat Foods that Promote Shine For extra gloss, consume foods that have smoothing properties. Besides ensuring you eat several servings of fruits and vegetables every day (which is also vital for all-round health), eat foods rich in omega-3, such as salmon and tuna.

These boost your hair’s health, making it glow. L-cysteine also makes your hair healthier. This amino acid makes up 18% of your hair and forms keratin, a protein your hair needs to grow healthily. You can find L-cysteine in eggs, poultry, and dairy.

4. Brush Twice Daily You want to brush your hair twice a day, just like your teeth! But make sure that you brush your hair at the bottom first and then work your way up. Brushing your hair distributes its natural oils so that it doesn’t become dry. Make sure you clean your brushes at least once a month with some lukewarm water and baking soda.

 5. Switch to Air-Drying For stronger hair that looks healthy, start letting your hair dry naturally. If you simply must use heated tools, limit their use to once or twice a week max.

 6. Slap on the Sunscreen Choose products with SPF protection for your hair so that when you’re spending time outdoors enjoying summer you’re not putting your hair at risk of becoming weak and dry from all the heat it absorbs.

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7. Look After Your Skin Your hair is a halo surrounding your face, the right color and shine can enliven your complexion. Take care of your skin with safe products and healthy habits, such as not smoking and eating nutritious meals – the bonus is that these habits will also benefit your hair.

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Review & Giveaway: Mainelement:love Aloe Conditioner

The main element in this line may be love but a prominent element is aromatherapy. It’s infused into the entire line to not only nourish the hair and scalp but also ‘awaken the senses.’ This aspect was highly important to creator, Tyrika Williams, a licensed massage therapist who knows about the benefits of aromatherapy.

 

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Mainelement:Love Aloe Conditioner made my hair soft, silky and feeling healthy. It even gave it some shine. My hair is pretty healthy and soft, it’s not coarse or frizzy so I would only use this once or twice a week but it can be used everyday and as a leave-in conditioner. It nourishes the cuticles and hair shaft with panthenol and wheat protein. If your hair is dry, brittle, damaged, color treated then use it more often and it will help get it back in good shape.

I’m loving the aromatherapy aspect, it has a delicious vanilla mint scent. You know those yummy mints they give out at nice restaurants? That’s what the smell reminds me of!

Check out their whole botanical hair care line which includes herbal shampoo bars, conditioners, hair tea rinse, and herbal styling balms made with essential oils, natural butters and botanical herbs.

I’m happy to report that most of the ingredients are clean, no toxins that are of very high concern. It does, however, contain a few ingredients that rate 4 on the EWG cosmetic data base. On their scale of 0-10, 4 is considered moderate concern. I’d rather all of them be no higher than a 1 but fortunately the rest of the ingredients are clean.

It’s important to note that it doesn’t contain sulphates which are not only harmful but they severely dry hair out and strip the color.

One of my lucky readers will win a bottle of this fab conditioner and soon be sporting soft, healthy hair. Enter to win today! Good luck!

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Use Me Organic Hair Care Review

I am a shampoo junky. I like to mix it up and have several different shampoos in the rotation. I know some say this doesn’t make your hair ‘perform’ better but I happen to think it does. Plus, I like variety.  My hair is long, thick and healthy but fine. It’s not frizzy but my ends can get frayed so it doesn’t always lay well. Thaaattt being said, I don’t always have to deal with serums and straighteners to get my hair to behave. Believe me, I am grateful. However, I do know my shampoo and conditioner because when I don’t use good products it shows and my hair drives me crazy.

I am happy to say that I found a fabulous hair care line. My hair was noticeably softer after using the Use Me cleasner and moisturizer, I love the way it feels and the best part is that it also behaved well. Some products make your hair soft but not very manageable, these don’t. They perform well, especially compared to many ‘eco-beauty’ products. They also smell gorgeous! My friend even said my hair looks super shiny. They call their shampoo & conditioners cleansers and moisturizers because they view them as skincare for your hair.

Their products are sold online and in several salons nationwide. They are very environmentally sound because you can refill them in any salon that carries them, reducing post-consumer waste. This eco-girl loves that! All of their cleansers, moisturizers, and styling aids are sulfate-free, paraben-free and vegan. They are packaged in recyclable BPA-free bottles—how many companies do that? Hardly any! You know how important it is to me to use personal care products that are free from harmful ingredients and the BPA-free bottles ~ huge bonus.

All the botanicals in their products are organic and the fragrance is completely from essential oils (lavender, rosemary, aloe, green tea, matricaria, shea butter, sunflower seed oil, etc).
Use Me is a member of 1% For the Planet, a global movement of companies that donates 1% of sales to environmental organizations. And they are made in the USA!