Product Review: ORS Monoi Oil

So as I promised my Facebook friends, here’s my second blog for this month!  It’s a whopping two days shy of the end of the month… and on a Friday… after 10pm.  C’est la vie, I guess??  Anyway, I had an in-person interview on Thursday of this week, just before my new Jet delivery of Shea Moisture’s Manuka Honey & Mafura Oil Intensive Hydration Complex arrived in the mail.  I know, I know.  Everybody doesn’t love Shea Moisture anymore, BUT I swear by this complex!  The 2oz bottle is a little pricey at about $10 each, but I can honestly say:  IT IS WORTH EVERY PENNY!  Plus, one thing I like about Jet is when you purchase multiples of an item, you get a bigger discount.  I bought four.

Any hoo, back to the purpose of this blog.  I had an in-person interview on Thursday of this week and my tried and true hair product hadn’t arrived yet.  Feeling the need to look my best, I scoured the drug stores for products that would compare.  At a store not too far from my house, I happened upon the ORS™ Monoi Oil line.  There was a 2oz bottle of an Anti-Breakage Oil Fusion with Omega 3 & 6 and an Anti-Breakage Leave-In Conditioning Crème with Omega 3 & 6.  I chose to try them together to get the maximum benefit of the product line.  Plus I loved the fact that they are made with Tahitian Coconut (whatever that means.)  I do know that coconut oil is a very beneficial moisturizing agent for natural hair. 

One of the things I don’t like about the Anti-Breakage Oil Fusion is that the ingredients are not listed on the packaging.  I had a hard time finding them on the website as well.  But it’s a little thicker than the Shea Moisture product and I can tell there is a high concentration of the coconut oil in it. The Anti-Breakage Leave-In Conditioning Crème does have the ingredients listed, however.  The first is water, as is in many products.  The second ingredient is cetearyl alcohol, a texture enhancer.  Most beauty professionals stand behind this ingredient as not being harmful.  But it is partially derived from cetyl alcohol which, in addition to being produced from natural sources such as plants, can also be produced from the end products of the petroleum industry.  It will take more research to find out where ORS™ sources their cetearyl alcohol.  The third ingredient is Canola Oil, then the following ingredients are a combination of natural ingredients and chemicals that other reviewers, for the most part, have listed as “safe” for natural hair.  I will caution you that it does have dimethicone listed near the middle of the long ingredient list.  Dimethicone is a smooth coating that has been deemed questionable as a skin product by beauty experts, but “safe” by the FDA.

Other questionable ingredients are:  Disodium EDTA, which itself is not easily absorbed by the skin, but allows other products to be more easily absorbed; benzyl salicylate which can cause allergic reactions; butylphenyl methylpropional—a synthetic fragrance that replicates the smell of Lily of the Valley which has also been known to cause contact dermatitis; and hydrozysohexyl 3-cyclohexene carbozaldehyde which can cause an allergic reaction if you have pre-existing eczema.

Now, if you’re reading this list like, “Oh, she’s one of those…”  Fret not.  I do have rare cases of eczema flareups and am cautious about what I put on my body.  I am learning more and more each day and with each product I use.  But I will say, the afore mentioned ingredients are at or near the bottom of the ingredient list and I didn’t have any reactions (or objections to) using them.  I do know that there are people who went natural because of various skin sensitivities, so I did want to make you aware. 

I used these products in conjunction with my regular styling products which also contain coconut oil.  It took a day to dry and my next day look was great!  My hair was still shiny the next day, as you can see in a few of the pix, and I expect this style to last until the next wash day, which will be about a week from now.  I co-washed with a product that contained coconut oil just before applying the Oil Fusion, then the Leave-In Conditioning Crème, to wet hair.  I used my regular styling products after that.  My sentiment is:  I liked the price of these products as they were an easy drug store purchase and I will definitely use them again until I’ve used up what’s in these containers.  The jury is still out on whether or not I will actually buy them again.  I have a bit more research to do, such as who manufactures the product, who owns the product and some other facts and figures.  I also bought some Via Natural® Ultra Care oil products that I will be applying to the ends of my hair mid-week, upon the advice I received that older hair needs more attention to retain length.  I will review those in a later blog…  Happy Styling!

Just Let Go. Let It Flow, Let It Flow, Let It Flow...

Ohmigod!  When I tell you that I am so overjoyed—elated, even—that my period started this month??? Ahhh… the sigh of relief.  As I have said in a previous blog, I have Hypothyroidism.  It hasn’t even been a full year since my diagnosis and I have been on a rollercoaster of emotions and medications trying to get it and my weight under control.  I went from a size six to a size 16!  I admit, not all of that was due to my condition, but the last 30-45 lbs. absolutely were.

Since being diagnosed, I have been on a total of four different medications—each in several different dosages.  Yet, with each medication, no matter how hard I worked in the gym, I either still gained weight or couldn’t lose any at all.  Then there were the appetite suppressants and weight-loss drugs that would allow me to lose up to 5lbs in one doctor visit, but gain it all back with a few extra during the next visit.  My doctor remained vigilant, even when I wasn’t, and finally tried eliminating long-term medications from my regiment to see if that would help with the weight loss.

Lo and behold, when she eliminated my birth control, I began to consistently lose weight.  Hallelujer! I was prescribed birth control when I was in my late teens/early 20s because it was determined that I have irregular cycles.  I remember once, several years ago, I stopped taking them and became immediately bewildered and befuddled when my period skipped a month. (Or was it two?) Technically, as long as I menstruate at least 10 months out of the year, I’m fine.  But back then, I didn’t do a good job of keeping up with my cycles.  Praise God for technology!

In trying to figure out how I was going to tackle being off birth control for the sake of my health (and my sanity), I’ve discovered that this is now a “thing”.  Many women are swearing off hormonal contraceptives for various reasons. There is now an entire movement around Fertility Awareness Methods (FAM), born out of the Catholic church, that has inked its way into more secular settings.  It is easier to keep track of your ovulations now with the help of a phone app.  In fact, women’s health phone apps have some of the highest subscribers of all health apps.  The app I use is called Flo.  I’ve only been using it for a couple months, but imagine my surprise when it notified me last Friday that my period was supposed to start that day!  It also allows you to track sleep, exercise, and even vaginal discharges and their variations.  This is all done to help the software better analyze your fertility.  When you log your first period day of the month, you get a series of questions about various bodily functions with multiple choice answer selections like, This always happens, Sometimes, and This never happens.  Once you log your answer, you get a bar graph of how often other women have chosen the same answer and an explanation of why you may be experiencing this particular thing.

This app (and I’m sure similar others) has kept me more informed about my body and its natural progressions than any pill with a doctor visit ever did.  I feel knowledgeable and confident as I prepare not only for my annual Pap Smear but for life and reproductivity in general.  I am embarking on an opportunity to be very well prepared if the day ever comes that I decide to have children.  And who knew trying to keep the upper hand on Hypothyroidism could do that for you?