So I have to say

I admit that I like to watch infomercials while I eat my cereal. It’s not a great habit, but I hate tv news, if I start reading a book I’ll never make it to work, and I’ve been incapable of just eating without distraction since I was three. I’d seen the commercials for the wen healthy haircare system several times – hosted by Melissa Gilbert? – and found them intriguing, as they are expensively designed to be. Chaz Dean is a terrifying-looking man. It’s mesmerizing. The whole point is that shampoo is bad for your hair and that his products clean without stripping moisture. Sounds a lot like the deva curl system to me, which I never tried in earnest because I tried some of their styling products (like angell) and found them to be pretty terrible.

Anyway, when I finally decided to give wen a try, I trolled around the informercial channels for a few mornings till I found the commercial airing so I could get all the “free gifts” I was entitled to; i.e. a comb, a leave-in hair masque and some “texture balm.” The rest of the package consists of the cleansing conditioner and the styling cream. It’s Guthy-Renker, so the whole point is that they rope you into this subscription system where, while you can cancel at any time, they do have your credit card and after your first $30/one month shipment, they start sending you 3-month supplies for $90. If you’re going to try it, don’t let them sell you the expedited shipping – they say regular shipping can take 4-6 weeks but I got mine in a week.

The wen system involves using lots and lots of product. I’m still not sure if I’m using “enough” but if my entire head is saturated I don’t really see the point of putting even more on there. Taking the time to really massage my head and sort of manually clean it is nice. But have you ever used kinda cheap shampoo and felt that coated, slick, filmy feeling post-shower? Wen leaves me with that sensation, like maybe all I really did was pour a whole lotta silicone all over my head, even after rinsing for ages (which also makes me feel like I’m wasting boatloads of water). Then you’re supposed to add even more of the cleansing stuff as a leave-in conditioner. Despite the weighed-down feeling, this seems to be important – I skipped that step once and my curls were much less curly. The styling cream seems a little too light. It doesn’t give me any crispies, but then again it doesn’t seem to do anything at all. The texture balm is crap – it’s a stick you rub on your palms and distribute through your hair. It’s like a piece of wax. All it does is make my palms waterproof. I can’t get it to rub off onto my hair, which makes me think I probably don’t want it in there in the first place. I haven’t even tried the masque yet. You have to wash your hair, put more conditioner on after rinsing, put the masque on, wait around, rinse again, and then reapply as a leave-in. I could fill a swimming pool with that much water.

According to the naturally curly website, my curls are 3A – loose curls made from lots and lots of fairly fine hair. They aren’t the most resilient things in the world, and even pulling them loosely into a ponytail for 30 minutes stretches them out past repair. I chose the “Sweet Almond Mint” flavor since my hair is fairly dry. I’m not a perfume girl and most scents turn me off – this one isn’t great but it doesn’t make me queasy and I don’t smell like strawberry cream dream surprise so it’s okay. Unfortunately, it’s too heavy for my hair. Between the coated feeling and the somewhat limp curls, I think I chose poorly.

I cancelled my subscription with guthy-renker (as, I admit, was my intention all along). I don’t wash my hair every day and don’t much need a backlog of wen bottles sitting around at $30 a pop. I might try the Cucumber Aloe formula that’s recommended for fine hair (but also oily hair, which seems like trouble) but I’ll go to amazon and just get the conditioner. I can skip all the other stuff. I’d say that if your hair is fairly dry and you want something to really weigh down the frizzies, this might be a good product for you, especially for straight hair or really solid curls that will maintain their shape no matter what. If you’re already buying your shampoo someplace other than the grocery store, then it’s not like this stuff’s going to cost you much more money, though the cost of shipping and the guilt of fossil fuels used for transporting a tiny bottle of pointless consumer bullshit directly to your massively wasteful american fat ass might take its toll. But hey.