Vidal Sassoon Salonist Permanent Hair Color

The Vidal Sassoon name has been around as long as I can remember. It has always represented smart, stylish design, from the man himself to the now readily available drugstore products we can buy at our local chain store. I was asked by Bzz Agent to try and review a new product from VS: Vidal Sassoon Salonist Hair Color. This product is a new style of hair color that is unlike any home coloring brand I have tried. I was impressed that this product looks, acts and is applied like salon hair color.

I chose my color on-line, and I will admit that when the box arrived I thought that the color was going to be too dark. I chose Medium Neutral Brown, and conventional coloring wisdom says that the color usually comes out a bit darker than what is shown. I have been coloring, highlighting, foiling and perming my hair forever, so I am no stranger to changing it up. However, I have using a Medium Blond shade for a while, and the color on the box looked like it would be a really big change. Since my roots were peeking out dark anyway (and showing gray) I decided to forge ahead in spite of the uncertainty. I really wanted to try this product!

I started with  a strand test although I usually skip this step. In fact, the directions don't specifically recommend it, but since the color was new to me and I was inexperienced with the shade I picked, I mixed the colorant and developer together (about 1 tsp of each - at least the math was easy since the product box contained two oz. of each solution.) The packaging of the product is first class - the kit includes an oval bowl with a lid since about 1/3 of the solution is used for the ends and 2/3 on the roots. While the roots are developing, the lid goes on and the product does not dry out. The kit also includes a "serum" which is added to the bowl for the lengths and ends step. The salon style application brush for the roots fits neatly into the lid, and the bowl also contained a beautiful,  4-color glossy page of instructions and black rubber gloves.

I mixed up my test product and brushed it on the root area of a strand of hair that would be somewhat hidden in my hairstyle, just in case things went horribly dark. In thirty minutes, I smoothed on the portion that I saved and gave it another 10 minutes. The instructions recommend applying the solution to the lengths and ends by hand, like a color stylist would do in a salon. When the 10 minutes were done, I rinsed and dried and checked out my color. Let me add at this point that I did not use any "serum" on the test strand. The serum is contained in a mylar packet that is added to the 1/3 part of the solution that will be used to smooth on the lengths and ends. I didn't use it at this point since I thought the correct proportion would be too hard to determine. Anyway, I loved the color!

Most hair coloring turns out as a product of the color you start with and the color you are adding, so it was much lighter than what was shown on the box. Awesome, I thought, and proceeded to mix half the colorant and half of the developer. I still didn't want to go all dark, so my plan was to color my roots and then sweep some low lights through the blond, hopefully resulting in a Jennifer Aniston mix of light brown and golden highlights. My hair was recently cut into a bob, so it is pretty short, and it is also fine. I just don't have a lot of hair, so using the full box seemed like it would be overkill. The thick consistency of the product is great - it doesn't drip or run all over the place like most hair coloring solutions.

It turned out my plan worked perfectly! I was really happy with the result -my  hair has nice shine and feels soft. As with most hair coloring kits, VS provides a deep conditioner to use once a week, which I love. I will note that I nearly forgot to put in the half packet of "serum" to the 1/3 solution that was left after covering my roots. I had already started applying color to sections of hair when I remembered, but the tardy application of the serum didn't seem to hurt the results. I know that most likely my color came out lighter than the color indicated on the box because I didn't do a standard full head application, but to me it's all about customizing the experience. I like creating my own look and I am really pleased with the finished effect. It covered my gray, and there are no sharp lines of demarcation - the various tones in my hair flow nicely. It doesn't look flat.

I think Vidal Sassoon is hitting it out of the park with this latest entry to their product line. I will be interested to know at what price point this product will be sold. It clearly is an upgrade from the simple boxes of inexpensive color lining the shelves and more like a salon experience at home.

RSVP Endurance Grapefruit Double Knife

I recently bought an ingenious product and wanted to share my thoughts on it. It’s a grapefruit knife! Yeah, not very exciting at first glance, but it’s always a pleasure to discover an inexpensive kitchen gadget that actually works. I eat Texas Ruby Reds by the 20 pound bag during the months they are available, so there’s a lot of grapefruit filleting going on at my house this time of year. I saw this product at a local kitchen store and I’m so glad I bought it.

The knife is double sided - one side has a curved knife with big serrations for cutting around the interior perimeter of a grapefruit half. (My only quibble with this knife is that you pretty much need a second, regular knife to actually cut the grapefruit in half to begin with, but I get that it might be difficult to engineer a three side knife unless you get into Swiss Army knife territory.)  Anyway, once the fruit is separated from the pithy rind, the second side of the knife has a double blade to cut the fruit sections away from the membranes.  Ingenious! The two blades are very close together and slip over the membrane to separate the sections so they can be extracted as neat triangle shaped pieces. I find this way of eating grapefruit much less messy and more work friendly than cutting it in half and trying to dig out the sections with a grapefruit spoon, squirting juice in the process.

I see that this product is available on Amazon.com for $5.95 - well worth it!