The one where I get my hair washed

Pantene isn't normally one of those brands where I use excessive hyperbole and exclamation marks. Sure, they're good. They're great. They provide a quality product at an excellent price, but there is only so much energy I have for being excitable and I have to ration it very carefully. Right now…excited. Me + pantene = excited.

It's the new Pantene and Wella Clinicare that's floating my boat (those two friends got into bed together and did the nasty to make a hair care baby). Hiromasa Takasugi, the Wella hair Ambassador, describes the range “It was in the four principles of Sado - harmony, respect, purity and tranquillity that Pantene Clinicare found its mission; that is to inspire women and help them on the journey to their hair transformation.” Sounds fruity, no? Essentially, this is Barney Martin on a Just Cuts budget. Speaking of Barney Martin, that's where Pantene took me to introduce me to this new product (my life is awful sometimes. But not this time, ha!)

I went to the Barney Martin salon in Surry Hills and the incredible Van washed and treated my hair with the new range, and then showed me how to blow-dry my hair properly and style it to give it texture. As an aside, I was secretly very proud of myself because I was using the "right" technique for blowdrying my hair to give it body. High five, me! (FYI - blasting it while flipped upside down and then using the wrap technique that Zoe describes over on primped).

So right, Clinicare. Think about what your hair was like when you were 10 years old. Fresh, pure, virgin - untouched by chemicals or products, the most damaging thing that happened was the odd blow dry or too much exposure to chlorine in summer. Wouldn't you love to have hair like that again? That's the idea behind Clinicare - it's a micro-repair revitalising range that reverses damage, conditions and then stops more damage happening in future. Did you know that 20 year old hair is often in worse condition than 60 year old hair? Too much ghd action. So this range is perrrrfect for women in their 20s and 30s to help fix up all that damage, even though it was actually created for the older birds.

Pantene sent me home with some Clinicare and after two weeks of use I am pretty pleased with the results. Random observation: the shampoo seems to lather up more than regular shampoo. I doubt it has any effect on anything, but I love the feeling of really sudsy shampoo. It smells like Pantene (which has a distinct smell, no?) and I get roughly three treatments out of one little amulet, which is incredible value for money (you would get more for shorter hair, probably less for longer hair).

As for my amazing textured blow dry, Van curled just the mid-lengths of my hair, leaving the ends straight. He explained that doing just the middle makes it more about texture than just curling it. He used Wella High Hair Ocean Spritz, which is a great texturising sea salt spray/hair spray hybrid that gets two very enthusiastic thumbs up from me.

Price:
Clinicare Micro-Repair Revitalising Shampoo - $14.99/250ml
Clinicare Micro-Repair Revitalising Conditioner - $14.99/250ml
Clinicare Micro-Repair Revitalising Rinse Off Treatment - pack of 5 x 15ml little amulets - $19.99 (if you get three uses out of an amulet, that's just over a buck a treatment!)
From: Supermarkets
Why you need it: To repair all the horrible and mean things you have done to your hair with heat tools, hair dye, air conditioning and general neglect

Price: Wella High Hair Ocean Spritz - $23.50
From: Salons - check the website for somewhere close to you
Why you need it: Texture is in, baby.

PS - the lipstick is MAC Cruella DeVil in Heartless from the Disney villains collection. Amazeballs.
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