Weird Product Wednesday: Jellies, Gelees, Gels, and Goo

We curlies sure slap loads of slime in our hair.

And it's hardly ever called slime. It goes by a wide range of names:

- gel
- gelee
- gellie
- jelly
- goo
- custard
- pudding
- butter
- paste
- souffle
- cream
- creme
- meringue


(And I'm not even going to tackle the mousse, polish, pomade, gloss, serum, lotion, glaze monikers out there. Not to mention the milkshakes and elixirs and whatnot.)

Okay, cosmetic companies, we get it. These are all names for products that we can glop on our heads in some fashion. Obviously paste is going to be thicker than gel, so that sort of differentiation is helpful. But the difference between a gellie, a jelly, a custard, and a goo simply confounds me. Maybe it does to you, too?

Now, a gel we understand. It typically has some copolymers in it and it provides some hold. In fact, we use it almost exclusively for hold.

But this other stuff... It's a free-for-all of naming conventions! I used to think "gelee" meant it was a product from France. A "jelly" was going to be looser than a gel and probably not provide as much hold as a gel (I still believe this to be true, but your experience may differ). And goo, well, you're on your own with that one -- the name implies that it might be fun to play with but beyond that, who the hell knows?

And then we have the custards, puddings, meringue group, which is distinguishable from the gel, gelees, jellies, gellies, and perhaps the goo by its creamier quality. Some of these have copolymers and some don't, so the amount of hold they might provide is yet another crap shoot. Read the label and you might get a clue but chances are, your best way to know what the product does is to buy it and take your chances. Because for instance, Kinky Curly Curling Custard is not creamy, it's gunky. Miss Jessie's Curly Meringue, though, looks (and sort of feels) like it belongs in a pie.

Which slime do you reach for to keep your locks in prime condition? I confess to owning a wide assortment of all these crazy products, and depending on the weather, my mood, and the other products I might have applied that day, I'll reach for the concoction that offers some kind of balance to those variables. Sounds scientific, but in practice, it's as much an instinctive decision as an informed one. Do we need all these different products with their appetizing names? Probably not, but there's something deliciously fun about opening your medicine cabinet and having it look not so terribly different from your refrigerator.

Still, though, I'd like to see some standardization among product categories. Or maybe just call everything slime and distinguish its hold abilities by color. I don't know. What would you like to see?

Recent product discoveries

I've been mixing Paul Brown's Gelatine Goo into various other styling products this week and quite liking the results! Used alone, it's kind of like a gel but it doesn't really hold quite enough for my taste. But it does add a bit of volume, so I've been mixing it with some gels (Aveda Flax Seed Aloe, Condition & Sculpt, and Max Green Alchemy Scuplting) for the best of both worlds: definition and volume! It's an interesting product, especially since I didn't expect to like it at all (seemed like it would be too humectant-heavy, which is maybe why I like it best with other things).

And speaking of Condition & Sculpt, I really like this, too! It's one of those products that has a bit of an identity crisis, so you don't actually know the best way to use it. Some people at naturallycurly.com said they hated it because it left their hair stringy and lifeless. But somebody else said they use this under gel to good effect. So I used it under Biotera gel one day last week and loved the results! It's a good clumper -- I might turn to it when the magnesium sulfate in Rockin' Ringlets makes my hair frizzy (which is often). I can tell by the consistency of it that I probably wouldn't like it by itself. It seems to need something with it, so I'll experiment with some other stuff this week.

I've been having such great hair days lately! I really attribute it to the protein I've been making sure to incorporate into my daily hair routine. I'm also scrunching more. Maybe that helps too?