Random Product Review! Black Phoenix Trading Post Coconut, Vanilla Bean, and Tiare Hair Gloss

By Unknown

Purchased

I'm very low-maintenance when it comes to my hair. (Unlike the rest of my beauty routine, which is reaching ever-increasing heights of time-consuming, bourgeois fussiness... I stopped to buy a lip primer the other day and called it a "lip balm" because I didn't feel like explaining to my husband what I wanted it for; this backfired when he asked me why I couldn't just use one of the balms I had at home...) There are very few products I put in my hair on a regular basis other than shampoo and conditioner. One of them is Haus of Gloi's hair oil, one of them is the long-departed but beloved hair gloss that Blooddrop used to make, and, last but not least, Black Phoenix Trading Post's Coconut, Vanilla Bean, and Tiare Hair Gloss ($30 for 5 oz? 4 oz? The website lists it as 5 oz, but my bottle says 4 oz.). Aside from this, there are the occasional spritzes of hairspray or dry shampoo, but I don't think I use those products more than once every couple of months.

Black Phoenix Trading Post is an offshoot of Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab that specializes in BPAL-related, non-perfume products--bath and body products, clothing, candles, etc. The hair glosses were introduced a few years back and I've had this bottle almost since the initial release.

The gloss is described as follows:

Black Phoenix’s Hair Gloss is paraben and sulfate free, and contains no petro-chemicals, no GMOs, and no triclosan.

Our hair gloss has a six-month shelf life.

Handmade by Black Phoenix. As always, no animals were harmed during the creation of this product, and all products were tested on friends and family.

Please exercise common sense when using our HAIR GLOSS: do not eat, do not snort, do not drink, do not pour into eyes, etc. If irritation occurs, discontinue use immediately.

Cyclomethicone, botanisil, Vitamin E, argan oil, Tahitian monoi oil, camelina oil, and karanja oil.

I use the hair gloss to help smooth down frizzy strands and moisturize my hair if it's feeling dry. It comes in a large amber plastic spray bottle that spritzes out the gloss in a moderately fine mist--not so coarse that you feel like it's squirting out in wet droplets, but not so fine that it lingers in the air. It's not too heavy; I don't ever feel like it weighs down my hair. It's more like a dry oil than a heavy, greasy one.

I find that because of the spray bottle, it's harder to smooth it evenly over my hair than with the Haus of Gloi hair oil, which comes in a dropper, so you can rub it between your palms and spread it over your locks wherever they need it. When using the BPTP hair gloss, I tend to mist my hair about 3 or 4 times and then brush my hair with a hairbrush. On the plus side, sometimes I don't feel like getting my hands dirty with product, and I'd prefer to simply mist my hair with the spray gloss rather than having to rub the oil in my hands and then onto my hair.

The $30 price tag is rather steep if you take their word for it that the hair gloss has a 6-month shelf life. However, I've had my bottle for a few years now, used it on a regular basis, and I still have probably a good quarter of the bottle left, so that breaks down to only about $10 a year even if I chuck it out today. The smell and texture have not noticeably changed since I first received the bottle.

I'm not sure if it makes my hair noticeably glossier, to be honest, but I do feel like it moisturizes my hair if it's feeling dry and frizzy. Although the first ingredient is a silicone, it also has good amounts of various oils that are good for the hair, like argan oil and monoi oil. It also adds a divine smell, one of the main draws for me personally! It's a sweet but not overpowering sugary scent; the vanilla and gardenias draw the scent towards the powdery side, and the coconut has a rich, toasty, almost caramelized scent to it. That caramel note makes it smell more like coconut macaroons to me than pina coladas. There's also a hint of some kind of anise-like note in it upon first application, but that fades away after a little while.

The scent is very long-lasting (a couple of days if I don't wash my hair) and, I think, improves over time as it slowly fades.

I tried decants of some of the other hair glosses when they came out, but swapped them away--Honey was far too sweet for me, White Tea and Sage too sharp and herbal. I liked Snake Oil, but didn't want to spring for the full bottle, which is more expensive than the other hair glosses--$45 a bottle instead of $30, which already feels expensive to me for a single hair product.

I really wish that this hair gloss came in smaller bottles. I'm interested in trying some of the newer scents, like Implacable Beautiful Tyrant ("Golden amber, frankincense, white ginger, and oudh."), but I missed the decant circles when the scent was first released, and I don't really want to accumulate more hair glosses since I already have three that I'm rotating through at the moment--not to mention, I do plan to repurchase this hair gloss once I run out, and I don't really want to drop $60 on hair glosses when I haven't even been able to sample the scent to make sure I like it.

If you're not avoiding silicones in your hair products, and this product sounds appealing to you, I'd definitely recommend this product in this scent. Again, though, due to the sheer size and cost of a single bottle of it and the lack of samples, before deciding on a scent to choose, I'd read a lot of reviews and err on the side of "safer" scents for your own personal tastes. You can find other reviews on the BPAL forums or the Long Hair Community forums.

Have you tried any of the Black Phoenix hair glosses? What do you think of them?