I've Found A New Love

Ok, so I seriously never thought I would say anything like this... But I have found a gel that I like even more than the Eco Stylers!  I know, I know, that shouldn't be possible.  Everyone pretty much raves about the Eco Styler gels and how they provide excellent hold and never fail them, blah blah blah.  You might get an occasional negative or just not so great review every now and then, but the Eco Styler gels have a pretty solid reputation.  And my thoughts on them were no exception to the rule.  So no one is more surprised than me that there's a gel I prefer over them now.

I first heard about La Bella styling gel on the forums of naturallycurly.com.  As might be expected, I was a little skeptical of the rave review given to the gel.  I thought, "Well I've already found my Holy Grail gel, so I don't really need to try anything else."  But then I was browsing through the beauty aisles in Target and I happened upon a huge tub of the stuff.  40 ounces for under $3.  When I realized it was the gel I'd heard about on the forum, I thought "Why not try it?  The worst that can happen is I won't like it and then I wasted less than three dollars."

So I took it home and used it just like I use Eco Styler, over Shea Moisture Curl Enhancing Smoothie and under extra virgin olive oil...  Loves, when I say this is the best gel I have ever used, hands down I am not exaggerating.  First, let me start with the smell.  This gel has a watery, fresh smell that isn't offensive in the least.  It can be mixed with probably any product and do just fine.  The texture is also kind of watery to me. It isn't the thinnest gel on the market by any means, but when you're used to the rather thick, sticky consistency of Eco Styler gels, almost any other gel is kind of watery by comparison.

As for definition, this gel gives me definition - dare I say it - even better than that of the Eco Stylers.  Now, I should be fair and mention that since I first tried La Bella gel, I haven't reached for either of my Eco Stylers once.  But that wasn't just because of the great definition this gel gives.  This gel also leaves my hair very soft, even though it claims to have a hold of 10.  I can use a hole bunch of this stuff on my hair, and with the Curl Enhancing Smoothie, and the extra virgin olive oil, my hair is never crunchy with this.  I can't always say the same for the Eco Stylers.  There have been plenty of times that my hair felt like a bunch of hard, curly noodles after using them if I accidentally over did it.  But with La Bella, my hair has consistently been soft to the touch.

The only area this gel doesn't do so well with is slicking my hair back.  If I want to wear a ponytail or all of my hair to one side, Eco Styler is the gel I'm going to reach for every time.  The sticky-ish consistency of this gel works really well for holding all of the hair down as it dries.  With La Bella, when I tried to slick my hair back, all of my shorter hairs would pop up and give me flyaways. If I wanted to use La Bella to slick my hair, I would have to wrap it with a scarf or something until it dried to keep all of the shorter hairs from popping up.

This review might have come off like an Eco Styler bashing, but that's really not what it was at all. I still love my Eco Stylers and think they do their job very well.  La Bella has become my preference because it's: 1. Cheaper (<$3 for 40 oz). 2. Easily accessible (Can be found in most drug stores). 3. Leaves my hair very soft.  I hope some of you try it out. If you do, share your thoughts too. :)