Joico Curls Like Us Hydrate & Define Curl Crème Styler​

Most Helpful Critical Review

Not for me

For reference, I have long, high porosity curls that are fine to medium in texture and somewhat low in density. I use *either* a curl cream or a leave in, but not both, before applying a gel and/or foam. I use creams/leave ins very sparingly; usually about a dime to nickel sized amount of cream is e...nough to very lightly coat the mid lengths to ends of my curls of I emulsify it really well. This stuff wasn't really "creamy", it was more lotion like in consistency, which at first I thought was great. Usually lotions work better on my finer, lower density curls as they tend to be more lightweight. Well this stuff had a weird feel to it. Almost oily feeling. I started off with about a dime sized amount, emulsified it (the best that I could-it didn't really expand in size like most creams do when you emulsify them) and begin to lightly rake it through my wet hair. It immediately clung to my hair. I'd say it "absorbed" immediately except that "absorbed" wouldn't be the right word. It just sorta sat on top of my hair, which is strange considering my hairs higher porosity. But I wasn't even close to half way thru my hair when all the product was gone from my hands, and I wasn't even able to keep raking the area where the product has been applied so that I could spread it further. Nope, it just stuck to the area where it first touched my hair. So I went in with another dime sized amount and started on the other side of my head. Same thing happened. So now I'm 2 dime sized amounts in and haven't even touched the back of my head. So I use a 3rd dime sized amount for that area. I used my tangle teezer to try to distribute the product but it didn't really distribute. It was really weird. My strands felt almost oily, and it felt like the product wasn't absorbing at all. I've only ever used one other product (and I'm a five alarm product junkie to the fullest-I've tried a LOT of products) that felt similar to this joico curl creme (lotion like texture yet didn't distribute, seemed to sit on top of my wet hair and gave like an oily feel) and that was the Curl Keeper curl cream. If you've tried and liked that, you'll probably love this. If you're more into the creams where a little goes a long way like AG recoil or curl fresh definer, bounce curl clump & define cream, Aveda be curly, Curlsmith featherlight protein cream or air dry cream, twist weather up styling lotion, Ecoslay lemon buttercream, cake curl cream, ouidad feather light curl cream or vitacurl gel cream, etc) then this probably won't be for you. I topped this off with Joico's foam from the same line. I liked the foam. but the final result gave me greasy looking curls that appeared always wet and I KNOW that came from the curl creme, not the foam. My hair doesn't get greasy, like ever. I wash my hair once or twice a week, and one time I even went TEN days and my hair still wasn't greasy. Oh and it smells funny IMO. Not sure how to describe it, but I will say it's not a strong smell at least. I don't even mind strong scents (if it smells nice anyways), but this was lightly scented. it's just that it had a faint odor to it that I just don't know how to describe. Sorry this was so long, but I rarely review products and wanted to give a thorough review.