Sexy Hair Rough & Ready

This morning was testing time for a hair product I had high hopes for:  Sexy Hair – Rough & Ready.

I initially ordered it from Amazon as they had the best price at $12 a jar, but ended up canceling my order a few days later since the shipping was going to take 1-2 months.  I then paid a visit to Eleganza in hopes of getting a jar since they carry that brand.  They were sold out and I was going to leave it at that, but they offered to reserve me a jar upon delivery of their stock.  OK.  A week went by and I had forgotten about it when they called to let me know that the jar had arrived.  I dropped in the next day to pick it up.  Until then I had not inquired about the price.  Silly me!  It was blow away at the cash to find out that it was some $25 with taxes.  Ouch!  You can appreciate that at this point, my expectations for quality and performance went from zero to ten!

Based on price and the popularity of this brand, I was expecting something worthy of popular interest. Packaging wise, it is a nicely presented brand.  The red and black accents convey a slick appearance.  Most hair fixative jars tend to be 100g, this one is 125g.  So you are getting a bit more goo for your buck.  As per the label, it is rated as a 4 for shine and 7 for hold.  We’ll see how that works out.

Upon opening the jar, you are presented with a freshness seal.  Removing that and you are seeing a yellow goo that looks to be something between cream and pomade.  It is thicker than cream but not has firm as pomade.  It reminds me of the texture of honey.  This honey is quite sticky and you will have very little time to style once it makes contact with your hair.   It is rather hard to work with as you can barely spread it.  Now granted my hair is fairly long at some 5-7 inches in the bangs and my hair was possibly still a bit wet from the towel drying.  The packaging does indicate to apply on dry hair.  Usually, having a bit of water in the hair is the way to go…

Since this goo seizes so fast, I wasn’t able to achieve my desired styling.  It was an acceptable result with decent elevation and placement, but somewhat un-even.  I found it hard to achieve an even distribution so I did what was possible.  The product sets and dries very fast and it feels like gel: firm and crispy.  It’s not really a helmet head scenario but the hair is crunchy.  Like a gel, it dries the hair and scalp a little, so I am having a bit of scalp itchiness.  Nothing wild, but enough to notice.

As with gel, if you don’t over do it, it is nice to the touch.  The same is true here.  You can tell there is product but it is not so firm that that is untouchable.   That being said the bonding is strong and attempting to comb it is not going to be successful.  This is 100% finger combing and placement.

About 5-6 hours after application most of the holding power as faded.  I did re-apply a small coat here and there and it did OK.  It was actually a tad easier to work with on completely dry hair.  I will assume that it was also easier to work with as the hair already had a coat of this fixative.

Here is the rating on a scale of 1 to 5, where 5 is a perfect score and/or the level of shine.

• Hold: 3 (I am giving it a 3 because although it has good hold, it doesn’t have a full day’s worth of holding power.)
• Shine: 3
• Texture: 3.5
• Feel in hair: 4
• Facility to wash out: 5 (This product is water based and as such, comes out without effort in a normal shower conditions.)

Here are my “likes” and “dislikes”:

• I DON’T like that it dries so fast as it makes for an awkward application.
• I DO like that it is sticky and light making elevated styles quite possible.

One of the main reasons Style4Men came to be was to share findings on different pomades and shaving creams.   These products tend to be expensive and you can’t really try and return the jar if you are not happy with the results.  Unless your hair Stylist or friends have these products and you can try them, there is really no way to have an opinion.  Hopefully, these post are helping you get the right products for your desired style as well as with your shopping for these items.

Obviously, this product is available at Eleganza, but you can also shop online using this links: