As a relaxed lady for close to twenty years now, I have tried and tested MANY different relaxers through the years. I’ve tried lye once and it was a hellish experience and thus I’ve stuck with no-lye for the rest of my days. I have tried everything from Soft’n’Free (NEVER again – it burned my scalp in record time, leaving me with BARELY processed hair as I rinsed quickly before I’d be stuck with insane chemical burns) to ORS Olive Oil No-Lye Relaxer kit. In general I like the kits, everything nicely prepackaged and ready to go.
Since I’ve started my journey I’ve used the Dark & Lovely Beautiful Beginnings Normal kit, the ORS Olive Oil No Lye Relaxer kit for Girls, The ORS Olive Oil No Lye Relaxer in Regular kit and Motions No Lye Relaxer in Regular kit, the latter being the most recently used for my touch up and the focus of this review.
As a precursor let me state that I have a sensitive scalp and thus far my favorite relaxer kit is the ORS No Lye Relaxer kit For Girls – gentle on my scalp, gentle on my hair, effective straightening process. I however decided that I needed to give at least one more product a try before settling and the Motions marketing and ad campaigns were the driving force behind trying their kit yesterday.
At 11 weeks post I was technically a week early with my touch up, but since hair does grow a bit faster during the summer months (and here in Namibia, we are having a very hot and sunny summer) my new growth was getting a tad hard to manage. No, scrap that, it was becoming out of control! No matter how gentle I was, no matter how much I moisturized and sealed my new growth, no mater how diligently I deep conditioned,I was experiencing demarcation line breakage. I’ve come to the conclusion that my hair is not really a fan of the Namibian summer. In any event, here I was, with THICK new growth and I simply couldn’t take it anymore. So on Friday I bought a Motions kit and on Sunday me and one of my besties tackled my tresses.
When I opened the box, I felt encouraged. A pre-treatment included as well as a conditioning mask and a leave in conditioner. I felt confident that my hair would be as sleek and shiny as the chick on the box. Alas, it was not meant to be. But let me not skim over my experience.
As we were watching Hell’s Kitchen I applied the pre-treatment to all my previously relaxed hair and based my scalp and hairline with Vaseline. I mixed up the relaxer and activator gel and the resultant consistency was very nice and smooth. It also has the most pleasant smell of any relaxer I’ve ever used. We started applying the relaxer creme at the crown, moving up, down and side ways so that the hair line and nape get processed last as they’re less resistant and finer than the rest of my head. We were working at a good pace, but within 10 minutes the back of my scalp started tingling, despite all the basing I did. 2 minutes after the tingling came the (quite intense) burn and I rushed to the bath and started rinsing. Luckily for me all my hair was processed to the desired degree. Unfortunately for Motions, just the fact that my scalp started burning so soon puts it on the “not again anytime soon” list.
I neutralized with the included shampoo, and hell’s bells, my back is STILL killing me, having had to be bent over the bath shampooing and rinsing about a hundred times before the foam looked white instead of pink. I followed this with the included conditioning mask, and decided to do a DC after I applied it to my hair, leaving it under a plastic cap in 100 degree summer heat for 45 minutes. When I rinsed it off I started to feel truly discouraged. My hair did not feel smooth, nor conditioned, nor very soft. I started praying that the included leave in conditioner will deliver said results. AND…it did NOT. My hair felt stiff, as if I put strong hold setting lotion on it. Detangling and roller setting was a nightmare. My ends felt like straw after I took out the rollers when my hair was finally dry (took about 3-4 hours air drying it in the rollers). I am so disappointed. There was no additional shine as promised by the ad campaigns! The breakage was more, not less! And my hair does not feel more conditioned than when I use another system.
I’m sorry Motions, but your relaxer kit gets a thumbs down from me, and believe me, I have tried PLENTY. And unfortunately this experience had discouraged me from trying anything else from your line. Perhaps this system works for other ladies, but for me…I think I now have a pretty accurate idea of what works best for me, and it’s a kit for little girls.
So, ladies, thoughts? What experiences have you had with Motions? Or any other system for that matter?