Happy Black Friday: My 'Mixed Chicks' Product Review

In celebration of Black Friday and good old-fashioned American consumerism, I decided to write a product review for today's blog post. The product I'm reviewing is the Mixed Chicks Leave-In Conditioner.

This post may qualify as the most superficial one I've ever written, but here goes:

A few months ago, I decided it was finally time to replace the bottle of Infusium 23 Color Defender Leave-In Conditioner that has been sitting on my bathroom sink since 2011.  I use it every time I wash my hair, but because I have such short hair, the 16-ounce bottle lasts forever - longer than it should. I don't know if hair products have an expiration date, but I thought three years was long enough.

For some reason, Infusium 23 Color Defender is very hard to find on store shelves. I like it because it doesn't have sulfates, which can dry out your hair if you're of African descent like me or another ancestry in which coarse, curly hair is a common trait.

During my futile search of several drug stores for this inexplicably rare brand of Infusium 23, I stumbled upon the Mixed Chicks Leave-In Conditioner.  The description on the bottle hooked me in:

Finally, a curl defining formula designed for "us." Whether you're black, white, Asian, Latin, Mediterranean, or any glorious combination of the above, you'll love the way this alcohol-free, non-sticky, lightweight product leaves your hair inviting to touch as it defines and locks moisture into every curl. Be a proud part of our multi-racial movement, show your curls and radiantly roll with "Mixed Chicks."

Since my hair is a sometimes stubborn mixture of straight, curly, kinky, wavy and frizzy, I thought Mixed Chicks would be the brand for me. However, at first I had sticker shock and was a little taken aback by the $19 price for a 10-ounce bottle of Mixed Chicks, since a 16-ounce bottle of Infusium 23 Color Defender runs about $8 or less.

I reasoned that Mixed Chicks must be a salon-quality product, and quality is worth paying a little more. Plus, by buying Mixed Chicks, I would be supporting a movement I very much believe in: celebrating and being inclusive of people of different backgrounds. 

In my bathroom, applying Mixed Chicks.

But in all honesty, I have to say that after a couple of tries with Mixed Chicks, I was unimpressed. The product fell flat, along with my hair. Mixed Chicks made my hair feel limp and weighted down.

While I applaud the company's mission of a product specifically designed for people of color and multi-racial individuals, it simply didn't work for me. Maybe my hair is too short and thin and the product works better for people with fuller, longer hair? Or maybe it's specifically designed for women?

So I ended up going back to my trusty old Infusium 23 Color Defender, which I finally found online at Amazon. And that nearly $20 bottle of Mixed Chicks? It's been sitting on my bathroom counter, where it may end up staying for the next three years.   

Reliable ol' Infusium 23 Color Defender 
is hard to find but worth the search.