I usually focus just on makeup and sometimes skincare on this blog but I thoughts it's time to talk about some product I've been using since being on the curly girl method. And I might as well start with something I use quite a lot.
The Balea Professional Traum Locken Powder Spray is a very watery spray product targeted towards wavy and curly hair. You get 150ml for 75 Crowns which makes it a nice affordable product. It's sold only at DM drugstore as it's their own brand.
It comes in a sleek plastic spray bottle that's orange and seethrough. I really like the spritzer on the bottle because it makes quite a fine mist so I can spray it directly on my hair and not to my hands first. That's a big plus for me. It also smells quite nice.
Now, according to the instructions is can be used as a leave-in conditioner since the website says that you should apply it to wet hair and then style and dry it. But I usually use it to refresh my waves after a couple days. It promises to hydrate the curls, renew them and define them and also make them smooth and bouncy.
I know what you're asking and yes, this product is CG approved. It contains protein and it's high up in the ingredients so if your hair doesn't like protein very much, this probably won't be a product for you. It also contains several oils but from what I've found they are pretty lightweight oils so it shouldn't be weighting down your hair. It also contains glycerin so beware in colder and wet weather as it's a humectant. Here's the ingredients list if you want to check for yourself.
Ingredients: Aqua, Peg-60 Hydrogenated Castor Oil, Glycerin, Triticum Vulgare Germ Oil, Camellia Oleifera Seed Oil, Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride, Caprylyl Glycol, Cetearyl Nonanoate, Hydrolyzed Keratin, Triticum Vulgare Bran Extract, Triticum Vulgare Germ Extract, Linoleic Acid, Tocopheryl Acetate, Tocopherol, Parfum, Alpha-Isomethyl Ionone, Limonene, Phenoxyethanol
Refresh demo
I have used this spray as both leave-in and refresh spray but my hair is high porosity so it wasn't quite enough for me as a leave-in conditioner because it's very lightweight and I prefer more creamy leave-ins.
To roughly show you how well it can refresh my hair, here's my day 4-5 hair which has been just sitting at home and living in a pineapple or a bun. It looks like garbage at this point. There's a wave here and there but that's mostly because of the bun I had on all morning.
I apply the product directly from the bottle so I spray it all over my hair, sometimes I section it in layers to really get those bottom layers too. Then I start to scrunch a little bit to boost the waves. The product is not sticky but my hands usually start to get kind of stuck to my hair with makes it more straight. So I grab my microfiber towel or hair turban and continue to scrunch with that a little more. Then I just put my hair up with a Zazzyband and let it airdry. You could just diffuse if you're i
n a hurry but I ain't going anywhere so I'll just wait.
What I really like about this product is that it makes your hair very nice and soft and not sticky at all. It also doesn't dry out my hair which usually happens with refresh sprays. It does make my hair a little bit frizzy but that happens literally with any liquid I try to refresh with.
It doesn't really create a cast, sometimes when I use it soon after my wash day it does but I think that's because it re-activates the styling products I used when I styled my hair. When I use it 3 and more days after my wash day, I usually don't get any cast at all. But even if there's some it's very easily breakable by quick scrunching with your hands or a microfiber towel.
And here's the result after about 30 minutes of airdrying. I sometimes takes a little bit of oil or serum to smooth the frizz but today it's not really neccessary. My hair is more defined than it was for sure and I would say it feels better to the touch as well. It started to be a little dehydrated and this helped the overall state of my hair quite a lot. It seems a lot less dry and more defined and bouncy. It might not seem like a lot but we all know how difficult it is to photograph wavy and curly hair.
Final thoughts
This product is very affordable and I would recommend it as a good refresh spray and a very lightweight leave-in if you're looking for something with protein that won't break the bank.
I can actually see and feel a difference in my hair when I refresh with this spray so for me it's a great product that I reach for a ton. I am pretty much half a bottle down and I probably will repurchase because I haven't found a refresh spray that would work this well for me. It's probably one of the better ones in the drugstore.
Have you tried any other Balea hair products that you like? Let me know in the comments and thanks for reading!