Judge a Product by Its Ingredients, Not Its Name. Week of December 17

tinksaysboo

For those of you who are new: I will list the ingredients of two products along with some questions.  Your job is to answer those questions based on just the ingredients.    Please share any other observations you might have or some of your reasoning.  It helps us all learn to read ingredients better  

This week, we have two styling products. One is a drugstore brand and one is a high end. Can you tell which is which and what type of stylers these are?

Product A
Aqua/Water/Eau, VP/VA Copolymer, Propylene Glycol, Triethanolamine, Glycerin, Panthenol, Oleth-20, Carbomer, Polyquaternium-11, DMDM Hydantoin, Parfum, Amyl Cinnamal, Geraniol, Limonene, Linalool

Product B
Water (Aqua), Carbomer, Hydrolyzed Wheat Protein, Glycerin, Amino-2-Methyl-1-Propanol, Sodium Hydroxymethylglycinate, Polysorbate 20, Tetrasodium EDTA, Olive Oil, Fragrance (Parfum), CI 19140 Yellow 5

1. What type of product do you think these are?
2. Which one is the drug store and which is the premium 
3.  What type of curls would probably like product A?  What type of curls probably dislike it?
4. What about for product B?

Past Themes:
Co-Wash or Low Poo?
Deep Conditioner: Drugstore or high end?
Shampoo: Drugstore or high end?
Curl Enhancer or Leave-In?

cnic216

Thanks for keeping this going, @tinksaysboo! 

1. I think these are both gels. My clue is that VP/VA Copolymer, Triethanolamine, and Carbomer are all popular in gels. 

2. It's tough to tell, but I think I recognize the ingredients in Product B, and if it is what I think it is ( think it's an Eco styler gel, specifically the olive oil one) , I know it's a drug store brand, so I'm gonna go with Product A as being the high end. 

3. I think Product A would be best for fine/wavy curls as I'm not seeing any heavy oils in it that would weigh hair down, but it does have a polyquat in it which would mean it would be good for frizz. I don't think this would be good for extremely dry or high po curls as their's definitely moisturizing products in it, but nothing to help seal that moisture in. 

4. I think Product B would be better for dry or high po curls since the olive oil would help to moisturize and seal the hair and also the large amount of protein would be great for protein loving, high po hair. I also think this would be better for tighter curls since the ingredients look to be heavier than Product A. 

Therese1

I've pretty much come to the same conclusions as @BrittanyM.

1. I think these are gels. Carbomer and the PVP tipped me off.

2. I'm guessing product B is the drugstore brand (I'm guessing it's the olive oil Ecostyler also). I say that because of the dyes. I think drugstore products use more dyes than high-end products.

3. I'm guessing Product A is more for hair on the fine end, due to the panthenol, which is supposed to be a volumizer.

4. Product B is probably for coarser hair, because of the olive oil, which can be pretty heavy for fine hair.

Guide 65

For some reason I'm thinking these are a mousse or a foam.  I don't know why I think that though.  I'm going to say B is the drugstore brand, because of the straight olive oil.  A lot of olive oil  type ingredients are Europa Olea something something extract...but this is just straight "olive oil".  And I'll say that A is for finer hair, and B will be heavier due to the oil.

tinksaysboo

@Guide 65  I did find it odd that it stated simply "olive oil".  I don't think I've ever seen that before. I also never knew other names it might be labeled as.  That is a good observation going forward when determining quality. thanks for calling it out!

BrittanyM

1. Gels. Piggy backing off the others.
2. Product B is drugstore. Purely going off the yellow. If that wasn’t there, I wouldn’t know.
3 & 4. I say all curl types would like them for hold. As far as moisturizing, neither fits my description of moisturizing. So for dry curl, using this alone wouldn’t work well.
very tricky.  I agree that B might be Eco Styler, but I have the Argan oil one and I stand by that it’s not for moisture.

tinksaysboo

You guys are good!  Eco Styler w/ olive oil is product B.  Product A was Curly Hair Solutions' Curl Keeper Gel