One more little thing mama loves

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine asked me if women really use hairspray anymore. I gulped, "Ummm, yeah. I guess."

But really, it wasn't a guess. She lives in Manhattan, where women have their own full-of-effort, effortless-looking style. Here in the Midwest, most of us aren't afraid to show off the hours we put in and that means there's plenty of ozone depletion still happening from our hair up.

I'm one of those hair sprayers. I don't use a lot and I certainly am not calling forth any coifs from the late 80s, but I do spritz up some volume at the crown and smooth down a little curl at the jawline. While I'm not as worried about my hair product as my cosmetics, I still wondered if maybe I needed an update.

Then, because the universe works in the most delightful ways, I opened up a bag full of samples I got earlier this year and tossed into a drawer in my bathroom. Among the rosemary soaps and vials of body splash was a packet of Frederic Fekkai Glossing Cream.

I've used it for three days (judiciously since it's a small packet and I'm parceling it out like a four-year old who has been forced to share M&Ms) and it's a little bit of heaven in my hair. It really does shine up all those "crazy colors" (as Lil E calls my highlights) while also smoothing the frizzies and coaxing the waves into the style I am intending to come out of my haphazard blow-drying.

And so, because I am a sucker for marketing (apparently even in adorably small sample sizes) and implications that hairspray is so passe and for hair that looks slightly more like it does when I emerge from the salon than normal, I am hooked.

A word of warning, this stuff is spendy. But if it makes you feel better than its equivalent of thirty bottles of Suave gel spritzer or even five tubs of some kind of organic pomade, then it's worth it, right?

Now that I'm not talking to my hairspray, I have room in my life and bathroom cabinets for more tubes and tubs and pots and pumps full of goodness that really does the trick. What product are you investing in that you think other sassy mamas must use?

If you're doing a little economic stimulation of your own, here are three more things I love (and I'm not ashamed to say, won my heart one itty bitty sample at a time).