StoneFish Medium Hold Matt Texturising Clay

This is one of those blog posts I really hate doing - the slating review. 

In this case it is even harder as I’m a huge fan of Fish Soho hair products having taken #hairontour with SuperFish putty and Fishshape cream. 

Using the putty and cream firmly converted me but my faith was tested more than Abraham in Genesis* (sorry for an obscure Bible reference).

The product claims: 

‘Fish StoneFish Medium hold Styling Clay is great for short and choppy styles, Stonefish gives the ultimate textured look with a cool matt finish.’

When I first started trying this my hair was about an inch in length and I consider this to be short - correct me if I’m wrong, but my experiences are based on trying it while my hair grew from one to two inches. 

The clay is beige in colour, but looks off white due to the blue plastic packaging. It has a very subtle fruity whiff to it but nothing that could ever be considered to be over the top or likely to overshadow any other grooming products you might choose to add.

While writing this and considering the fragrance I had one of those childhood flashbacks that come on when my brain starts to access memories attached to smells. In this flashback it reminded me of the smell of groundbait - the bread based stuff we would use when fishing as kids. Weird! 

Anyhow, I digress as usual and will come back on topic!

Trying to extract the clay is a nightmare - I scraped and scraped away at it and it took five minutes to remove enough to spread across my fingertips and start to apply.

The clay does soak into the fingertips as they warm really quickly so no hanging around with styling.

At an inch in length I found that I had to massage the clay into the strands of hair and then re-apply more - it does have a fantastic matt effect but the hold wasn’t up to much for me. While taking into consideration that I have quite heavy hair, there are other products in the Fish Soho range that offer more substantial hold.

After about 3 hours the clay had come out as I touched my hair throughout the morning (this usually comprises of me with both hands on top of my head shouting obscenities at work over a minor matter). My hair started to feel fluffy and the style came out completely leaving me feeling quite self-conscious. That’s not a feeling I like at all.

Sorry Fish Soho but StoneFish just doesn’t offer the hold and at £5.99 for 70 ml pot this isn’t something I can recommend. I did try with it - I used it for weeks but it continually let me down and when I don‘t feel comfortable the poor souls who have to spend time with me feel the brunt.

In the interests of harmony at home and work I just won’t be using this again.

NOT RECOMMENDED

As I’ve mentioned above, if you are looking for seriously good hold you can do a lot worse than SuperFish Fishpaste Hardcore Hold Matt Effect Putty or if you have a longer style, you are better off looking at Structure Paste Flexible Adhesive.

Obscure Bible reference:

*In Genesis Abraham was tested by God 12 times. Known as the 12 tests of Abraham, the last of which was to offer his son up as a sacrifice.  

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The Monday Montage

The last seven days have seen weird things happening with my blog - not only have I had the urge to write lots more but the traffic coming to my little corner of the Internet has gone wild.

My review of Dirty Burger from earlier in the month received over 1,500 page views in a day, Lush I Should Coco from March over 300 and my tattoo article over 200.  

So what has BKUK offered to people stumbling across my pages over the last week?

Tigi Bedhead Supercharge Duo Giveaway

After being open for a month on Saturday I drew the winner of the gift set. 

Congratulations again to John Wharff, owner of one of the coolest male beauty blogs around ‘Mr Wharff’.

Dirty Works Coconut Caress Body Scrub

Arty outside photographs were the order of the day again on Saturday when I likened Dirty Works Coconut Caress Body Scrub to sandpaper - it is a cheap and cheerful product that won’t break the bank but will strip away layers of dead or dying skin.

Structure Paste Flexible Adhesive

The surge in traffic aside, on Thursday I wrote up my thoughts on Structure Paste Flexible Adhesive. Personally I think this is one of the most bizarre posts I’ve ever done as I managed to fuse The Happy Mondays, glue sniffing and references to colleagues at work into what was originally an attempt at a serious review of a product I really was shocked by - for all the right reasons. 

Erasmic Lather Shave Cream and Brush

'Erasmic is orgasmic' was the punt I took when thinking of something funny to say but after my first experience of using a shaving brush instead of being lazy and using gel or foam resulted in some surprising results.

Coming up....

So what does the coming week hold? Well, I attended my first ever blogger event a few weeks ago with the lovely people from Ilumi to sample their new Chinese and Modern Asian range of gluten free meals. 

The night had so much to write about it has actually taken me days to write it up where I'm happy that I haven't missed too much out and where I think I do the products and evening justice.

In addition to this I’ve been trying StoneFish Clay by Fish Soho and trying to resist the temptation to eat Soap and Glory Sugar Crush.

I hope you have enjoyed one or two of my posts over the last week and feel the urge to return to check out my musings over the next seven days.

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Tigi Bedhead Supercharge Duo - The winner is….

While I still consider myself very new to the bloggersphere, back at the end of March I got overly excited by reaching 250 Twitter followers and decided to giveaway a Tigi Behead Supercharge Duo gift set.

The competition attracted a lot of interest, drew some new people to the blog and until recently was one of my most popular posts (this has since been significantly exceeded by review of Dirty Burger and my tattoo).

Using the powers of Rafflecopter yesterday the winner was selected in true lottery style.

*Drum roll please*

The winner is John Wharff - @MrWharff

Congratulations John, an e-mail is winging its way over to you shortly.

The interaction that this giveaway has provided spurred me on with my writing, and I’ve decided that when I reach 750 Twitter followers and 200 on Bloglovin’ I’ll run another. This time however it’ll be one of my favourite brands of the moment:

The Thalgo Duo Cleanse & Pure set also comes with the freshness exfoliator. Worth over £50 it must be worth a punt. 

I’m sure whoever wins this in time will be a very happy person.

As always, thank you to everyone who reads, comments and follows my blog. I really appreciate it.

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Dirty Works Coconut Caress Body Scrub

Get the puns out the way early, that would be sensible advice had I not been writing about Dirty Works Coconut Caress Body Scrub - seriously, just drafting this resulted in lots of sounds reminiscent of an episode of Beavis & Butthead.

So, in the interests of moving on and getting these out of the way I will not be using phrases such as ‘Coconut Caress is Coco-nuts‘, ‘I’m a dirty boy’, ’getting down and dirty’ or ‘I’m a little scrubber’ from now on - promise.

To fully appreciate my experience you really need to know how I started using this - picture a man clinging to consciousness trying to get showered before work. Eyes haven’t fully opened and support being provided by both arms propping me up. 

I actually went to grab a different body wash but picked this up by accident. 

So, what do they say about it?

Clean up your act with this feel good scrub to leave you revived, recharged and ready to go!

Change your ways and buff yourself to innocence! With Walnut shell granules to help brush roughness away and Coconut Oil to condition and moisturise.

As soon as you step under the shower and squeeze the scrub out its like being smashed in the face with a bag of coconuts - wow, that coconut oil is strong! Really strong. It also requires far too much effort to squeeze it out as the scrub is really thick in texture.

I’m not normally a big fan of coconut but with this it is much sweeter on the nose. Yes, I can just sit here sniffing the tube. Sad, very sad but true.

Once I’d flexed my muscles and squeezed enough out it felt thick and gooey in my hand, no signs of any walnut shell granules. With Ted’s Grooming Room Step 01 Face Scrub I found that as soon as I put it on my hands I could feel the micro-beads. With Coconut Caress I had to rub this between my palms and as it spreads boy does the abrasion follow.

As I started to rub this over my body the walnut shell granules gently dug into my skin but in a way that you kind of knew that it was removing every inch of dead or dry skin from my torso. The scrub doesn’t lather but it is so smooth you can actually see the granules as they become more and more abrasive - too much pressure and you’ll find yourself losing hairs off your arms (I jest).

The granules don’t disintegrate like other products so until they are washed off you can continue to rub them over your torso which means you don’t need that much of this for a full upper torso wash and exfoliation.

After stepping out of the shower and drying, my skin did have a subtle glow to it and was extremely smooth to the touch. It was 100% clear to me on the day of using and still the day after that my skin had taken a pasting and had been treated to some TLC.

The coconut fragrance while strong when washing doesn’t stay that way. You can detect hints of the coconut oil for a few hours on the skin after using. Personally I don’t use this on my face as it does interfere with how my aftershave smells but for washing my torso - ’pits and body this is perfect. Not a hint of the dreaded BO after washing using this and with the lovely results I can’t help but recommend this to people who want a bloody good exfoliating body scrub.

Do I feel innocent after using this? Well no, but I also don’t feel like I’ve been robbed as 200 ml costs just a £1 if you shop around which represents exceptional value for money.

Do I feel revived and recharged? Well it certainly wakes you up, but recharged? That's just a claim too far. Even so, this has far too many positives to let the mindless marketing blurb stand in the way of top marks from me.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

One question that will nag away at me - why use walnut shell granules and why not coconut husk?

Thank you for visiting and reading my latest post. You can keep up to date with my musings using any of the buttons on the top right-hand side of the page.

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Structure Paste Flexible Adhesive

First of all, if you think this is going to be about some form of glue, glue sniffing or tips on what adhesive will get you tripping the light fantastic I will ‘fess up - this is actually about hair paste, for styling your hair.

*Whoosh* and everyone moves their cursor to the back button on their browser!

For those still reading (and without a nasty red rash and spots around their mouths) I’ll continue.

I’m not sure how the two samples of Structure Paste Flexible Adhesive came into my possession. One day it was another of those brands I’d never heard of, the next, there were two 15 ml sample sachets sat by the basin in the bathroom.

Paste was a product I hadn’t thought of using before - I’ve been through mousse (no thanks Nicky Clarke), wax (a deffo no-no Mr Wella), gel, cream and clay. Hell, at one stage in my youth I used hair spray - readers, picture a better looking Shaun Ryder* with his curtain hairstyle and that was me.

Paste had passed me by - to my shame.

After losing the Madchester compulsory cut of the 1990‘s I went to short spikes and that is how it has remained for years, and years and god knows, years.….

I’m trying to grow my hair out to sample a new style but with that comes the comments such as “your mullet is out of control - (JB**, 24 April 2014)”, which means that styling is a must. Gel has been tried and failed - the hold fades after a few hours and it doesn’t hold the style, wax is pointless in hair over 4 inches in length and clay would require a team of navvies to apply.

I wanted a sort of Beckham look with my hair swept back and staying back.

Structure claim that their Paste Flexible Adhesive defines and creates texture with a firm but flexible hold and a completely matte finish. Their strap-line to this is ‘Style is about instinct, creativity, passion. We’ll provide the tools. You build the structure.’

This is the first time I’ve read that and it has brightened my mood - someone somewhere thought that sounded cool or mysterious, and they probably were sniffing glue at the time!

On opening, the paste was stuck to the side of the packet - it’s like Polyfilla (that’s for filling cracks for those not familiar) it’s so thick and gooey. Fingers were dabbed in and it was like iron to a magnet. My fingers were covered and I had to wipe some off. It all wanted out!

It doesn’t really have a smell, or so I thought. My other half suggested it had a smell like Fructis hair products, which tended to have hints of apple. Personally I couldn’t tell.

My hair had just been washed and was damp when I extracted enough to rub between my palms - it spreads really easily and as you apply it onto the hair it soaks in quickly and almost immediately makes the hair pliable. It’s awesome for styling people.

After rubbing it into the strands of hair and down the sides I brushed in the swept back style. It was instant - where the brush had been the hair stayed and it was solid. Jumping up and down didn’t move the style.

My hair however wasn’t rock hard to the touch and wasn’t shining off the lights - it does have a great matte finish and how it feels is well….weird city.

I touch my hair throughout the day, and when I touch my hair with this in it feels a bit greasy - it doesn’t look it but one brush through with the hand and you are off to the bathrooms to wash your hands. It comes off to the touch.

That aside, after 15 hours the holding power is still there and you can’t grumble with that. If you are looking for bonus points for this, well there aren’t the slightest hints of white flakes, even in the morning. So no white flakes in your hair making you look like you haven’t heard of Head & Shoulders and no embarrassing flakes on your clothes while at work or out on the town. Result!

A 75 ml tune of this can be bought for around £9. Personally I’ve never, and I mean NEVER found a product that holds like this and is so easy to wash out. The only problem I find is that first thing in the morning I wake up looking like this….

Source

Forget the morning look, Structure has a styling product here that is simply fantastic for use on longer hair. A 15 ml sachet has lasted me a week up to now and I expect about another 3/4 uses out of what is left so this actually goes a long way for the price.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

*An image of Shaun Ryder is below - he was the lead singer of popular Manchester band Happy Mondays during the 1990’s at the start the mental music scene in my beautiful home town.

Source

**Names have not been changed to protect the guilty.

Thank you for reading, before you go I would love it if you could answer the two easy questions below. Please leave your thoughts in the comments:

1 - Should I continue to grow my hair out or go back to spikes like in the picture on my homepage?

2 - Should I dye my hair again? I've been going grey for 20 years, but haven't dyed my hair since I was 28 (7 years). 

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Erasmic Lather Shave Cream

Just look at the name of the product - so much fun with puns to be had but I’ll behave, Erasmic did after all send me my first ever shaving brush and a 75ml tune of their lather shave cream to try.

In the interests of trying to be fair and balanced, I won’t be finishing my review of Erasmic Lather Shave Cream with phrases such as “Erasmic is orgasmic” or “a shave so smooth it’s gotta be Erasmic”, no sir….I’ll behave (and repeat, “I will behave, I will behave“).

I’m 35 years in age and until late last week I’d never used a shaving brush or the associated lather cream. If anything I had a flashback to my youth.

My late grandfather would always shave using one, normally at the kitchen sink so he could gain easy access to the rear garden (yard for my American readers - so thoughtful) to terrorise any passing squirrels with the nuts (and I don’t mean literally) to pass through.

I can see him now hunched over the sink in his trousers, white vest and shaving kit. It always seemed to take hours!

Before this turns into a fun blown Stephen flashback I’ll go back to the product in hand.


 
Marketed as for a smooth, comfortable shave, the lather cream costs just £3 if you shop around and the products claims:

‘A superior quality shaving cream containing Chamomile and Glycerin to lubricate your skin, giving you a smoother, closer shave. Chamomile soothes your skin, for a close, comfortable shave. Glycerin moisturises your skin helping its natural renewal process.’

Armed with a healthy face of hair to rival a 50 year old Amish farmer I set off into the bathroom - in one hand the cream, the other a shaving brush (and without a clue how to use it properly for the best shave).

After washing my face I wet the brush and applied some of the shave cream. After rubbing it ever so gently on my face there was an explosion of lather and fragrance. While you can quickly pick up the hints of Chamomile the fragrance brought on another flashback!

The lather is so thick and rich it is untrue - wow, I had applied far too much to the brush and I’m talking less than the size of a 10 pence piece. I shaved and found the process a bit difficult - the lather was far too thick and combined with the bristles coming off my face my razor was constantly clogged. Shaving took 10 minutes longer than normal.

However, it was my own fault for being utterly clueless - so after the first round I decided to use what was left on the brush to cover my face again. It was much thinner and easier to shave with. So, lather is good, but in sparing amounts. Unlike gels this doesn’t disintegrate on your face if it’s wet - it has staying power.

Shaving the second time around was much easier - however I was left with a few blotchy marks for around an hour. They didn’t hurt and it wasn’t sore and after a while I didn’t notice then. In the morning they had gone completely and my face felt soft even though I hadn’t moisturised before bed.

I had a quite thick beard and while it was a pain at first, used sparingly this offers a nice shaving experience. Personally I’ll stick with something with Menthol in it as I like the cool sensation but if you are looking for a lather cream or fancy trying a new shaving experience then I would say go for it.

RECOMMENDED

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