Receipts

Nov 2020 to now.

Same person. Phone camera. No filter.

September 2026 · about a 3-minute read

My results: Monat products since February 2024, Bond IQ shampoo and conditioner about twice a week for about a year, REJUVENIQE oil, the split-end mender and the leave-in. No filters, no edits.

Nov 2020

My hair was shoulder length and tired. Ends splitting, and I'd just found out I was allergic to dry shampoo — every one I tried. My sister handed me a bottle of Monat's dry shampoo and said try this one. I could use it.

That was it for a couple of years: dry shampoo, then texture spray, then hairspray, all from sample bottles she kept passing me. I liked them. I wasn't buying them.

The dry shampoo allergy story, in full →

Feb 2024

She gave me a shampoo and conditioner to try. I didn't like it. The smell was off and it didn't feel like the styling stuff did. I stopped.

Then more samples showed up — Bond IQ, and I think the damage-control line — and those were different. Hair felt softer out of the shower. Ends looked better between trims. That's when I started the routine for real: oil the night before wash day, shampoo, conditioner, split-end mender on the ends, leave-in, done.

Oct 2026

The color change is just me — not the products, and not the point. What is the routine: the length, how full it looks, and ends that make it to the next trim without splitting off.

Two and a half years of the same wash-day routine, most weeks, not all of them. I was not consistent. It still shows.

Still in the routine

IR Clinical serum, twice a day on my part since late September, alongside Bond IQ. I love it. Updates go on my shelf page.

What didn't work

That first shampoo and conditioner. Still don't know which line it was. Not every product in a lineup is for every head, and this one wasn't for mine.

Skin

Feels firmer. I have no photos to prove it, so it doesn't count. When I do, it'll be here.