Curly Hair Product Battle: Drugstore Vs High End!! Comparing Cake Beauty & Curlsmith

Hello, everyone and welcome back to the fit curls. My name is angela. I am a fitness, professional and a curly hair enthusiast, and i use this channel to teach you how to keep your curls in shape. So don't forget to hit that subscribe button and the notification bell next to it. So you don't miss a single thing now today, as you might be able to tell from the middle part, we are back for another product battle, this time we're finding out. If one of my best drugstore brands has the potential to beat one of the best high-end brands, does the difference in price actually make all the difference in your hair? If you're excited to see how this battle goes hit, this with a thumbs up and without further ado, let's get styling. So let's talk about the exact differences between drugstore versus high-end products. Typically high-end products are more concentrated. They have a higher proportion of very active and helpful ingredients in them, so a little bit tends to go a long way. Drugstore brands, you often see not necessarily poorer quality, but maybe less expensively sourced ingredients and higher proportions of more cost-effective ingredients in them like glycerin and just to let you all know what i'm, starting with other than accidental fun buns. I have washed and conditioned my hair with olaplex today, in between washing and conditioning, i used a malibu c hard water wellness treatment. Highly recommend super helpful. If you live in an area with a lot of mineral content in the water and then i prepped and detangled, my hair with evolves, smart curl, leave-in conditioner, which is a super lightweight spray that i've been loving during the summer just to help detangle it. I don't need a whole ton of moisture because the two creams i'm going to comparing have large proportions of moisturizing ingredients in them. So that should do plenty to make sure that my hair stays hydrated over the next few days today for our drugstore or affordable brand cake beauty. The products i'm going to be using today are their cream, the curlfriend and a new to me product, their curl jelly called the curl crush, and i'm really excited to see how it's going to hold up against our high-end competitor, curlsmith, specifically two products from their strength Line the featherlite protein cream and the shape up aqua gel, both of which i have used and loved in this combination before now, specifically between the two curl smith's products, typically run at about 26 to 36 dollars a bottle for about eight ounces of product, whereas cake For six ounces of a very similar product runs at 8.99, so there's a pretty substantial difference in cost, but how do they compare in quality, which brand is actually going to come out on top? Should you be paying the higher end prices, or are there affordable products out there that can do exactly the same thing or even better? Let'S jump in to the styling process, location change, i figured it would be less messy to style in here, first up curlsmith to make sure that my hair is adequately saturated and clumpable. I'M just re-wetting my hair with distilled water from my continuous mister before sectioning off my bottom layer, sectioning allows for even product distribution and the best possible results. I am as always going to start with the cream for this section, i'm taking about a dollar coin sized amount and emulsifying it very well in my hands once my hands are totally coated. I rake and smooth it through my hair. Now the featherlite protein cream is silicone free and has an almost body butter like consistency once emulsified creamy, but not ultra slippery, so i'll re-wet, my hair as needed to get the right amount of slip once the product is in it's time to define my curls using The denman d3 i'll be using a mix of ribbon curls and horizontal ribbon curls, both of which techniques you can see in depth in the video linked. Above now, this cream contains hydrolyzed rice, protein and hydrolyzed hemp seed extract in the top half of the ingredient list to provide structure to the curls for moisture and slip. It uses fatty alcohols, sweet almond, oil and shea butter along with a bit of glycerin near the bottom of the list. It also smells very pleasantly fruity kind of like an acai bowl. Alright curls are all defined on this side. I'M seeing small but defined clumps that are already forming some decent spirals next i'll micro plop to remove some excess water before applying gel, which gives me a stronger cast time for the shape up aqua gel. This gel has a watery texture, as indicated by its name and a tacky, but not too sticky feel once emulsified the same two proteins found in the cream are in the gel as well just a bit lower on the ingredient list and the two share. The same family of botanical extracts like prickly, pear and shiitake mushroom hydrogenated castor oil is in the top five ingredients, which is great for sealing the cuticle and the gel is described as a medium hold. I find it holds my ultrafine curls, very well, while still allowing for loads of volume. Alright, the high-end side is done time to introduce the competition on the other side. First, up of the cake products is the curlfriend i'm using the same amount of product and the same, defining technique on both sides. Just to keep it fair. Now, the immediate difference i noticed between the two creams is the slip. This cream is so silky and it might come down to one key ingredient: dimethicone, that's right, a silicone! It'S near the bottom of the ingredient list well after other moisturizers, like avocado and soybean oils and shea butter, but even that low of a concentration of silicone seems to make all the difference in texture. It also contains two proteins right in the middle of the list. Soy and rice, like the curlsmith one for added structure fragrance wise, the curlfriend smells like straight up dessert lemon cake to be precise and holy moly. Is it intoxicating now that this whole side has been defined and micro plopped? Let'S move on to the curl crush? This is described as a gel oil, slash jelly and definitely has a firmer texture than the aqua gel. It'S also protein free and very rich in moisturizers, like marula oil, shea butter and coconut water. Now it doesn't feel tacky until after i emulsify it, but it's not overly sticky either, so it feels relatively easy to distribute through my hair. It honestly reminds me a bit of eco slay orange marmalade in terms of the texture for my first time using it i'm impressed so far. The products are all in. So let's take one more look at each side before they're dry side, one curlsmith side, two cake. Now i'm gon na go diffuse and i'll be back with the dry results. We are back, we are dry, i think, and we are crunchy. So just as a reminder, this is the curlsmith side styled with the curlsmith featherlight protein cream and the shape of aqua gel, and this is the cake beauty side styled with the curlfriend and the curl crush. So what i'm going to do to scrunch out the crunch today is: i am going to use the same serum on both sides - my favorite serum from willa, and i'm going to use this using my summer hair hack for anti-humidity, with the appropriate gel on each side. So we're going to start with the curlsmith side, you take just about a pump and a half, i'm going to add just a little dollop of the gel to that and emulsify together and we're going to smooth that scrunch okay crunch has been scrunched. Hair is feeling nice and soft, pretty sealed, so that's it for the girl smith side. Let'S move on to the cake side. Same premise: call that a sensible one and a half pumps, she's gon na do a little dollop of this jelly, yellow, yellow and smoothing and scrunching. Okay. Here are the final results: go ahead and place your vote, for which side is your favorite, which side you think turned out better in the comments down below as of right now i have some opinions, but i do want to save them, so i can let you Guys know more completely after my hair has had a couple of days because, as we know, the longevity of your style makes a big difference in terms of choosing products. So i will be back in a couple of days, which will be a couple of seconds to you guys with my final thoughts on these products. We are back. It is day three. I have done no refreshing to my curls whatsoever. So, let's take a look at the final results. Here is the curlsmith side styled with the featherlite protein cream and the shape up aqua gel both from the strength line, and here is the cake side. I got ta be honest. I was expecting a clear winner here and i think i was expecting you guys to be able to pick a clear winner too. So, on instagram and tick tock, i actually posted a little video asking you guys, which side you thought was which and about 99 percent guessed wrong. So many of you guessed that this side, the cake side, was the side with the high end products, and i think that really speaks to the quality of the products. That cake is putting out for a really affordable price. Now, that's not to say that i don't like the curlsmith side. If anything, i think the definition of each individual clump lasted a little bit better on the curlsmith side, but i found it harder to get thicker juicier clumps on the underside with the curlsmith cream, whereas on the cake side, my underneath curls have actually held together. Incredibly well and only the top side of my hair, which of course was the most exposed to humidity, was the one that wound up getting a little bit more expanded and dropping a bit. All things considered, i don't actually know if i can pick a winner, but an answer to the question that i asked at the beginning, which is can more affordable products actually have the same results as higher end products, or does the dollar amount you spend really determine The quality of the results you're going to get i'm gon na have to say that at the very least, cakes, affordable products can definitely hang with the big boys from the higher end market. I love every single product that i used on my hair this time around and i'm really excited to start playing chemist and really just see how each of these products mixes together in different combinations with each other, with some of the other products that i have. But that being said, paying more for a product does not guarantee that you're going to get better results from it. So if you find products at the drugstore that work really well for you, of course, i highly recommend cake, then stick with them, don't feel obligated to spend your entire hair budget on one or two products from a higher-end brand. Just because you think that that's going to give you the best results, if today has proved anything, it's that sometimes the cost doesn't really matter. I know i personally am totally shocked at the comparable results that i got from two products in drastically different price brackets. I was really hoping for and expecting a very clear winner today, but honestly as far as this battle goes, i'm calling it a tie. I am super impressed with both sides. I like how both turned out - and i will use both product combinations going forward in the future, just maybe under slightly different circumstances and definitely not with a middle part. So that is it for today's video. What do you guys think drop a comment down below with any of your thoughts, opinions and impressions on this video and whether or not you think i made the right call in deciding the uh winners of this battle? Now, if you enjoy this video - and you want to see more side-by-side battles like it, hit this with a thumbs up and drop a line below with what brands product or tools you want to see compared next, it really does help to push this video forward in The algorithm and support the channel - and it lets me know what you guys want to see, so i can make the fit curls the best fit for you now. If you haven't already hit that subscribe button and the notification bell next to it. So you don't miss a single thing that i come out with. We'Ve got some really really exciting content coming up for you guys. I cannot wait for you to see it so make sure you get notified every single time i post and don't forget to join the fit curls family, all across social media. I spend most of my time on instagram and tick tock and i post content there. That is totally different than i post here so make sure that you are a part of this family. I would love to have you with that. Thank you guys so much for watching this video and for continuing to support the fit curls love your curls love each other, and i will see you all next time. Bye. You