THE PROBLEM: After seeing the pictures in people's reviews, I wanted to make this styler work for me. Unfortunately, it did way more harm than good. Each time, my hair ended up knotty and tangled. The entire bottom third of my hair tangled into itself and developed a waxy texture. I experienced so breakage when trying to detangle the mess -- huge disappointment to have my healthy, long hair break!! I have never in my life had this experience with any product. The crunch cast also never fully left, even when scrunch out with oil.

METHOD: For what it's worth, I tried using this styler with multiple techniques -- soaking wet hair to damp hair; brush styling versus finger styling; day 1 product versus refresher product. Each time, the tangles were awful.

CULPRITS: I am wondering if I got a bad or improperly mixed batch of this product. When I leave it in the pump container, I can see a thick whitish grey layer on the top of the liquid, and a thinner separated layer on the bottom. Is this normal? The smell is also strange, like decaying fruit. Eco Slay makes some truly exceptional products. The Orange Marmalade Gel remains my favorite styler of all time. The protein mask is great, too. Something's just off about this one.

MY HAIR TYPE: My hair is medium strands, high density 3A curls. Never color treated nor damaged with chemical treatments (e.g., perming or blowouts). No heat damage. No split ends.