Drowning in Hair Goop: a la Mode

I have no idea where this bottle of MODE Straightening Balm came from, but it’s been a fixture on my bathroom counter for a couple of years now. Possibly it just materialized one day, half-used, a mediocre gift from the Product Gods. More likely, I stole it from my mother’s bathroom one time when I was short on hair supplies. That’s been known to happen.

I’m not really familiar with this brand – I’ve never seen anything else from this line, though the number 3 on the bottle indicates the existence of 1 and 2. Here’s what I can tell you: It’s made with “orchid complex”, whatever that means. It has that plasticky-sweet smell of mid-range hair product (yuck). It makes your fingers sticky-slimy. It claims to be “non-greasy”, which is not the exact truth. Even on my super-absorbent hair, MODE Straightening Balm leaves a bit of a film. AND it features the absolute worst in Hair Goop Bottle Technology: the pump dispenser. The pump dispenser is wasteful and impossible to travel with. A good quarter-ounce of the hair goop always remains at the end of the bottle, teasingly out of range of the end of the pump tube (that sounds gross, but what would you call that thing?) I know there’s supposed to be some special way to turn and lock the pump for traveling, but come on. Have you ever actually tried that? It’s a great way to get hair gel all over everything in your toiletry kit. Shut up, pump dispenser.

In any case, Mode Straightening Balm does not work (on me, at least) the way the bottle promises. It’s meant to be used primarily on damp hair before blow-drying, but that is a disaster with my hair. I mostly use it on days when I really should have washed my hair but couldn’t be bothered – it’s no miracle product, but it usually manages to satisfactorily de-frizz and add a bit of shine on the top, at least, so if I pull my hair into a ponytail or a bun, it looks decent. Still, when this bottle eventually runs out, I won’t be desperate to replace my Mode.