Alright guys, after the shampoo I’m bringing you the JS Sloane brilliantines. As I stated in the first review, Joann and I talked for quite a bit on the phone and she told me a bit about her company. So here’s a little bit of back story on the name.

A few people have asked what “JS Sloane” stands for/came from. So to clear that up, “J” is for Joann, “S” is for Smutty Smiff, he is her partner, and “Sloane” is for a park in London, where Smutty is from, where he and his friends would hang out. After coming up with the name they found out that John Dillinger had a driver named Sloane, who’s initials were ironically JS. He was killed in the biggest robbery John ever did. Pretty cool little history on the name and whatnot.

Now for the brilliantine itself. It comes in a 4oz plastic tub with a metal screw top lid. The tub is the same dark brown color as the shampoo was and the lid is the same too, just bigger. On the lid is a little banner with their dapper guy in the center and on either side it says “Keeps Hair Neat All Day,” “Brilliantine,” and “Made in New York USA.” The banner is glued to the lid so it doesn’t come off when you take the lid off. On the front of their tub is their diamond logo with yellow rays, and their name inside, along with the hold type. The back of the tub has their description, directions, caution, ingredient list, and weight info. I like how this can has an old and vintage look and feel to it. Reminds me of something you see in western movies or something.

As I unscrewed the lid I was met with a lovely fresh clean smell. The scent is one of the cleanest out there, but it also has a fruit flower smell to it as well as the clean. My lady really liked the smell and said it smells clean, and “kind of like the dragonfruit vitamin water.” Now who has the weird sniffer?! (Just kidding babe, love you!) This water based, is a bright pink color, like strawberry pudding or pink grapefruit.

I was really anxious to dig my paws into this stuff. As I did I was met with a nice familiar feeling. It’s the cool texture mix of water based and grease! It’s got the retention of a water based, but the creaminess of a grease. I really like it when water bases don’t feel like hard gel, but rather like grease.

As I worked it into my palms, it went back to feeling like a water based. It felt almost identical to Bona Fide in my palms. The shine of this stuff came right out when I rubbed my hands together. And whoa boy did the scent get strong! It doubled in strength when I was softening up the pomade in my hands. I really really like the smell of this pomade! And hopefully the shine will stay, most of the time the shine flies right out the window with water based pomades.

This stuff went into my hair very similar to Bona Fide as well. Not too tacky, but not as easy as a grease or cream. It combed fairly easily, a little easier than I expected from how it went in. It didn’t take me too much combing to get my hair coated evenly. Even though it combed easy, I could tell that it has good hold to it.

Now for coming my pomp. It took me a little while to get a decent pomp going, but when I did it looked good. I had a nice medium pomp going, with some medium shine as well. I was loving that this stuff shines up a little bit and doesn’t leave your hair flat. It takes a little while, but you can get some nice height and roundness with this pomade. It really works great, I think if you let it dry just a little before combing things would go a little faster.

All throughout the day I kept getting compliments on how my hair looked. I really like it when people comment on my hair, especially random people. As with water bases, this one did harden up once it dried. However, it wasn’t a hair spray and gel hard, more like a paste, it just gummed up a lot. The shine didn’t go anywhere though! It stayed a nice medium shine all day long. I love it! It also washes out with just water.

I did notice it left my hair slightly dry, so I just used some of that shampoo Joann sent me and I was good. I think I figured out why some water bases do that, it’s the chemicals in it that are alcohol based that dry out your hair. Now it didn’t dry it out nearly as bad as others, but my hair wasn’t soft after using it like with Lone Star.

The second day when I used this stuff I applied it to my hair when it was slightly more dry, and it was a little difficult for me to comb through my hair. On the plus side, it styled a lot faster and had a little bit more shine to it. So you gotta kind of decide which you’d rather have, shine and hold or easier styling. The second day it didn’t quite harden up as much either, but I wasn’t able to recomb it without putting water on my hair first. But it does recomb pretty easily with just a little bit of water. I was even happier with it the second time around, it really made my hair look good. It’s right up there with Monkey Brains and Grant’s Medium in my favorite water bases list.

When I washed it out after applying it to dry hair, my hair was slightly more dried out and coarse. However a little shampoo fixed me right up. I’ve talked to quite a few people and it seems like I’m the odd one out when it comes to water bases drying hair out. It must just be my hair or something, I don’t know.

I have to say I’m really pleased with how this pomade worked. It came in a bad ass container, has a cool color to it and an awesome scent too! And the texture, application and combing of it was spot on where I like my water bases to be. Then hold and look it gives my hair was really nice. I highly recommend checking this one out if you’re a fan of water bases or not, it really is a great product.

Stay smooth,

-JC