I got my hands on another new product for this new year! This new one is from the folks over at Grant’s Golden Brand, it’s their new Matte Dressing. They just put this stuff out maybe a month ago. I was a little hesitant picking it up at first, mainly because of the price. This stuff is some of the most expensive stuff out there. At over $31 a can, shipping included, it’s the most I’ve ever spent on a product. I can usually get 3-10 products for that price. But Grant’s is known to be a great company and put out top notch, quality products.

So, it comes in their signature screw top tins. The same type of tin Bone Crusher and Shiner Gold come in. Their label says that it is a 4oz tin. The label on this one is really similar to their Putty Pomade label. It’s a mint green background with cream and black writing on it. In the center is their name/logo in awesome cursive writing, then “Golden Brand Pomade” in a banner under the name. Above the name is “Matte Dressing” and below it is a little highway sign with”USA” in it.

When you flip the tin over you see their other label. It’s a cream colored label with black writing. It has their name on the very top, then a blurb about the product, the instructions, and the ingredients. At the bottom is the barcode, weight info and their website.

As soon as you unscrew the lid you’re met with a fresh cream scent, like lotion or hair conditioner and a mild floral scent too. I really like this smell and I hope it doesn’t dissipate after it dries. The color of it is a nice off white. And just like its name, it’s matte, absolutely no shine to it. Reminds me of the Johnny B molding paste, only white instead of green.

When I dug my finger into this paste I pulled out exactly what I expected. It’s almost identical to Johhny B and DAX hair shaper. I hope it performs better than those do. Definitely not knocking those, I love both of them. I just hope this one performs better.

Spreading it in my palms was a little different than those two, it was more creamy and sticky(haha twss). It wasn’t quite as firm as the others, but it was more tacky. Which kind of makes up for that. The scent did stay nice a present in my hands.

It went in my hair about like the Johnny B did, and my hair soaked it up like that one too. I had to grab another half fingers full to get the rest of my hair. It stays really white on your hair when you run your hands through. It combed a lot more difficult than I expected, more so like a water based than a paste. And this stuff streaked a lot like the Murray’s cream beeswax did. I had to comb and comb and comb to get all the streaks out.

Once I did get it all combed into my hair, my hair looked really good. It had an awesome matte look to it, and it also looks nice and healthy. Another thing I noticed with this stuff is that it sticks the little hairs together pretty decently. I didn’t really see any sticking out, except for where that dude cut my pomp. I’m still frickin pissed about that!

I did get some ok height with this paste, and it held more solid than the last two did. Almost more like a wax meets a paste. And it made my hair look really full bodied. I did notice a couple hairs doing the “ski jump” on top of my head, but they were barely sticking up.

Over the whole day, it held up great, nothing came out of place and it didn’t break down or anything. One thing it did do that I was really unhappy with was harden up like a gel. This stuff literally gave me a gelmet, and I am not really a fan of those. If I was, I would just go buy a tub of softee gel for $2.52 and a can of Aquanet for $1 and be done. Even though it hardened, I was able to recomb my hair. I squished my hair to my head to break up the hardness and then it was more gummy like a wax. After recombing though, I did notice a few fly aways sticking out in places. You can also treat it like a water based and wet comb it to restyle your do.

After using this stuff for a while, I gotta say that I like the product for the most part. It has nice hold, great smell, gives hair a cool look, can be recombed and comes in cool packaging and labeling. The things I didn’t like about it was how it hardened up, and the price. Obviously I paid for it so the price wasn’t a huge issue, I just wish it went a little further. I had to use quite a bit of it to get my hair coated evenly and styled nice.

So I will be using this stuff sparingly in the future, but I will use it. I did like the product quite a bit. So if you guys like pastes and want to check this one out.

Stay fresh fellas,

-JC