Today’s pomade is one that hails from my town. It’s the one and only Shiner Gold Pomade. I’ve tried this pomade a few times before when a friend gave me a half full tin to try out. However I wanted to wait for the review until I had a brand spankin’ new tin. While up at Viva I met up with Jimmy and he gave me a large tin, baby tin, 2 coozies, and a sticker for the review. Jimmy thank you man, I really appreciate that!! Great guy.
The packaging is one we are very familiar with. It is a 4oz stainless tin with a screw top lid. Exactly like the Grant’s Golden Brand tins and Bone Crusher tins. I happen to like these tins quite a bit because of their design and style. They just look cool and very clean. This one is also like the Grant’s tin in that the label is just black ink printed right on the tin. The lid has “Shiner Gold Pomade” right in the center of a big black circle. Around the edge of that circle are little points. Under the “Shiner” is “made in the USA” really small. I like when companies have that, shows American quality and pride. I do wish it was bigger or more pronounced though. At the top of the circle is “time to shine” and at the bottom is “heavy hold.” Pretty simple look, but classic and clean at the same time.
The bottom of the tin has a sticker on it. This one is a clear sticker with black ink printed on it. At the very top is “shiner gold pomade made in the USA.” Under that is their directions for use and that it’s manufactured and distributed by them. Then it says “washable” just above the ingredients list. Finally at the bottom is the weight 4oz.
Now onto the product. It is the same color as its name, gold. Very clear as well, you can easily see to the bottom of the tin. I like the color of this stuff, I mean it’s gold! That’s awesome! The smell is very hard for me to place. All I can really say is its a kind of sweet smelling water based. What I mean is you can tell its a water based by the chemical smell, but it’s a sweet smell at the same time. Pretty decent scent to it, I just wish I could compare it to something for you guys. But it is pretty unique and I’ve never smelled something like it before.
As soon as your finger hits the surface you immediately know that the lid was right. It is a heavy hold. This stuff is pretty thick and has a heavy feel to it with a tacky texture. I actually like how tacky this stuff feels, it’s different from your run-of-the-mill water based. You can tell that it is going to give you some good hold. I’m going to test it out and see how tall it holds my hair up.
It’s very easy to spread in your palms despite its heavy texture, I like that about it. I’m not too find of pomades that are difficult to work in your hands. I also noticed it has a lot of shine in my hands. Hopefully it will keep that shine when it’s in my hair and dries.
Applying it isn’t as easy as working it in your hands though. It is actually really similar to applying Layrite’s super hold, which for me is kind of difficult to apply. It just gets really tacky in my hair and I have wavy hair. So when I spread it around and get my hair coated on all sides it gets tangled and is hard to keep working around.
Combing it is almost exactly like combing Layrite though. At first it’s really difficult to comb and I had to comb very slowly and in short strokes. I didn’t want to rip out hairs so I really took my time combing it in. Once I got it in it was a bit easier to comb around and get ready to pomp
As soon as I started to form my pomp I knew I could get a lot of height if I wanted to. This stuff has a really nice heavy strong hold. Today I’m not going to go for a lot of height, but I will try that. It does have a great hold and allows you to comb a nice clean pomp. Very few hairs out of place. Mainly just those hairs that are still growing back from that atrocious cut I reviewed back in December. I’m going to be waiting quite a few more months until they’re back to where they used to be. The stuff does have a nice sheen to it in your hair. Not as much as a grease, but way more than most water bases have.
It holds all day long too! It was pretty windy again over here for some reason and I didn’t have any trouble at all. Mainly because this stuff hardens up quite a bit which makes your hair stay right in place unless you forcefully move it. The way it hardens makes it really difficult to recomb. You have to wet your hair and comb pretty good to be able to recomb this stuff. However once you do it recombs pretty nicely and then hardens right back up like it did the first time.
The second day I decided to see how high I could get my hair to stand without looking dumb. And I was really surprised at how high I was able to go without my hair looking wispy or thin. I got a really tall pomp going. And it stayed there all day long without moving or drooping. It didn’t quite harden up as much as the first day either, which for me is really nice.
One thing I like about this stuff is that it’s true to what it claims/it’s name. It is a heavy hold and it is gold and it is shiny. My hair shines up really nice with this stuff in. Shines really high for a water based, unlike most out there. And it also is 100% washable with only water. Every last trace of this stuff does come out with just rinsing your hair under the water. My hair also isn’t super dried out after I rinse it out either, which I am thrilled about. Most of the time with water bases my hair is left really dry from the chemicals in them, but this one only slightly dries out your hair.
Overall, I think I like this product. It is a little too heavy for me to use on an everyday basis, but I like it. I can see myself using this stuff quite a bit in the future when I need a good strong hold that won’t go anywhere. I can definitely recommend this stuff for you heavy hold lovers and you water based lovers. It really is a good quality pomade. Catch y'all later,