Save or Splurge Thursday: Damage Remedy Restructuring Conditioner

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I can’t complain much about my hair — it’s naturally straight, thick, and easy to care for. However, I’ve been stretching out the time between cuts, and after weeks of blow drying, my ends start to look a little ragged. 

I mostly use drugstore hair care products, but the one salon product I splurge on is Aveda’s Damage Remedy Restructuring Conditioner. I’ve been using it for over 15 years, usually in the weeks leading up to a much needed cut. It keeps my hair smooth and soft until professional intervention.

Its quinoa protein “helps repair and strengthen damaged hair,” while conditioners detangle. And given that it’s Aveda, it’s cruelty free, vegan, and 90% naturally derived. 

The conditioner ranges from $10 for 1.4 oz. to $129 for 33.8 oz. at Nordstrom.

Sales of note for 9.10.24

(See all of the latest workwear sales at Corporette!)

Kid/Family Sales

  • Carter’s – Birthday sale, 40-50% off & extra 20% off select styles
  • Hanna Andersson – Up to 50% off all baby; up to 40% off all Halloween
  • J.Crew Crewcuts Extra 30% off sale styles
  • Old Navy – 40% off everything
  • Target – BOGO 25% off select haircare, up to 25% off floor care items; up to 30% off indoor furniture up to 20% off TVs

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Thoughts on seeing fully vaccinated grandparents? Both my parents and my in-laws will be fully vaccinated very soon. Me (pregnant, having a baby later this spring), my husband, and our toddler will not be vaccinated. My parents are local; in-laws are out of town and would stay with us. What is the current news about the vaccine and transmission? Would you have the grandparents continue to wear masks, quarantine before visiting/staying in your home, etc.? My mom has been lax since receiving her second dose weeks ago and now comes to our door without a mask.

Tips for having a constructive dialogue with a partner about the division of labor? We both have big jobs, and the division of labor right now is maybe 60/40. I can mostly live with that, except when he gets mad about doing that 40%. For example, this morning was his turn to take the kids to daycare, but he got mad because it interfered with his ability to take a long walk this morning before work. While he needs to exercise for his health, he doesn’t get up before 7 am (which drives me nuts since the kids get up by 6) and that doesn’t leave him enough time. What I want to do right now is make a list of the billion things that I do that he doesn’t seem to notice and tell him to stop being so damned selfish, but I know that isn’t constructive and will only make things worse.

I would wear masks until you are vaccinated (at least). Being pregnant you’re high risk and I find the science about whether vaccinated people can be carriers a little murky. It seems to suggest its rare but not impossible. I probably wouldn’t ask grandparents to quarantine, but that would only be true if I was confident that they were wearing masks and practicing social distancing when outside in public places. If I wasn’t confident about that I would ask them to quarantine (but if they won’t wear masks will they quarantine effectively?)

A couple of times recently my just turned 3 year old has gotten angry at me for making her do something routine that she didn’t want to do (take a bath, go to bed) and screamed for my husband and when he came in the room told him I hit her. It wasn’t a joke like “ha ha, Mommy hit me, guess we gotta put her in time out!” It was incredibly dramatic and realistic – she was sobbing and telling him I hit her and she’s scared of me and he needs to take her away from me and keep her safe so she’ll never get hit again. They were truly Oscar worthy performances. If someone outside our family saw it, I’m sure they would think I abuse her. I do not hit her. I’ve never come close to hitting her. I have raised my voice at her on occasion but not often and not recently. I know lying is a normal part of development, but this seems extreme – is it normal?! I’m low key terrified she’s going to tell a teacher I hit her and we’re going to get investigated by CPS. She has a bit of a hitting issue herself, which we are trying to work on (NOT BY HITTING HER BACK OBVIOUSLY) so maybe that has something to do with it, like she’s role-playing her own frustrations? Man, 3 year olds are a trip.

Yay — both my kids are in actual school today. Boo — this is the first time in A YEAR. And it will happen tomorrow and then not again for 3 weeks then 4 weeks (spring break) and then maybe one more time before summer. One kid is at the mental health level where we have onboarded her with a counseling service (but won’t get in for a couple of weeks), hates us, hates school (too few people in her rotation and too many rules), hates virtual school, etc. etc. I wonder how long it will take her to get her feelings sorted out (never mind how behind she is — virtual school has not worked at all for her (elementary school with a heavy dose of zoom and hard to follow assignments)? I feel like this year will have a very long tail for some kids (never mind she has a roof over her head and adequate food — many kids will be in far worse shape and yet they seem to be very invisible).

I need a pick me up. This week was a slog (one thing after another with daycare), and just staring down the fact that I need to do this for another 4.5 years, and then I have to deal with school/aftercare, which doesn’t sound better. It’s just, ugh.

Can someone just tell me that it gets better? This is a particuarly bad year, that 9 months and almost 3 is just hard, and things will get better?

Any experiences with young kids and flying? We may have to bring our just-turned three year old on a cross country flight. She wears masks but it’s tough to get her to comply for five straight hours. I’ve read stories of three year olds getting kicked off flights for not complying within the airline’s rules. Any personal experiences?

(And please no finger wagging over travel or how mask compliance is so easy for kids and I’m a bad parent if my kid doesn’t mask up for hours on end. For reasons I won’t get into, we are doing the best we can with the situation we have.)

Who here uses (or has tried) any of the various meal kit services – Hello Fresh, Blue Apron, etc.? Is it worth it?

I’m in such a dinner slump but we are seriously lazy cookers and I’m worried they will be too much work.

Another Covid/vaccine/WWYD Q. Fully vaccinated grandparents are supposed to arrive tomorrow. An illness that appears to be a cold went around kiddo’s daycare class this week and now she has classic mild cold symptoms (sneezing and drippy nose). No fever, no cough, no vomiting, no positive Covid tests of anyone at school that we know of. Would you tell the grandparents to delay the trip (they’re driving) in order to try to get her tested before they come? I’m 95% sure it’s just a cold and theoretically grandparents are 95% protected even if it were Covid and I know the odds of being in the 5% on both things is vanishingly small, but I’m still nervous. Ughhhh I just hate all this risk analysis and want to be done with it.

How much allowance do you have for how well kids’ clothes fit? This got me thinking last night, when it was unseasonably warm and my 6-year-old put on a 4/5 skort from last summer. While it technically fit her waist, it was riding low and the hemline was super short. For reference, she’s grown 3″ in height since August. DH thought I was crazy for thinking she needs new summer stuff. (“She can put it on, so what’s the problem?!”) Given my daughter’s particular nature for clothing, I try not to keep much old stuff around in the hopes that it’ll stay reserved for wearing around the house — it just turns into a battle when she wants to wear it to school.

My husband and I might be able to spend a month in San Diego this summer. He would be there for work and we could spend it with him. Is it worth it with a2 and 4 year old if we could stay on the other side of the highway by LA Jolla? Doing anything solo with the two of them beyond short grocery, library, and playground trips seems hard so not sure if a trip like this will just be too much for a month.

I think there are some other HerMoney podcast listeners here, and the episode that dropped this week is adjacent to the conversation here the other day about burnout, being unable to focus, etc that I wanted to share in case it helps anyone else! Dr. Romie was a little peppy when I was listening last night, but I felt very seen, and after trying out her mini-meditations today, I think it’s helping? At this point, anything is worth a shot!

“This week’s HerMoney Podcast guest, Dr. Romie Mushtaq, says that many of us are suffering from something she calls “Busy Brain.” Dr. Romie is a triple board-certified neurologist, an integrative medicine specialist, and mindfulness expert who has impacted millions of lives via her keynote speeches and corporate workshops on mindfulness and brain health. She’s also the Chief Wellness Officer for Evolution Hospitality.

Listen in as Jean and Dr. Romie talk about how the pandemic has shifted many of our schedules to result in us working later into the evening. And while flexible schedules can be great, they’re leading many of us to feel that we never stop working…

Dr. Romie walks us through a mini 3-minute meditation — the kind she incorporates into her daily life to help her shift away from overwhelm, burnout, performance struggles, and lack of sleep, We also talk about the concrete steps that all women can take to minimize our stress levels.”

How do you deal with learning something mind boggling about a parent?

My mom was a very strict and harsh person when I was growing up. Conservative, religious, uptight, critical, etc. I felt that her love was conditional upon me being her version of perfect. So I did it. I made excellent grades, was quiet, respectful, modest, didn’t take a lot of risks, waited a really really long time to have s3x with my long term college boyfriend, who I later married, kept my house clean, made financially responsible choices, blah blah blah.

Come to find out, she was kind of wild in college, hooked up with multiple guys, and had a baby that she gave up for adoption (who contacted her last year and is now part of our lives). More information keeps coming out. I just… I’m flabbergasted. I literally don’t care what my mom did in college and my new sister is awesome, I’m just really upset that she was so harsh and critical and thought that it was a good call to make me think that anyone who has any kind of s#xual thought and doesn’t live a perfect buttoned-down life is a horrible person, rather than having the slightest bit of compassion and grace after having gone through something like that.

I’ve had a very buttoned-down kind of life because of choices I made in my early 20s due to my upbringing. Not to say I’m in a bad place or anything. My life is great and thankfully my marriage is happy. But I’ve never given myself permission to explore a lot of things, and now I’m in my late 30s, well into my career, I have a child, etc. and it’s not like I can explore anything now without blowing up my life. And I don’t want to blow up my life. I am just reeling from some additional information about my mom that I got this week and wondering if anyone has dealt with anything like this.

What is with 12m and 18m clothes that they are so hard to find? All I want are some 12m cotton pajamas for my 7m old, and I cannot find any in a store. We ordered some from carters that were so tight on his chunky little legs and had no give, and I can’t find any that are in store so I can check for stretchiness.
Just a rant. Guess I will be doing some ordering and returning for a while until I find something that works.