Product Review: TIGI Copyright Firm Hold Curl Cream

TIGI Copyright Firm Hold Curl Cream

Reviewed at 4.6 out of 5 Stars (153 Reviews) on Amazon, this curl cream is a solid choice for styling your curly hair, but is it too good to be true? Read on to find out more.

Disclaimer: my boss, that owns the shop I work at, is affiliated with this brand as a hair educator for TIGI. Therefore, we would use TIGI products and sometimes retail these products to our clients. However, we did not exclusively use TIGI, and I do not have any direct business relationship with the brand. This is going to be as honest of a review as I can provide, despite having that indirect connection with the company.

My Experience

I have used this product on my wavy/curly-haired clients and after styling their hair with it, they all seemed to really like it! Many would ask if we had any to sell or where they could get it themselves. Over time though, the product has been harder and harder to get, no longer being sold at the beauty supply store I go to or any other physical location in Calgary (that I can find!). Our shop hasn't been able to stock up on this product for a long time and it feels like we won't really be able to any time soon.

However, this product is still available to be purchased on Amazon with a seemingly reasonable price point of $15.63 (but also with a less reasonable $10.87 shipping fee that ends up actually totaling $26.50). Also keep in mind that those values are in USD as you cannot find the product on the Canadian Amazon, only on the American version. Therefore the product is actually around $35.65 CAD to order from Amazon. For comparison, we would retail the same product for $24 CAD (since we had no shipping fee, it was obviously more affordable). This brings up an issue of accessibility. No matter how great a product is, the harder it is to find and the more costly it is to obtain makes it less and less desirable and less worth it (in my opinion).

Knowing all that though, if you are still curious to try it out for yourself or money is not an issue then let's review this product and see what are the pros and cons!

Positives

For starters, it offers a lightweight yet firm hold for curls. It applies to the hair quite nicely and emulsifies without any issues. There isn't a strong scent that comes from the product and is described as an aloe smell on the product's Amazon page (I am terrible at describing smells on my own).

I found the hold of this product to be quite nice as it defined the curls very well and kept frizz down tremendously. I would use maybe 1- 1.5 pumps of the product (a little less for shorter styles) which would be enough to style the hair without weighing it down.

Client feedback reported that the product was preferred over other curl creams at a much higher price point such as the Bumble & Bumble Curl Defining Cream (which I will not be reviewing as I do not have personal experience with it). The main comparison was that the TIGI Copyright Firm Hold Curl Cream offered a much lighter feeling to the hair, but still held things in place and hydrated the hair strands. The positive reviews of this product on Amazon have shared similar feelings of this product being a solid curl cream that will really define curls and does the job better than other similar products.

Negatives

On the flip side, the only 1-star review suggested that Amazon was not providing the same product and that you should purchase it through a salon instead if possible. The "Top Critical Review" of the product is at 3 stars mentioning that the curl cream's hold was not as strong as what the reviewer was hoping for and that they had to use additional products to achieve the hold they wanted. The reviewer also shared that they have 3b/3c curls, which is a pretty tight curl compared to most of my clients (who have looser waves and curls).

How to Use

As with any curl cream product, I would suggest following my guide for wet-setting hair.

Summary

If this was based solely on how well it works, I would 100% recommend this product. For the most part, it works very well in defining curls and hydrating the hair. I find that this is a product that offers a good amount of hold for my clients, so they typically won't need any additional products.

The drawbacks, as I have discussed earlier, have more to do with the availability and price of this product. It is hard to find locally and a bit pricy to import from the United States. If this is not a problem for you, then it may be worth purchasing! However, if you would rather have a more affordable alternative then you may like the VERB Curl Cream instead. It is a very similar product but has a lighter hold than the Firm Hold Curl Cream. This is a product that can be purchased at Sephora (though it may be out of stock at physical locations in Calgary at the time of writing this post. However, you can still get free shipping on an online purchase as long as you have a Sephora account.)