The Beauty Gypsy Review: Gisou Propolis Infused Polishing Primer
I was drawn to Gisou by the glossy, luscious, BRILLIANT locks of founder-owner Negin Mirsalehi. If there is any chance that someone can give me even 10% of the hair gorgeousness she possesses, they can have all my money.
The Gisou Propolis Infused Polishing Primer was a reality check but in a good way: It didn’t give me Negin’s hair (because that would possibly need a genetic/lifestyle reassessment of my entire being) but it did give me the best possible version of my own strands. Which is pretty satisfying.
Negin, after all, is the perfect combination of nature-derived goodness (her father is a sixth-generation bee-keeper) and hair knowledge (her mother is a hairdresser who’s been formulating her own products for over 30 years).
Like all Gisou products, this hair primer is anchored by propolis from the Mirsalehi Bee Garden in the Netherlands. Propolis is made by bees from plant resins and is used by them to smoothe and strengthen the walls of their ‘hives. Modern science has shown it to contain more than 300 beneficial compounds, which have tremendous antiseptic, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and antibacterial benefits.
What does propolis do for hair? Strengthens, nourishes, reduces frizz, smoothes and adds gloss. I have been using it for over a month now and can honestly feel a difference every time I switch it up for something else.
With a bit of the primer worked into dry hair (it works better on dry hair – didn’t find it to be that effective on damp strands), my locks definitely look more polished, more defined, less frizzy and far healthier than their normal state nowadays. It doesn’t leave hair stiff or crunchy, which is my biggest complaint with more hair styling products. And it also seems to cut down on blow drying time, for which my hands are eternally thankful.
It’s also clean and made sustainably. Which is important, considering our dwindling bee population. Einstein prophesied that if all the bees died, the human race won’t survive more than four years because of all they do for us – including pollinating plants to keep the food on your plate coming!
Consider me a convert. Next stop: The Gisou Honey Infused Hair Mask.
Anubha Charan is the founder of The Beauty Gypsy and a beauty journalist with more than 25 years in the industry — as the former Beauty Director at Marie Claire, where she worked with the magazine's Paris headquarters, Managing Editor at Vogue, and Beauty Editor at Cosmopolitan. She trained in perfumery in Grasse, France, and spent six years reporting on beauty from Paris.
Her work has also appeared in Travel + Leisure, WebMD, and Architectural Digest, and she is the co-author of Paris Bath & Beauty, a book on French beauty rituals published by Simon & Schuster.
