Thursday, May 13, 2010

PRODUCT REVIEW: Wen Cleansing Conditioner

A while back I reviewed this on my wedding forum for the girls there, and since I gave it a 2nd chance recently, I figured I'd rewrite it with an update.

I went into it thinking that it would keep my "natural" red hair brighter and redder longer. At first I really bought into it, though now I just realize I was high. Probably on the "Lavender" smell. Or what the bottle says is Lavender. There's no damn way there's a drop of Lavender anything in this bottle. It's a fakey weird smell. That is not reminiscent of anything floral. Well, maybe silk flowers. From the Dollar Tree.


Suckered in by the hot redhead model on QVC who supposedly only touches up her root regrowth and doesn't have to pull dye through her ends to freshen them up each month (that is a myth. The ends need the full 25 minutes!) I bought a big TSV from QVC (there's that QVC again) and I gave it a full 3 months since that's how much I supposedly had received. Honestly I think they said 6 months but the size of those bottles and the sheer amount of craziness going on with my hair requires easily 2x what they say to use. Because the "recommended dose" didn't really get through more than the top half of my huuuuuuuge noggin. So I really gave it a fair shake. And like I said, at first I thought it was going well. But then my hair started to feel...gross. Like it had something on it. Well obviously I guess it did. And my hair looked like a little more like dead leaf than flaming crazy-person red. So I busted out some shampoo, and viola, all that funk was gone, but the color was really not any better than had I washed it every other day with the shampoo I usually used. So I started to alternate shampoo with this product and eventually just realized this stuff wasn't really doing much. Except making me shed like a long-haired cat. Or like my dog, that dog was like the big fluffy cat from the bissell commercial that would "explode" on the steps sending sneezes all over the place. While it sent me into a sneezing fit just by watching it, it still makes me laugh.

Ok...back to the regularly scheduled program.

I decided this stuff was just not for me, and went back to my usual routine. I think I sold some of it on Ebay and might have also given some away to curlyhaired friends. It's wicked overpriced for the fact that it's effectively Suave conditioner.

So recently I was digging in the abyss that is my bathroom closet looking for something I can't even recall ... and came across a half empty bottle of this stuff. Since I don't have "fresh" hair right now, I decided to give it a crack again. It all came flooding back and I backed up the drain (which takes one shower to do anyway) something awful. The few hairs I had left after that shower were duller and kind of ...dead looking, however I did learn that if I use my beloved and discontinued (yet another boob at Aveda!) Aveda Annatto Color Conditioner AFTER I rinse the Wen out (which takes like a decade) and let it bake for a few minutes, the annatto sticks very nicely. So maybe at the end of a cycle Ill do that with what little Aveda I still have in my stockpile before I prell it all out before my root touchup.

You didn't think it was real, did you?

My official answer on Wen? Your experience might be better or worse, but I think it kind of sucks. If it didn't cost so much maybe I wouldn't think it's so bad, well yea I would.

But I have done a conditioner only "wash" using the Pantene for Red Hair and that went pretty well. Not well enough to do it like daily or every other day, but maybe every other shampooing could be replaced with it.

...that's something I might try out. After my sister's wedding.

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