Review: Tresemme Naturals conditioner

Tresemme keeps coming out with new variations of their Naturals line of silicone-free conditioners, so every time I see a new one, I have to try it. The newest one I found is called 'Vibrantly Smooth' and contains coconut and jojoba oils. The two previous variations I've tried, sweet orange and avocado/aloe, have worked equally well for CO-washing, and I can't speak more highly of them. All of the conditioners have very similar smells, and it's difficult to tell them apart, unless you sniff them one right after the other.

I figured it's probably about time to write a formal review on these conditioners, now that I've been using them for months. I think I grabbed my first bottle of Tresemme Naturals in about February. I was combing through the local drugstore for a different conditioner that was perhaps cheaper than what I was using at the time (Desert Essence Organics). I didn't want to use Suave, despite being a very popular conditioner for CO-washing, because it contains methylisothiazolinone.

Starting with the ingredient list, it is not perfectly clean, but it is much less offensive than the majority of other conditioners I've seen. The conditioners, as they advertise, are free of silicones, which is excellent for those on a no poo regimen. Instead of the silicones, they contain stearamidopropyl dimethylamine, which is a lipid-based emulsifier, and also a cationic surfactant. It serves as a conditioning agent, but it is obviously more lightweight than silicones, which prevents buildup that can sabotage your no poo hair. There is some alcohol, although I have not found the alcohol to be at all drying. It also contains lauroyl lysine, which is an amino acid, the building blocks of protein. Although you might suspect this would be bad news for hair that tends to hate protein, I have protein-hating hair and have had no problems with this conditioner. None of these ingredients have any known toxicity or danger of bioaccumulation (unlike methylisothiazolinone).

Using the conditioners, they all seem very similar, with the more moisturizing versions (aloe/avocado and coconut/jojoba) being only slightly heavier than the volumizing sweet orange version. You might want to consider this if you have issues with your hair being weighed down, but if that's not a problem for you, then there is very little difference between the three versions I've tried. These conditioners have good slip and coat the hair very well. They also rinse out quite easily compared to other conditioners I've tried. The fragrance is strong, but not overly sweet. I personally think these conditioners smell amazing, although if you are sensitive to strong smells, I think you'll want to give it a sniff before picking it up.

These conditioners do a bang up job of detangling my hair, and leave it soft and smooth with minimal flyaways. In short, these are the best conditioners I've used for CO-washing and I have no intention of switching any time soon.

*photos are promo pictures from the Tresemme website

No Poo and Styling

A lot of people wonder when they first decide to go no poo how they will need to change their styling habits. I know I did. Heat styling and the use of styling products are usually the two biggest questions.

In terms of styling with product, it's not necessary to stop using styling product - I would just say don't use anything you can't get out with whatever alternate method you're using to wash your hair. Baking soda can most certainly get out just about anything, but based on my own personal experience, using baking soda daily is probably just as bad as shampooing daily; at the very least, it's every bit as drying. If you're doing WO washes exclusively, it's probably best to steer clear of product altogether, because getting product out with just water is going to be difficult to borderline impossible, depending on what you're using; you're certainly going to have an issue with buildup. One of the great things I've found with CO is that you can get most things out with it. I still CO on a daily basis, and my hair is loving it. So, after I wash my hair, I use a little spritz of a detangler called Repair Me by Lamas, and I also usually dab a bit of coconut oil on my ends. Both of these come out fine with my daily CO. Most things, including hairspray and mousse I've found come out quite easily with CO; my only recommendation would be try to avoid things with silicone, as these can be more stubborn to get out and can build up over time, making your hair look limp and oily.

Now for heat styling. This is really just a matter of personal choice. I decided to go no poo because my hair was trashed from shampooing and heat styling. After going for over a year without shampooing, I've found that my hair is healthy enough that I no longer need to do much heat styling to make it look good. But in reality, if you just don't think you can give up heat styling, don't let that deter you from going no poo. Think about it: both heat styling and shampoo are damaging to your hair, so if you choose to cut out shampooing but continue heat styling, you're still reducing the amount of damage you're doing to your hair by quite a bit. In any case, regardless of your styling choices, your hair will probably ultimately thank you for skipping on the harsh detergents.

Month 9

No, I haven't given up on no poo; I just haven't been posting because I've been so busy during the last eight months. So I thought I'd give an update on how my hair is doing and what my current routine is.

I went for quite a long period of time where I was using nothing but weekly vinegar rinses and water-only washes, with very occasional baking soda washes if there was a lot of buildup. I actually noticed that my hair seemed to be getting drier over time when I was doing that, however; I was definitely not achieving the desired results.

So very recently, I went back to CO-washing. I've been CO-washing for a couple of weeks now, and I've seen a huge improvement in the moisture in my hair. I usually use Desert Essence Organics Apple Ginger conditioner, and find that it works pretty well for CO-washing, plus it smells great. I also occasionally use Aubrey Organics Honeysuckle Rose conditioner to CO-wash, although it takes considerable more effort to make this one work effectively as a CO-wash. It is much thicker and has less slip than the Desert Essence, but with a lot of scrubbing and a very thorough rinse afterward, it does produce some nice results.

I know the most popular conditioners for CO-washing are Suave Naturals and V05, although I do have reasons for choosing not to use these. They are a lot cheaper, which makes CO-washing more affordable to do on a regular basis, but Suave Naturals also contain methylisothiazolinone, which this NIH study found could trigger neurodegenerative disorders in humans; it was found to be highly toxic to neurons in culture. And V05 contains some other weird chemicals for which published findings in the Journal of Toxicity indicate may not be exactly safe. Although this is not irrefutably conclusive evidence, it is enough for me to keep it out of my bathroom. So, even though Desert Essence Organics and Aubrey Organics are considerably more expensive, I choose to use them for health/safety reasons, because I can identify pretty much every ingredient in both of them, which gives me at least a little peace of mind.

I usually wet my hair only three times per week. The other four days, I just take a shower without getting it wet. On one to two of those days that I wet it, I CO-wash. The remaining day(s) that I wet it but don't CO-wash, I do a water-only rinse. Since my hair is not unusually dry, as is typical with curlier hair, I have to wet my hair at least three days per week, or it will begin to look oily. At the beginning of my no poo experiment, my hair was pretty trashed; I guessed it was probably a 1c/2a type, which is pretty different from the 1a hair I had in childhood. However, as my hair gets healthier, it is not as dry, and I would call it maybe 1b at this point. As I rid it of damage, it seems to be reverting back to the way it was when I was a kid; straight and silky. Especially on days when I do just a water-only rinse, I will rub the ends of my hair with coconut oil that has had plumeria petals soaking in it (for added fragrance). This does a pretty good job of keeping my ends in good condition.

I haven't had a haircut in 13 months; I'm actually really afraid to go to my hairdresser, because I know she's going to want to shampoo it. Also, it actually is in such good condition; the split ends are very minimal considering how long it's been since I've had it cut. Alas, I do need to get it cut soon, because it is getting very long. Surprisingly though, it is actually still quite manageable at this length, just because it has sustained a lot less damage than it normally would have by the time it was this long, had I still been shampooing, straightening, etc.

I also want to address heat styling. I do as little heat styling as possible. The most I do is on days that I wet it, I will quickly blow dry the roots, but not the length, on low. I hate having wet hair right up against my head, so that is why I just blow the roots quickly and let the ends air dry. As for straightening or curling irons, I rarely ever use either one anymore. I used to use a straightener on a daily basis, because my hair was out of control. But now that it's getting straighter and silkier, it is for the most part, unnecessary anymore for me to straighten it. I rarely curl my hair to begin with, so this is reserved really only for special occasions a couple of times a year.

So that's it! Although I am always tweaking and evolving my haircare routine, this is the summary of what I've done for the last eight months and what I'm doing now. At the very beginning, I doubted it would ever be possible for me to not have to wash my hair every day, or that nine months down the road it would be in such good condition. The first couple of months were rough, and filled with really, really bad hair days. But there is light at the end of the tunnel! My boyfriend has even been no pooing for the last nine months with me, and he loves it too. He mostly does water only, and CO-washes only once every couple of weeks, but he can get away with that because his hair is so short.

Day 31

Think I've figured out the fine art of WO-washing. I last WO-washed on Thursday night, so this morning, I decided to try it again. It wasn't super greasy, I really probably could have gone all day, but I'm going out with some friends after finals, so I wanted to try styling it to see what I would be working with. So I WO-washed it this morning, and it got very nice and clean. The key is definitely water pressure. And rinse, rinse, rinse for several minutes. I probably spend a good 10 minutes rinsing my hair and massaging my scalp. I wanted to try a straight style, but for obvious reasons, I haven't been using heat styling because I want to let my hair have a chance to get healthy again. But I can't go straight without at least a little heat (I'm somewhere between a 1C/2A hair type, in case you're wondering), so when I got out of the shower, I gently detangled with a wide-tooth comb, and then took my trusty blow dryer on the lowest setting possible (both heat-wise and how much it blows), so it was just a very light breeze of barely-warm air coming out of my dryer. The test was that I held the dryer right up to my hand. If it doesn't even bother my skin, it's probably okay for my hair. I slowly and gently dried my hair, using my fingers to smooth over it. And the finished product is great! It's sleek, smooth, and very, very clean. It doesn't stink at all, and I have fewer fly-away hairs than I used to after shampooing. And to boot, I don't even need hairspray!

The way my hair was just one month ago, I never would have dreamed that I'd be able to WO-wash so soon. My hair used to be a greasy, matted mess after only one day of not shampooing, but now I haven't CO-washed in a week, and my hair looks great every day! My hair seems to actually be doing better without CO-washing. Why was shampoo ever even invented? Oh right, profit motive!