Cheaper products VS. Expensive products

[Amber_Maiden]

I've been thinking lately about the difference in hair products- you have the more expensive, sometimes salon, brands, and then you have the cheaper drugstore type brands. Is there a difference between the two and their effects on long hair? Do you see a difference? Which do you prefer and why?


I've used very expensive natural brands (may more to have less ingredients! bah!), and mainstream salon brands. I really find my hair prefers drugstore brands like Aussie 3MM though- so $3.50, compared to Redken hair mask- $30... big difference... and Aussie is so much better!

[lapushka]

I don't see any reason to buy more expensive stuff, when the cheaper stuff works just as well, if not better. What the heck for? I think that's a terrible waste. I used to love Jessicurl styling products for the curly girl routine, then I realized regular gels (sans alcohol) worked just as well and they were *way* cheaper. Since then I've stuck to the cheaper products!

[Arrow]

I've found that the cheaper stuff (usually shop's own-brand stuff) tends to make my hair happier, but I can't be certain. And I guess it depends on how cheap "cheap" is. I tend to pick up that sort of thing in the £1 shop so I can try out different brands and see how my hair reacts. For example, Johnson's Baby Shampoo (average price £2) left my hair feeling limp and greasy. I get on quite well with anything by Pantene. Scwaztkoff (spelling?) shampoo gave me dandruff, but the conditioner is great. I'm still using it with a supermarket own brand shampoo.

[akilina]

I wish there was an "in between" poll option. I use both. I love Biolage, which is a bit more expensive, but I also learned last night that my hair likes the $1.00 bottle of suave too.
Sometimes, I use whatever I can get my hands on cheap, moderately cheap, or more spendy.
Although it doesn't help that I get mostly all salon products for about half the price at Salon Centric, and CosmoProf. So I am more prone to just buying them.
I like more expensive sometimes because some of them just feel higher quality to my hair and work better for me, where certain cheapo brands, I would not even wash laundry with. But I can not believe that my hair is loving the Suave. I was truly shocked. I love how the smell is still lingering too :]

[pepperminttea]

Cheap for me. The only thing I spend more on is shampoo since there aren't many cheap SLS-free brands, but then I'm not spending salon-type prices. If salon brands were truly special, perhaps I'd try them, but they just seem to be more expensively-packaged versions of nearly the same thing. :shrug:

Incidentally, there's a similar thread here (http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/showthread.php?t=72503) you might find interesting. :)

[Amber_Maiden]

Cheap for me. The only thing I spend more on is shampoo since there aren't many cheap SLS-free brands, but then I'm not spending salon-type prices. If salon brands were truly special, perhaps I'd try them, but they just seem to be more expensively-packaged versions of nearly the same thing. :shrug:

Incidentally, there's a similar thread here (http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/showthread.php?t=72503) you might find interesting. :)

Agh! Didn't see that when I did a search! Thank you for sharing! :D

[MinderMutsig]

I've only used salon brands a couple of times and every time I ended up chucking it in the trash because my hair hated it so much that I felt bad at the thought of dumping them on someone else.
I much prefer cheapo brands. The only downside to the cheaper brands is that it's hard to find something adequately moisturizing. I love them for CO but I am having trouble finding a heavier conditioner now that GFTN seems to have disappeared from our drugstores.

I'm thinking of picking up some Alverde products next time I'm in Germany and there a Balea hair mask that I have my eye on.

[ravenreed]

My hair has never met a salon product that it liked, except the Biolage conditioner. Even that, it liked the GVP version better. Most salon products have things in them that make my hair or scalp terribly unhappy. I have to be so careful because I also get allergic reactions to hair products and break out with giant cysts on my scalp.

[CurlyCap]

My rule of thumb is that if a cheaper product works better...cool.

My problem with a lot of the expensive products is that they try to do EVERYTHING...and usually my hair needs more of one thing than another. So their "one size fits all" just doesn't do it for me.

[Venefica]

I use normal convenience store products, I could not afford salon products for my main shampoo and conditioner. I do use more expensive stuff when it comes to oils and such though. I generally use Define's shampoo and conditioner and hair cure and I like it, that is a mid price range product and I also like First Price shampoo and conditioner and those are the cheapest hair products you find in Norway I think and they work well for me to.

[MandyBeth]

For shampoo - my hair and scalp both agree on Redken Clear Moisture. Other SLS products leave my hair dry. Non SLS product and natural options mean my scalp riots into scabby pus filled cysts.

Conditioner - cheap Suave or GVP Biolage knock off are good, depends on the day. Even the real Biolage doesn't work as well.

Leave in - I have from dollar store mineral oil to promo salon stuff. My current usuals are NB Panacea, some shea butter oil stuff from the "ethnic" aisle and HE split end took to weigh down the insane mess on my head.

[jeanniet]

I use what works, and if it's less expensive, all the better. But my hair doesn't like most drugstore brands--Tresseme Naturals is the notable exception. So I pay what needs to be paid for whatever works.

[torrilin]

Same answer as in the thread Pepperminttea linked. My body seems to be more sensitive than ever to fragrance, so I'm mostly using fragrance free stuff.

Last year, I was either using the Herbal Essences clarifying shampoo diluted (NOT fragrance free) or Desert Essences fragrance free shampoo diluted, and I know my main conditioner was Alba Botanica's leave in conditioner. I needed to wash 1-2 times a week. Part of what tipped me off to the fragrance problem is that the Herbal Essences would leave my scalp itchy days before the Desert Essences would.

This year, I'm experimenting with Cetaphil Restoraderm and Oil of Olay Sensitive skin face and body wash on my scalp. I'm down to one wash a week more or less. A lot of stuff that is sodium laureth sulfate free uses coco betaine for the main surfactant, and the coco betaine seems to result in my hair going super tangly. The bodywashes use different surfactants, and they result in fewer tangles than I get with SLS.

[MintChocChip]

I won some Aveda shampoo & conditioner from Cosmo once and every time I used that (maybe once a month or less so it lasted me ages!) my hair looked and felt amazing! I'd love to be able to use that every time but I simply don't have the funds. I tried Redken too once, it was okay but didn't do anything cheaper products don't do for my hair.

I've found Alberto Balsam works fine for my hair at the moment. I was having some allergic reactions with Body Shop, Pantene (the list goes on! I can't remember all of them...) products but never once had a reaction to Alberto. :) I've found my hair doesn't particularly like Aussie stuff though even though I think it smells so yummy! Same for Herbal Essences! No go. My hair seems to like Dove shampoo!

In general I'll use cheap products, but I have to be careful with what I use because of allergic reactions to things. :(

[Long_hair_bear]

I wish there was an "in between" poll option. I use both. I love Biolage, which is a bit more expensive, but I also learned last night that my hair likes the $1.00 bottle of suave too.
Sometimes, I use whatever I can get my hands on cheap, moderately cheap, or more spendy.
Although it doesn't help that I get mostly all salon products for about half the price at Salon Centric, and CosmoProf. So I am more prone to just buying them.
I like more expensive sometimes because some of them just feel higher quality to my hair and work better for me, where certain cheapo brands, I would not even wash laundry with. But I can not believe that my hair is loving the Suave. I was truly shocked. I love how the smell is still lingering too :]

Me too! I use cheap coney condishes like pantene ice shine and HE long term relationship, but expensive shampoo (Abba) and goats milk condish for nonconey condish treatments. :D

[Hiriel]

Hehehe, I like Aussie 3MM as well, but in Norway (I haven't checked here in the Netherlands yet), that was a medium expensive one, definitely not cheap. I happily use cheap products, but right now I have found an expensive shampoo that seems to fix my oddly behaving scalp (not quite dry and flaky, not quite dandruff, but something peculiar was going on. Vichy's anti-dandruff shampoo fixed it), so expensive it is. But I think I might have a skewed view of what's expensive, I've never spent much money on hair, skin or clothes, so I feel like I'm going amok when I'm buying a $20 shampoo, even though with the prices in Norway, that's not really a huge amount of money. A $30 shampoo, considering the price level of the US, would be insanely expensive in my book.

[SilverDoe]

Expensive, though it's also because of location.
Jessicurl's products are amazing, and I've never found another equally good SLS free shampoo as her Gentle Lather one.
Unfortunately, it's very expensive as I have to have it shipped to Scandinavia.

I use a mix of cheap conditioners. And aloe vera gel during the summer which can be on the expensive side.

The only oil that works for me is Camellia Japonica, which is INSANELY expensive & almost impossible to find right now. Had to have it shipped, luckily it lasts a long time.

[Embrace1913]

I prefer the cheapie stuff. I might splurge every once in a blue moon and get something pricey, but the drugstore brands are just as good or even better.

[Anje]

My hair and scalp seem to think that the cheaper, the better. Heck, somewhere before I joined here, I tried to switch from my cheapo Suave to a seemingly more respectable Aussie and ended up with less happy hair and a LOT of flakes from my scalp. Clearly, my hair thinks less is more.

[Mya]

Sometimes it's true that if you want a good product it has to be expensive. But sometimes you can find even better products for cheap prices if you go for small brands that don't advertise themselves, usually sold in discount stores. That's my case.

[Dorothy]

I use nature's gate chamomile shampoo and conditioner, which is cheaper than salon brands, because it works ok and I assume it's environmentally sound since they sell it at the coop, although I'm no expert on what makes shampoo environmentally sound.

But the real magic for me is in the non hair product items - pure coconut oil, camillia oil, aloe vera gel, henna, cassia, honey, etc. I've been using the nature's gate for years, but when I added those things, it made a huge difference in my hair. And I don't think they're particularly expensive - Camillia nut oil is the most expensive since it's shipped from Japan, but I need 3 drops per wash, so the $20 bottle lasts about nine months.

I think the salon stuff and expensive beauty products are hooey. I think the FDA should evaluate their claims, because people waste major money for no real difference, for the most part. I don't think advertisers should be able to lie about the benefits of their products with impunity.

[metricfuture]

I voted for expensive, but I use both. My current line up is skewed in favor of the pricier stuff right now, and I'll keep using them as long as they're working for my hair (I haven't been in experimentation mode for awhile, so I'm not trying anything new). By expensive, I mean Biolage and Alterna. I'm miles away from an Ojon / Moroccan Oil budget.

[elbow chic]

Oh, cheap all the way. :laugh: that's actually part of what I like about the whole experience of growing mine out-- such a great amount of amusement can be had for so little money. If I needed expensive hair prods to have nice hair, I'd buzz it all down.

[neko_kawaii]

Trader Joe's shampoo and condish. At $2.99 plus tax I think they fall into the cheap category. *grin*

[Freija]

I answered 'salon' because I use Joico shampoo. It's the first shampoo I happened across since my scalp spontaneously started to blister and scab which has calmed it back down, so I don't feel like experimenting further! I've pretty much pinpointed the whole thing first to a bad reaction to the natural shampoo I was using, and then to repeated Colour B4-ings, so I'm just giving my scalp time to calm down. I also use Biolage balm (HG. Just, HG. I didn't even believe in HG products until I tried it) and have been using Biolage Aqua Immersion Cream for a treat (but that was strictly a present from my boy, so it's okay!).

However, because I keep only to those (two) products, buy in bulk and spend ages shopping around online when I have to buy more, I don't pay salon prices. I seem to run out of everything at the six month mark, so I probably spend £80 per year, or £6.60/month.

[frostrune]

I never understand brand snobs : paying more for a product doesn't make the product better. Ingredients do. And a lot of the time, the ingredients are very similar, or the same, between high-end and drugstore brands. It's all about finding out what works for you! I'm not bashing people who found more pricey products that work for them, just the ones who climb on their soapbox and lecture you about how everything cheaper than 20$ will kill your hair because it's full of chemicals...while recommending super expensive stuff that is full of chemicals :rolleyes:

When it comes to me I always use cheaper stuff. Broke college student here. I've been sulfate free and cone free for nearly two years, using cheap brands (Live Clean, Giovanni). Now my hair is so soft and healthy, but damn my frizz won't go away, so
I'm thinking about using -cones again. I'll probably buy the L'Oréal Nutri-sleek anti-frizz serum, one of the bloggers I read says it works just as well as her old Kérastase one.

[CaityBear]

I do CO and find cheaper conditioners work great. I have a few specific conditioners I love. One is a cheap, runny conditioner which works awesome for cleaning my hair. I also have two dollar store brands, one is $1.25 and is surprisingly a fairly thick conditioner but works great for cleaning. And another one that is $2 and super thick (hold the bottle upside down and it doesn't move). The one bottle is like 900mL and the other two are 1L bottles. I love my cheap stuff. :)

However, my boyfriend doesn't like dollar store shampoo but he does fine with the drugstore stuff.

I've used some professional stuff and found it nothing special.

ETA: The person above mentioned ingredients and I actually prefer my dollar store ones in that sense as well. They have a SUPER short list of simple ingredients, not a long list of chemicals.

[Delila]

The salon products I use are actually kind of middle of the road price-wise.

Lately I've mostly been using GM, but my hair does get on with Biolage pretty well, so if the GM weren't an option, I'd go back to that.

The way I see it, if an $18 bottle of shampoo can last me a year, it's worth it. I only use a bit, mostly on my scalp with each wash, so a little goes a long way.

(On the other hand, I'm coping with psoriasis lately, and spending $7-8 per 8 oz bottle of Nizoral. Don't love it, but it seems to be helping, and I'm relieved not to be so uncomfortable any more.)

[Paranda Belle]

I don't like spending money so usually the cheap products work fine. I don't think I've ever used really expensive products that were over £5.

I was in an expensive beauty shop over the weekend and I saw a conditioner for £30. Surprisingly it was full of nice oils and shea butter and cone free. (Sadly I have forgotten the name) But I couldnt bring myself to sepnd £30 on a bottle that was tiny.

[angelgypsy]

I LOVE Biolage, but it's expensive so I don't use it as much. It is good to my hair so I use it as kind of a treat. I read on here about a generic version of the conditioning balm and I'd like to try it out.

For day to day use though, I use drugstore brands. Dove, HE, Suave, etc. Usually it's a matter of whats cheapest when I get it, what coupons. But I like things that smell good too. I'm learning more about ingredients so when I do buy more I will be more aware of that as well.

[meteor]

At this point, I think price says nothing at all about the product (maybe it says something about the company, its marketing and operations).
I absolutely hated expensive Kerastase ("nutri-intense" masque, shampoo, "lait nutritif"), Pureology, L'Oreal Professionel (especially the stuff for highlighted hair). But Redken All-Soft line and MoroccanOil (oil treatment and masque) are OK... but nothing that much cheaper products can't do.
Garnier Fructis is good for my hair, despite being ridiculously cheap, and real argan oil is obviously better and cheaper than the coney MoroccanOil.

In beauty industry, price is not about fair value or even cost of production, it's really more about marketing.

[In2wishin]

I never understand brand snobs : paying more for a product doesn't make the product better. Ingredients do. And a lot of the time, the ingredients are very similar, or the same, between high-end and drugstore brands. It's all about finding out what works for you! I'm not bashing people who found more pricey products that work for them, just the ones who climb on their soapbox and lecture you about how everything cheaper than 20$ will kill your hair because it's full of chemicals...while recommending super expensive stuff that is full of chemicals :rolleyes:

When it comes to me I always use cheaper stuff. Broke college student here. I've been sulfate free and cone free for nearly two years, using cheap brands (Live Clean, Giovanni). Now my hair is so soft and healthy, but damn my frizz won't go away, so
I'm thinking about using -cones again. I'll probably buy the L'Oréal Nutri-sleek anti-frizz serum, one of the bloggers I read says it works just as well as her old Kérastase one.

I agree with this. Price has nothing to do with what works. It all comes down to ingredients and how they interact with your hair.

I couldn't vote since I make my own.

[Wild Strawberry]

Cheap stuff, but I check the ingredients. It's so frustrating when you buy something expensive and then it isn't working for you -money thrown away.

[aisha.christine]

I CO wash, and I use a lot of conditioner when I do, so thankfully my hair loves the cheap conditioner! :D
I haven't found any product that cleans my hair as well as the Suave Naturals line, and I pay next to nothing for it. :p

[pink.sara]

Both... When my hair is closer to it's natural state, maybe just hennaed and dyed once or twice, cheap brands work perfectly well and salon stuff can be too heavy.

But now that it's bleached, stripped and dyed I need the heavy duty protein reconstructing and moisturising brands, which tend to be the expensive ones.

[joflakes]

I use cheaper products, well they are cheap ish. They're about £5 per bottle which will last ages! They're also super awesome and vegan and all natural :D

[EndlessSunshine]

I tried using a more expensive brand of shampoo and conditioner, hair masks, leave ins, and such. I hate spending loads of money so I went back to using VO5, aloe, honey, EVOO, coconut oil, and such. Probably spend about the same or less but this stuff actually works!