Salon brands -- worth it or not?

[turtlelover]

I honestly have never used "high end" products other than Nexxus, which probably really doesn't qualify as that anymore since it is now sold in WalMart, etc. Am I actually missing out on anything? Do they honestly help improve hair condition more than your more typical drugstore or Sally's brands? I'm slowly trimming layers out of my hair and am kind of bored and want to play around with products, but don't want to waste a lot of money if the "better" products don't really work much differently.

[calmyogi]

I don't use professional on a regular, but I will say the few times I have used them they did seem to work better. There is this professional curly hair shampoo and conditioner I use to buy and it seemed to really make my hair almost go in to these Shirley temple ringlets. It made them come to life like no other product I used. The line has long since been discontinued though . That's not to say that some is the store brands aren't really good though.

[Laccaria]

Sadly, beause I always want to believe the magical cure is just around the corner, my experience with both "drugstore" and "professional" products is very much YMMV.

I've been growing out some bleach damage in the last few years. The internet is full of praise for Redken products for damaged hair, so I've tried a few during this process.

I loooved their Extreme line and ended up buying a bunch of those products and guarding them jealously. I thought their All Soft line was fine, but nothing special. I think there still a partial bottle of conditioner in my bathroom right now that I'll probably get around to using eventually.

I HATED their Diamond Oil conditioner with a passion I didn't know I could muster for hair products. It somehow made my hair feel rougher and drier than shampoo alone. That said, I "donated" the bottle to my partner, and he loves it for his short 3-somthing hair and even curlier beard. Plus, it smells really nice on him. Meanwhile, I've gone back to $3 Sauve Almond and Shea Butter just because I like it better.

[Annalouise]

I read an article recently that said that more salon brands are pH balanced, (4.9), than store brands. But not all salon brands are pH balanced. (I can't find the article). If you talk to cosmetic chemists they will insist that hair products be in the correct pH range. However, this obviously takes more work and that is why many companies don't bother.

[lapushka]

I honestly have never used "high end" products other than Nexxus, which probably really doesn't qualify as that anymore since it is now sold in WalMart, etc. Am I actually missing out on anything? Do they honestly help improve hair condition more than your more typical drugstore or Sally's brands? I'm slowly trimming layers out of my hair and am kind of bored and want to play around with products, but don't want to waste a lot of money if the "better" products don't really work much differently.

I once tried things by Davines (many years ago), and a hair mask by Schwarzkopf, their Bonacure range. It was a *nice* mask, but it also cost me 20 euro (the salon recommended it to me, and since she had given me such great service, I thought well... okay, I'll be the sucker of the day) The Davines was a leave-in spray for fine hair. I still have it. My mom can use it better (and it's still good after all these years).

I have been very happy with regular drugstore brands, to such a degree that I no longer want to spend the money, not because I'm on a budget, but because I don't see the need to.

[lapushka]

I read an article recently that said that more salon brands are pH balanced, (4.9), than store brands. But not all salon brands are pH balanced. (I can't find the article). If you talk to cosmetic chemists they will insist that hair products be in the correct pH range. However, this obviously takes more work and that is why many companies don't bother.

Do you have a link to that article, or something similar?

[Silverbleed]

I don't know. I've tried several brands (don't have it anymore and don't know the names) but if I would compare them to my hair and my routine now, I would say they didn't do anything at all. So I'm not really convinced It doesn't seem to make much of a difference.

[Nique1202]

Salon brands are absolutely not necessarily any better than drugstore brands. They might have a few cents worth of fancy expensive ingredients in the bottle to justify marking the price up 5-10x what the drugstore equivalent product costs, but they generally use the same basic ingredients. If you get a result you like from a salon brand, chances are there's an equivalent in the drugstore that's just as good, though sometimes you might have to cocktail a few brands to get the same effect.

I can only think of one sort-of exception: until the last 5-7 years or so, it was difficult to find a clarifying-type shampoo in the drugstore brands, most of the shampoos were so diluted or gentle that they left buildup on my hair all the time. So, salon brands that used higher concentrations of sulfates and such were more effective for that. But now, almost every drugstore shampoo brand has a clarifying option, and they work just as well for $3 as the $20 bottle I bought back in the day when money was worth more.

[Annalouise]

Do you have a link to that article, or something similar?

I found it. Geez I need to know how to organize my "favorites".
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4158629/

[lapushka]

I found it. Geez I need to know how to organize my "favorites".
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4158629/

Haha! Know what that's like. Thank you!

They do say they tested "popular" shampoos. Wondering now what those are. Of course, this doesn't go for every brand or shampoo that's drugstore. The outcome might just depend on which ones they selected.