Review (3/5): Step 1: switch the lids; Lots of ingredients and plant stuff in the shampoo
A lot of the early reviews for this are going to be negative because they shipped the way-too-thick conditioner with a pump-top that doesn't work with it. They should have made it less thick, or shipped it in a wide-mouth jar you could scoop it out of like face cream, but since they didn't, the easiest thing is to switch the lids. The pump-top works fine on the shampoo. The press-open top on the conditioner is still a bother, but turning it upside down and rapping it on something to drive the conditioner to the opening does work. Don't break it.
Supposing they'll fix this, how's the shampoo and conditioner?
Well, speaking of face cream, the first thing I noticed was the unusual fragrance. Unusual for shampoo and conditioner, I mean. It reminds me of some face and other skin creams, sweet and vaguely flowery. It's light and pleasant enough, though some men may want something more traditional for them. And possibly those with extra-sensitive noses may be able to detect the garlic in the shampoo. (Yes, garlic. There are actually garlic shampoos, with a lot more garlic than here, some of which claim not to smell like garlic.) No garlic in the conditioner.
The shampoo is thick and lathers well and cleans well.
The ultra-thick conditioner, once you manage to get it on your hair, is fine, leaves my hair soft and combable.
The ingredients (given below) look fairly conventional for the most part, a mix of synthetic and natural. For the shampoo, the collagen is the 17th ingredient by weight, so under 6% (probably far less), and the keratin is 28th, under 4% (probably far less). For the conditioner, the keratin is the 12th ingredient, meaning it could be as much as 8% (though again probably far less). For all I know that's plenty for what they're supposed to do.
There's a lot of plant stuff in the shampoo, some only given in Latin, so here's the translation of the rest. Besides the acai, Matricaria (German chamomile), echinacea, garlic, lemon, sage, and spirulina, the shampoo has:
Argania spinosa = argan
Symphytum officinale = comfrey
Trigonella foenum-graecum = fenugreek
Quercus alba = white oak
Viola tricolor = viola, or Johnny jumpup
The conditioner also has some argan and acai, and adds:
Fucus vesiculosus = bladderwrack (a seaweed)
Some people prefer not to have the amodimethicone, here in both the shampoo and conditioner, a silicone some say is hard to rinse out, though others praise it for its conditioning effects particularly with bleached hair and for its limited buildup.
Similarly, there's dimethicone in the conditioner, which some find to build up over time, while others don't seem to notice any trouble with that and enjoy its conditioning and emollient qualities.
The silicone quaternium-16 is supposed to be a good silicone for rinsing out.
For the conditioner, keep in mind that cetearyl alcohol, cetyl alcohol, and stearyl alcohol are fatty substances, not at all like the alcohol used for drinking or rubbing. They won't dry out your hair, just the opposite.
Shampoo: Water, disodium laureth sulfosuccinate, glycerin, acrylates copolymer, cocamidopropyl hydroxysultaine, sodium cocoyl isethionate, fragrance, cocamidopropyl betaine, sodium cocoamphoacetate, guar hydroxypropyltrimonium chloride, panthenol, glycol distearate, laureth-4, lauryl glucoside, sodium lauryl glucose carboxylate, sodium cocoyl glutamate, hydrolyzed collagen, amodimethicone, trideceth-12, cetrimonium chloride, silicone quaternium-16, undeceth-11, butyloctanol, undeceth-5, Argania spinosa kernel oil, Euterpe oleracea (Acai) fruit extract, polyquaternium-70, hydrolyzed keratin, propylene glycol, Chamomilla recutita (Matricaria) flower extract, Symphytum officinale leaf extract, Echinacea purpurea extract, Trigonella foenum-graecum fruit extract, Allium sativum (garlic) bulb extract, citrus limon (lemon) fruit extract, propolis extract, Salvia officinalis (sage) leaf extract, Spirulina maxima extract, Quercus alba bark extract, Viola tricolor extract, citric acid, phenoxyethanol, ethylhexylglycerin, tetrasodium EDTA, benzyl salicylate, coumarin, hexyl cinnamal, hydroxyisohexyl 3-cyclohexene carboxaldehyde, linalool, butylphenyl methylpropional, alpha-isomethyl ionone.
Conditioner: Water, cetearyl alcohol, cetyl alcohol, stearyl alcohol, glycerin, polyquaternium-11, panthenol, amodimethicone, centrimonium bromide, butylene glycol, Fucus vesiculosus extract, hydrolyzed keratin, dimethicone, tocopheryl acetate, Argania spinosa kernel oil, Euterpe oleracea (Acai) fruit extract, polyquaternium-70, disodium EDTA, fragrance, phenoxyethanol, ethylhexylglycerin, benzyl salicylate, coumarin, hexyl cinnamal, hydroxyisohexyl 3-cyclohexene carboxaldehyde, linalool, butylphenyl methylpropional, alpha-isomethyl ionone.
Each bottle came wrapped in plastic. The shampoo had strapping tape over the top. They were put together in a paper box also wrapped in plastic. No way they'd leak out in transit.