Kiehls series Nr 4: Kiehl's Amino Acid shampoo

I remember reading somewhere that coconut oil is the only natural ingredient that can penetrate hair and therefore make a real difference to a shampoo.  This shampoo contains pure coconut oil.  It also has a lovely smell of coconut oil, soft and summery, not overpowering like the coconut in sunscreens.  It reminded me of the smell of coconut you would actually eat. 

 

This shampoo is definitely different from ‘normal drugstore’ shampoos.  First off, it is really expensive.  It is a bit difficult to get accurate South African prices for Kiehl's products, but it sells for $18 for 250 ml in the US, which translates to R144.

This shampoo left my hair silky smooth and soft.  I loved it, and kept touching my hair because it was so nice.  I even tried using it without conditioner and it was fine and still soft, which has never happened with other shampoo.  I prefer to follow the shampoo with just a tiny bit of conditioner, though.

Now the bad stuff.  Although I loved the way my hair felt, I did not like to wash with it.  There was no lathering (yes, I know the lathering is bad for my hair) and sometimes it felt like my hair was not getting clean.  I often ended up repeating the lathering twice, thus washing my hair three times, because it did not feel clean.  When I tried to use the last little bit in the bottle, I added water to the bottle and shook before I put it on my hair and it lathered beautifully.  I wished I had tried this earlier.  I usually justify expensive products by saying “A little goes a long way”, but in this instance I used a lot more shampoo than I normally do before it felt like it worked.

I swim a lot and have stopped using the shampoo when I wash my hair directly after swimming in chlorinated water, because it lathered even less and made my hair feel even less like it was getting clean.  Please note:  My hair were perfectly clean when dry.  It was just while I was washing that I did not like it.

My hair was soft and perfect with this, for one day.  On day two it started getting greasy and definitely needed a wash every second day.  I often go three days between washes with ‘normal cheap drugstore shampoo’.

I do not think I will replace the bottle, mostly because of the price.  But if you do not care what it cost to have soft, silky hair you should give this a try.  It is meant for all hair types.

I could not find a single South African review, this was the closest I came. Some international reviews can be found here,  here, here, here (from a dude) and here.