I wouldn’t recommend to someone who is natural because I think spending a lot of money on products makes sense when you’re chemically treated or damaging your hair in some way or have high porosity hair naturally (I’m all the above). The leave-in, serum/ oils are the best, give your hair a salon finish, and smell great. It makes my hair look “styled” and feel nice even if I hadn’t done much to it.
I’m most interested in the extentioniste line which has taurine in it in a high concentration. I found research on science based publications that show a reduction of oxidative stress and protection of the hair follicle. I noticed a decent amount of new growth judging from my hennaed hair in only a few weeks, and I have a suspicion between that product line and nizoral (which I’ve been using for months) has given me more growth than I’m used to getting. I don’t want to give false hope to others but I do plan on doing a bit of an experiment when I don’t feel so overwhelmed at work to really test the effectiveness against other cheaper solutions if I can find alternative that doesn’t smell bad. I personally don’t really like the idea of serums on the scalp but they have more “cosmetically elegant” solutions that don’t have me walking around smelling bad. Back in the day I used to use the virgin hair fertilizer and it worked but I stunk up the house & every where I went. My dh and our dogs would not appreciate that
K18, olaplex,redken and pureology are other major brands in my routine. For me, I mainly just avoid drugstore products primarily due to pH levels typically being much higher in those products and that has a negative impact on the hair. I’ve researched the safety data sheets for all of these brands and what I listed would be my top 5 with each having/ serving a purpose. If Kerastase is too much, Pureology is probably the next best in terms of feel but the price difference isn’t that much. Also you really don’t need much product like with the drugstore options, and that’s a key factor. I love Camille rose products but I was very disappointed when I went through the whole 20$ jar of deep conditioner in one use because that’s much more expensive than a salon brand at that point.
1. Kerastase- great overall; seeing length increases
2. Pureology - best shampoos; great spray leave in
3. K18 - best for damage/ bond building
4. Olaplex - bond building but used differently
5. Redken - good spray heat protectants and abc mask is amazing (haven’t tried any from Kerastase yet but Redken works for now)
Adding primary reference for those interested in the experiment performed using taurine.
https://www.researchgate.net/profil...WQiLCJwcmV2aW91c1BhZ2UiOiJwdWJsaWNhdGlvbiJ9fQ
Also adding the patent for taurine which is held by L’Oréal. I tried to find other products with taurine in it and it doesn’t seem like there’s really much other options in terms of products
The invention relates to a method of treating and preventing ageing of the pilosebaceous unit and/or alopecia in human through the administration of taurine and/or hypotaurine and/or the acceptable salts thereof in an oral composition. Specifically, the invention relates to a method of treating...
patents.google.com