Beauty: Kiehl’s Argan Superbly Smoothing Shampoo & Conditioner

For someone who hates giving less than a 5-star review on feedback forms, I seem to be giving a lot of negative reviews on this blog lately Unfortunately, the Kiehl’s Argan Superbly Smoothing Shampoo & Conditioner were another dud buy for me! I did not notice ANY smoothing, let alone Superb Smoothing  (As only 36% of buyers on Makeupalley say they will get the shampoo again, looks like I’m not alone here!)

So, first things first about this shampoo. It costs £19 (ish) for each bottle (!!!!) Yup, that’s £19 for the shampoo, £19 for the conditioner, making me £38 poorer. With £38, I could have:

– eaten at 1 of my favourite Korean restaurants in London (Woo Jung) at least 5 times

– watched 3 movies AND had popcorn (not all 3x!)

– or….. buy 9 bottles of L’Oreal Shampoo (£3.99 each) And with Waitrose’s current “Buy 2 for 1” promo, I could have gotten 9 SETS of shampoo and conditioner. Worst thing? I think my hair looks better with plain ole L’Oreal (I just ordered 4 sets! :P)

OK I’m guessing you might want more detail than I don’t like it?

Why I bought it

I went to Morocco with a friend last year and she was telling me ALLL about the benefits of argan oil (it comes from Morocco). So I bought a shampoo there which cost £20, was pretty uglily packed (although not too dissimilar from the Kiehl’s packaging I guess!) and made my hair smell like a nut! Did it work? I didn’t really notice any improvement (or get any compliments after using it!) but it seemed OK and I figured I might need to use it for a little longer (it was quite a small bottle).  (OH and almost forgot- I tried 1 Kiehl’s shampoo and my hair looked amazing after it- it was when I was trying out the Equinox gym at Kensington, so unfortunately I forgot to note down the name. Based on that I thought all Kiehl’s haircare should be good- but I thought wrong! I wonder if Equinox would tell me the name of that specific shampoo if I email them!!!)

With my friend waxing lyrical about how the Moroccan argan oil’s quality wasn’t as good as her (branded) bottle, I decided to try an Argan Shampoo from a well-known brand. (Seriously, couldn’t she have told me the Argan Oil we saw in Morocco wasn’t as good as hers BEFORE I spent the £200??! Yes I tend to go overboard abroad :P) And it was just Kiehl’s luck that it was the 1st brand I saw selling Argan products after coming back from Morocco!

What I liked about it

Erm, to be honest nothing comes to mind! I guess the smell was OK. I didn’t love it but I didn’t hate it?! On the plus smell, it is very original- does not smell generic at all (or nutty). On the minus side, it’s not really a scent that makes me go wild

What I DIDN’T like about it

After washing off the shampoo, my scalp still felt really oily. Although the directions didn’t ask you to, I actually double shampooed. Didn’t really help! On the other hand, the conditioner didn’t seem to make my hair smoother/ silkier/ shinier than normal.

And now the 64 million dollar question: Would I buy it again?

Should be obvious right? No, I’d rather get my 9 bottles (or sets!) of L’Oreal instead- now when I switched to that (from the Kiehl’s Argan set), I immediately noticed that my hair became glossier- right from the 1st wash! “Because you’re worth it”, it is then!