Elixer This Shampoo (Alberto VO5 Silky Smooth Elixer Shampoo)

Member Name: Rhiana

Product:	Alberto VO5 Silky Smooth Elixer Shampoo
Date:	24/04/09 (150 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Smooths and stengthens, gorgeous to shampoo with

Disadvantages: Smell and no luminous shine :-(

Due to some of the most heinous crimes you can inflict on your hair, I'm not blessed now with luscious, silken, shiny smooth locks. It's not straight. It's not curly. Its not even wavy or tousled. Without my good old GHD's my hair resembles a mass of rats tails. Straggley, flat, frizzled and dull. I have to take full responsibility here, I can't blame nature but only the huge amounts of permanent home dyes, daily blasting's of heat from my hair dryer and straighteners and the odd bad perm in the days they where fashionable.

So seeing the new Alberto VO5 Elixer range in Morrisons at a promotional price of £1, I enthusiastically opted for the Silky Smooth variation and I also purchased the conditioner to match this product. Altogether there are 7 variants in the Elixer range specifically aimed at various hair types and all claiming to be infused with 5 different oils . All have a co-ordinating conditioner.

~ The Product ~

The Alberto VO5 Silky Smooth Elixer Shampoo comes in a pretty standard style pink shampoo bottle (easily distinguished from the rest of the range by each types individual colour) with a flip lid and contains 300 mls of product. The front tells me it's infused with 5 vital oils and is designed to give luminous shine to dull, frizzy, heat damaged hair. Must have been made for me!

The back of the bottle tells me a bit more about the 5 non greasy oils claiming they are naturally replenishing for healthy looking, brilliantly glossy hair every day. The 5 oils used in his particular blend are 'Nutrient rich Avocado and Jojoba oil, Strengthening Apricot and Almond, and Shine enhancing Grape seed oil.' There are an awful lot of other chemical sounding ingredients listed, but I won't bore you with them as, if your anything like me, they won't mean much to you anyway.

I won't insult you by telling you the directions for use, it's shampoo, you already know. It does recommend that you follow shampooing with the co-ordinating Elixer conditioner however.

~ Using The Shampoo~

The first thing of note when I used this shampoo is how thick and silky it actually feels when poured onto the hand and rubbed into my hair. It lathers up beautifully and really is a pleasure to wash with. It does have a slight salon smell which isn't disgusting, but not awfully pleasant either. After rinsing, my hair did feel stronger and more supple.

The first time I used this shampoo I didn't condition and as it was at night, just left my hair to dry naturally. I was very surprised to see that when completely dried my hair actually looked reasonable, for the first time in years, without being blow dried or straightened. OK it wasn't perfect, but it was definitely smoother and more vital looking than usual. I had a kind of beach tousled look going on.

My hair still did feel quite dry however. If your hair is generally in good condition you may get away without using a conditioner. However with my poor locks I definitely need a bit extra moisturisation to get the best results.

Using this shampoo my hair definitely is smoother, easier to manage and thicker looking. However I can't say I notice a luminous shine (maybe I'm asking for a miracle!) My Mum did notice how well my hair looked, she wondered if I had had it highlighted. Perhaps this shampoo does a good job in picking out natural highlights.

~Overall~

I am very pleased with this product, particularly when used alongside the conditioner. I have used it for several washes before coming to a conclusion, as I think quite often just using a different shampoo than you have been can improve our hair, but then after a couple of washes fail to impress. I didn't however find that this was the case with this shampoo, and will be buying it again when it runs out.

Ok so the claims of luminous shine didn't deliver, to be honest though, my hair is so badly colour damaged only the initial gloss of a new colour or an all over no.2 is likely to improve things here, so I wasn't expecting it to anyway.

Would I recommend you buy this shampoo. Yes definitely. Even at full price (which I believe to be around £2) it's a great shampoo. I will be using it again.

Summary: You can find out more about the new Elixer range and it's products at www.vo5.co.uk/elixir/