"About your hair, you needn't care, you look beautiful all of the time" (Lush New Shampoo Bar)

Member Name: missixty

Product:	Lush New Shampoo Bar
Date:	16/08/08 (400 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Makes hair soft and manageable, I think it does improve thinning hair, good value, unisex scent

Disadvantages: Not a miracle cure obviously - there's no such thing as one!

As mentioned in an earlier review, I was once at a time in my life, where I needed (yes NEEDED) to spend an extra £7 in Lush pronto. Now I know what you're thinking, for me, this would not be hard. Heck I was stood at the till I could have picked up a temple balm/lip balm/solid perfume and been more than happy, but I could see the steam seeping out of the boyfriends ears already and figured that to ease in the news of my extra spending (to get a free goodie bag you see!) I would spend this £7 soley on him. Generous little soul aren't I?

Flashbacks of my boyfriend whinging; "I'm 23, and I've got to have a comb over!!" as he styles his hair came to the forfront of my mind. Now seriously, it's not that bad, but if you listened to him you'd think it was! There is a little bit of his hair that is thinner than the rest, but he is by no means bald and you wouldn't notice it unless he pointed it out to you (every single day of your life....!!).

Anyway, I remembered Lush do a shampoo bar called New which can help with hormonal hair loss, they state if it's hereditary, tough luck learn to love it. Now, I very much doubted this had anything to do with hormones, but there was a chance it could have been. More so than this though something I had learned on work experience (at a hairdressers) stuck in my mind; there had been a psychological style test done, giving people a treatment that was supposed to stop baldness but didn't have anything in it that would, and because people believed it would work, and stopped worrying about the hair loss, it did work!

There's only one problem with this theory, in that it's hard enough convincing the boyfriend that anything from Lush works in the first place. But heck it's worth a try, and if it doesn't work I was pretty sure it would get his hair clean and have a load of beneficial ingredients in there, so it wouldn't be a waste of money.

So as with all Lush things, it doesn't just promise to do something with either nothing to back it up or with a load of scientifical, chemical mumbo jumbo to confuse into thinking it works. No, it has real, ingredients that actually work and have some reasoning behind them.

There is Nettle Infusion and Nettle Absolute which are loaded full of great things such as calcium, chromium, zinc and protein as well as B complex vitamins, and vitamins A and C. It helps regenerate hair growth and giver thicker, fuller hair as well as adding shine. Calcium promotes healthy hair growth. Zinc is vital for healthy hair as it is responsible for cell production, tissue growth and repair and maintenance of the oil glands in the scalp. It helps hair growth and also prevents dandruff. Hair is actually made of protein, so a lack of this can cause baldness and thinning, so protein can actually improve hair growth. Vitamin A is key for producing healthy cells and tissues in the body and hair, and also prevents clogging of the sebaceous glands, which provide vital lubricant for the hair follicle, therefore assisting growth. Without vitamin A the scalp can thicken and hair can become dry and develop dandruff. Vitamin C helps prevent split ends and hair breakage, therefore making hair look healthier.

Peppermint Infusion promotes hair growth as well as helping to treat dry hair and also removes dandruff.

Rosemary Absolute stimulates follicles and helps hair grow stronger and longer. It is believed to slow down, or even completely prevent premature balding and graying of the hair. It's also great for dry, flaky scalps and therefore is good at treating dandruff. It also adds shine to hair.

Bay Oil is often used to combat hair loss and stimulates the scalp and treats the general health of it.

Cinnamon Oil also stimulates the scalp and the follicles and encourages hair to grow.

Now in all honesty, despite the impressive ingredients, all of which working together to combat hair loss and promote thicker fuller growth, and despite the fact that Lush products do normally do what they promise to do, I didn't have high hopes here. I mean, is there really anything that can stop hair loss? If so, there wouldn't be bald people walking around would there? Although I guess you could wonder the same about why there are spotty people walking around when there are products such as Babyface and Breath of Fresh Air around(!)

I held of reviewing this for quite some time, as I wanted to wait and see if there were any results, although I fully didn't expect there to be any improvement in hair growth. What in fact happened, shocked even me, a devoted Lushie. I am, honestly sure that the thin patch looks a lot less thin. Looking at him now I can't see anything there. I asked him what he thinks and he just grunted and hasn't really said that there has been an improvement, or that there hasn't been but I'm sure of it. He's been using it now for about a month. I'm not sure exactly how it's working as if it was promoting new hair growth you would expect some parts to look shorter and tufty which I haven't noticed, but yet it does look thicker and fuller. I'm not sure how exactly it's worked but it has. It's not a miracle cure but there is a more than noticeable improvement.

I have also used this on myself, despite me having more than enough hair for several people. However I can hardly review something if I've not used it myself, and also it seemed a better option than the other shampoos at my fellas house.

I have to say I can't believe how amazing this shampoo was on my hair! I never for myself would have chose this, as I don't suffer from hair loss or dandruff, and although the shampoo isn't advertised as a dandruff shampoo the ingredients clearly do treat it. For me it doesn't technically do anything that I need doing, so I wouldn't have expected it to be particularly great for my hair.

However, after using this the first time I let my hair dry naturally. My hair goes curly when left to dry naturally, but with no product on this is normally in a dry, frizzy sort of mangled bush way. However after using this for the first time I let my hair dry naturally (largely because it was Sunday and I was feeling way to lazy to bother with the hassle that is drying my hair). The result was soft, tumbling curls. My hair didn't look dry, frizzy or matted. It looked soft, and healthy and the curls looked better than when I've used "curl" products or actually actively tried to achieve curls. When the fella got in, he actually commented on how nice my hair looked - now that is saying something!

I've since used it on other occasions and each time my hair has felt and looked soft and in good condition and really easy to manage. I was so impressed even though I didn't expect to be. Out of the three shampoo bars I've tried, this is without a doubt my favorite. It made my hair look and feel better than Ultimate Shine and Hybrid despite the fact these two are advertised to either condition or add shine to your hair, and this one isn't; yet the results from this one were so much better.

The shampoo bar has a sort of spicey smell to it but in a nice way - you won't walk around smelling like a curry house (like with H'Suan Wen Hua), it's a sort of sweet spicey smell, I quite like it, it's definitely very unisex. I'd like on a personal level for it to smell really girly but I guess considering it's use as a hair loss shampoo the fact that it is unisex is essential, and the smell is nice, and certainly very un offensive to either sex.

The shampoo bar is £4.50 but will outlast several bottles of cheap shampoo, and is a lot cheaper than salon brand shampoos with not nearly as many beneficial ingredients in (it will also outlast them too). My boyfriend has been using this now for a month and I've borrowed it the odd time and there is still over three quarters of it left.

Summary: A surprising favorite! - why is it always the ones I don't think I'll love that I love the best??