Rehab Shampoo

This is one of Lush's liquid shampoos. They have a large range of shampoo bars as well as liquid shampoos. This is the fourth of their liquid shampoos that I have tried. The one vaguely liquid one I have used previously is 'Big' which is sort of liquid but in a tub rather than one of the bottles as it is not exactly liquid another is Daddy- O and then Cynthia Stout all of which were good in different way.

A BIT ABOUT LUSH'S PHILOSOPHY
Lush only buy ingredients from companies that do not test on animals.
They invent their own products and fragrances and make everything fresh by hand. They use as little preservative and packing as possible. They put the date made on the product so you can see how fresh they are and they use vegetarian ingredients

Taken from their website:
"We believe in happy people making happy soap, putting our faces on our products and making our mums proud.

We believe in long candlelit baths, sharing showers, massage, filling the world with perfume and in the right to make mistakes, lose everything and start again.
We believe our products are good value, that we should make a profit and that the customer is always right.

*We also believe words like 'Fresh' and 'Organic' have an honest meaning beyond marketing."

BREAKING NEWS

Lush have been nominated by "Which" magazine as the Best Retailer, and Best Cosmetics and Top Retailer in their readers nominated polls.

WHAT LUSH SAY

"If you don't have any Priory engagements, then why not spend a night in putting your hair into Rehab
Hairspray, bleach, colours, styling products, ill health; these are all things that can really take a toll on your hair and leave it far away from its natural best.

Rehab is about bringing your hair and scalp back to basics and repairing it with an array of lovely ingredients."


HOW MUCH AND WHAT DO YOU GET?

This comes in one of the clear bottles with a black flip top. You can buy it in three sizes and I would suggest you buy the small one first in case it is not what you want. The smallest is £4.95 for 100g, £9.95 for 250g and finally £15.95 for 500g. As you can now see this is not a cheap shampoo so you must really want this to pay that amount for a shampoo.

I find the bottles are quite stiff plastic and difficult to squeeze the stuff out. I find it best to turn the bottle upside down and let gravity take its course with a little squeeze to help the product out.

What you get is a shampoo that is a nice golden transparent colour, the colour of baby shampoo but a little darker it is reasonably thick but not so thick that it won't come out of the bottle.

It has a good strong fresh minty aroma when you first open the container. I like minty shampoos and that combined with rosemary and juniper all make for a really fresh and invigorating shampoo aroma.

For the vegans amongst you this has no animal products at all and is vegan friendly carrying the Vegan friendly symbol on its bottle label

MY EXPERIENCE
I was really looking forward to using this one as I hoped it would sort out my very dry and stiff feeling hair after our USA trip when all the hard and heavily chlorinated water felt like it had killed my hair. I had washed it a few times since our return from holiday but it still had that stiff feel to it. I picked up this sampke when Ipopped into Lush the other day and said how my hair was feeling.

As I poured some onto my hand I had another sniff, it really is a lovely fresh minty herby smell providing you like that sort of smell of course.


In this shampoo we have fresh squeezed papaya juice which is one of nature's miracle fruits and it is rich in vitamins A, B and C as well as having potassium, calcium, phosphorous and iron. Papaya and indeed the pineapple also both have papain which is a natural enzyme, which breaks down dead skin cells and helps to clean the scalp gently.

The wonderful ingredient carrageen seaweed gel is there to help to soften the hair and this is the ingredient I was hoping would really go to work on my dry brittle hair.

We use a shampoo to clean your hair but you also do not want to strip it of all the oils needed so Jojoba oil which closely resembles the natural sebum of the skin is included as one of the ingredients in this shampoo as ithelps to nourish the scalp without making it too greasy.

We also know that Olive oil is great in food stuffs as it is such a gentle oil in the shampoo it helps to give hair its tensile strength so that it bends and stretches rather than breaking when you brush or comb it.
Kiwi and mango are also added and they are there for their beneficial minerals and vitamins.
Rosemary is an age old herb used to give shine to the hair. I often make a rosemary infusion with boiling water and rosemary which I let cool a bit and use to rinse my hair. It not only smells lovely but it also helps to make my hair shinier and it needs all the help it can get.
Finally the juniper and mint are added to help the scalp become healthier and also encourage hair growth.I am not sure I need that sort of help as my hair is really thick and grows very quickly.

I find that it lathers quite well, a bit slowly to start with but once I work it in then it brings out a pretty good lather. It isn't a really thick lather but feels like my hair is nice and clean after I use it. I can smell the shampoo and feel the cooling effect on my scalp which becomes even more pronounced as I am rinsing it out.

Lush recommend using 'Retread' conditioner after this and that is exactly what I did. That conditioner 's main beneficial ingredient is agar agar which is a type of seaweed found around Japan.
I loved the smell of the shampoo but the conditioner was less strong and after using the conditioner and rinsing my hair there was no noticeable aroma on my hair. I think it is a shame that the shampoo smell doesn't linger as much as I would like I wonder why Lush don't do a matching conditioner.

After I conditioned and dried my hair it felt nice and clean but also not in any way heavy. Sometimes if I use a very rich shampoo or conditioner my hair can feel quite heavy; one way to make it less frizzy I suppose is to weigh the hair down but I am not keen on that feeling.

My hair always lasts at least two days without washing, it would probably last longer if I didn't sleep on it and make it stick up in funny directions. Rather than fighting it with a straightener I wash it and this lightens it in weight as well as it seems to get stiffer after a day or so. My hair is really very think and quite course so it needs very careful handling to look reasonable. This shampoo is one I would buy again if it was a reasonable cost but it isn't cheap and there are many others that do the job just as well.

HAS THIS ANY NASTY INGREDIENTS?

Sadly yes once again Lush has included the 'safe' ingredients Sodium Laurel Sulfate and Laurel Betaine, methylparaben and propylparaben. These are marketed as safe and used in many toiletries that lather but more and more ethical and products created for people with sensitive or eczematic skin are avoiding these as they are chemicals. They are used in factories for cleaning grease and are really harsh on skin and the environment. I think that if companies like 'L'Oreal can create a product with SLS or parabens then Lush need to try a bit harder.

SUMMARY

This was a lovely golden coloured shampoo with a nice fresh scent but for the price I would have hoped it would not have the chemical ingredients. The other ingredients are great and very good for your hair but still having these ingredients which many people are trying to avoid goes against Lush's philosophy and I really hope they look into finding alternatives soon.

I have not had any reaction using this but I do know my step daughter cannot use any of Lush's products that contain these parabens as she immediately gets eczema so people do need to be aware in case they have the same problem.

Thanks for reading. This review may be posted on other sites under my same username.
©Catsholiday