Legally brunette (Pantene Pro V Colour Expressions Shampoo)

Member Name: sweet_decline

Product:	Pantene Pro V Colour Expressions Shampoo
Date:	16/05/09 (70 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Enriches colour and leaves hair soft and shiny

Disadvantages: Can't see how much is left in the bottle

Sadly, at the age of 22 I began going grey... Not ideal when you have naturally dark hair and want to actually look your age. Five years on, my natural colour is rather zebra-like, with streaks of white through my dark brown/almost black barnet. Nice...

So I am tied to the constant schedule of colouring my hair every eight weeks before those pesky greys poke through again. For some time I have worried about the damage the dye is doing to my hair and scalp, and the sheer amount it costs me. This is where Pantene Pro V Colour Expressions Shampoo comes in...

I have been using the brunette shade of this shampoo for the past few months. It was part of a box set I was given for Christmas, together with the matching conditioner and intensive conditioner. I believe the boxset retails for around £6-8, which I think is good value considering you get three complementing products.

The packaging is quite nondescript - there's not really anything to like or dislike about it. A brown bottle, with the Pantene logo in metallic print. The press top makes the shampoo easy to dispense, with no annoying drips around the shower. My only peeve is that the bottle is opaque, so it is difficult to tell how much product you have left and how soon you need to restock.

The shampoo comes out of the bottle easily, and it is of a decently thick consistency (I hate thin, watery shampoos - they go everywhere except my head!). The smell is pleasant - it doesn't have the noxious odour of hair dye at all. It is a very pale brown/creamy colour, and I was initially sceptical whether it would succeed in masking my greys to match the rest of my hair.

It lathers up nicely, and is easy to rinse out, leaving my hair feeling soft and clean. I did notice that the foam was slightly brown in colour (no, my hair wasn't that dirty!).

Once dry, my hair was soft and shiny. The brunette colouring gave my hair a slight reddish tint, the colour looked much richer than before. While it didn't cover my greys completely, it did turn them a light/mid brown/red colour, which was fine with me as they were much less noticeable without having to go to the hassle of colouring my hair. I did need to keep using this shampoo though, because as soon as I used a 'normal' shampoo the colour washed away and I looked like a badger again.

I know you can't ask for everything, but I'm not sure how well my scalp has coped with this shampoo. I do suffer from periodical bouts of dandruff, so maybe using it has coincided with one of them. I have tried using an anti-dandruff shampoo first, followed by this one, which has helped the problem.

In conclusion, it's a great top-up between full colourings. It covers grey sufficiently and left my hair soft, shiny and easy to style. I will look out for it again.

Summary: Good top-up between full colourings