Didn't do much for me. (Kérastase Reflection Chroma Reflect Rich Radiance-Enhancing Masque)

Member Name: I-tried-this

Product:	Kérastase Reflection Chroma Reflect Rich Radiance-Enhancing Masque
Date:	29/06/09 (71 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: It does make hair slightly softer and smells nice. It stopped fading a little bit.

Disadvantages: It doesn't really work.

Kerastase, by L'Oreal are a very high priced hair care brand. Normally available only in Salons, you can buy over the net with up to 30% off in some places. Having won a competition for another Kerastase product (to be reviewed elsewhere on here) I found myself sucked in and wanted to try the rest- if one product could transform my hair that much, I wanted to know what the whole set would do!

I bought this as I had read that "you do not mix Kerastase with anything" rule, apparently it even means across different lines of Kerastase items. So being that I already owned the Chroma Bain (meaning "purple coloured bottle of shampoo") I decided to E-bay the masque.
I have coloured, damaged frizzy out of control hair. If I don't look after it to a point, it looks like I have decided to don a Halloween wig.
Now here is my confession. I hate drying my hair. I hate it because it's boring, and irritating, and just never seems to dry. To speed this up, I use two hair driers, on high power, high heat, and blast my hair within inches of the drier. And as a result, my hair is frizzy and now damaged. It's also damaged as I have had it dyed, lightened, and dyed again. Its yellowy red, and not in a good way. I do dye and have been dyeing it for over 10 years now, and the colour is a very bright red, so fades very fast. I wanted to retain this colour for as long as I could.
I had just recently had it dyed when I bought this masque. I wanted to retain the colour and this masque seemed to promise to help that- plus to help keep the colour by ridding all the dirt and build up to make my colour seem dull. And then to add reflective particles.
Sounded like a dream! And for the grand price of £11 including delivery (its normally £25 in stores!!)
I have to say, the pot looks very big- it's only 200mls, but it's a shape that really oozes a luxury feel. It has a screw lid and is purple/pink all over. It is a shame it does look good as I end up putting it into a smaller pot so I can take it to the gym with me anyway, but nice to have on my bathroom shelf anyway, even if I don't use it at home.
The masque is thick enough to hold its shape when in your hand, but still on the thin side. It smells really nice; like roses, and glosses on to hair very easily.
I have tried applying this and leaving it on anywhere from 1 minute, to 15 minutes, I have known people to leave it on for 30 minutes and they rate the results. To me, I just don't have the time or patients!
Washing out is also easy- you get a really silky feeling as your rinsing, and it's easy to know when it's been rinsed out as your hair feels more like hair again. It's almost a shame to rinse!
Now you are supposed to follow with a conditioner and I had done for each time I used it. (And yes, it was a Kerastase conditioner for coloured hair). But here's where the story ends.
I have to say, that I have been using the masque twice a week for 3 weeks now. My colour has faded. Not terribly, and not as bad as it has done, but it has faded noticeably. I would still rate this as I can still notice a big difference in the fading (it's not as bad as it has been) but it's not perfect. And for a price tag of £25 (even though I paid £11) I would expect more from a masque then this.
It did help my hair to feel softer and certainly on the days I didn't use the masque, I did feel it was slightly grittier. But nothing major. I guess the masque works a little, but not really enough- not for me with my bright red hair anyway!
Maybe this works better with blonde hair as I know bright red is easy to fade. I also think the promises of reflective hair and getting rid of build-up dirt would apply more to someone with blonde hair over someone with dyed red hair, be good to hear how others get on in comparison.

Summary: Not really worth it.