Super Soft Hair, Long Lasting Colour (L'Oreal Elvive Colour Protect Protecting Masque)

Member Name: pink_glitter

Product:	L'Oreal Elvive Colour Protect Protecting Masque
Date:	22/09/09 (111 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap, effective

Disadvantages: Can make hair too soft if you use too much at once

I colour my hair but I absolutely hate doing it as it's so time consuming and messy. It is because I hate the whole process that last time I dyed my hair around a month ago, I decided to purchase some products to protect the colour and hopefully prolong it, meaning I could go longer between each colouring.

Having decided I need to make some cutbacks on my spending, I looked for the cheapest product possible, and that was the L'Oreal Elvive colour protect range which was on special offer at the time. I decided on the colour protecting masque as I always use an intensive treatment on my hair once a week to keep it in good condition, and knew this product would slip easily into my hair care routine.

Just to clarify for anyone who's not familiar with the concept, a hair mask is an intensive conditioning product which is used in place of a normal conditioner, to give the hair a bit of a boost. I suppose it's the same concept as using a face mask, except this is applied to the hair.

I use this product once a week, but it doesn't specify on the tub how often it should be used, so you could use more or less often depending on how much of a treat your hair needs.

This particular product is especially for coloured or highlighted hair, and contains a UV filter. Presumably this is to protect the hair from fading in the sun. It also contains a light reflecting system which in theory will give your hair a glossy look.

The mask comes in a red pot with screw top lid. The pot doesn't look particularly special, but it's functional and for a relatively cheap product I wouldn't expect a whole lot more from it.

The mask itself is a pink colour and has a very glossy look to it. The scent of it is quite nice, slightly floral I think, but I'm struggling to pin down an exact scent. Whatever it is, it's pleasant enough and not too strong. I like my hair products to have a pleasant smell without being overpowering or sickly.

To use the product, you simply shampoo your hair, squeeze out any excess moisture and apply the mask. It does say on the instructions to apply generously, but I would advise against applying too thick a layer for reasons I will explain later.

The mask smoothes through the hair easily, and has a nice consistency that's not too thick nor too thin. You need to leave the product on the hair for 1-2 minutes to get to work before rinsing out. I think 1-2 minutes is a quite reasonable time, I've used similar products in the past which needed 5-10 minutes to get to work, so this one is great if you're short on time.

I warned earlier about applying too much of this product. The first time I used this I think I put far too thick a layer onto my hair. When I rinsed and dried my hair, it seemed to be very fluffy. Just washed hair is notoriously difficult to style as it's so clean and therefore slippy, and my over-generosity with this product made things much much worse. I had to use a lot of product in my hair to calm it down, and I was a little reluctant to use the mask again in case the same thing happened again.

The second time I used this, I applied a much smaller amount, rather than slathering my hair in a thick layer of this! I applied around the same amount of this as I would of my normal conditioner and the results were much better.

Again my hair was soft, but not left so soft that it was unmanageable. This is also a fabulous product for getting rid of tangles, as despite having long hair I can get a brush through it easily after every use of this product.

I have not particularly noticed that this adds any shine to my hair, but it doesn't make it look dull either. As for keeping the colour, it's fairly difficult to tell, but so far my hair colour is strong and has not faded too much, so I think it has worked.

It does make my hair look healthy though and doesn't dry it out at all. It feels hydrated and moisturised after using this product.

A 200ml pot of this costs £3.99 from Boots, which I think is fairly reasonable. I have fairly long hair and looking at how much I have got left and how many times I've used this, I'd say I would get 6-8 uses from one pot. Obviously if you have shorter hair you will be able to get more.

Overall, I've found this to be a good product. It leaves my hair feeling healthy and soft and seems to have helped in prolonging the colour. For the price, I'm very pleased with the results I've got from using this and would recommend it to those of you with coloured hair.

Summary: Recommended!