Green Review: CURLS Hair Care Line

I recently reviewed three products from the CURLS hair care line. If you want to read a little more about the company and see a great homemade curly hair smoothie recipe, check out Homemade Milk & Honey Hair Smoothie.

Products: I reviewed three products in the CURLS line – Pure Curls Clarifying Shampoo, Coconut Sublime Moisturizing Conditioner, and Curls Milkshake.

Use: For cleaning, softening, and managing those unruly curls.

Ingredients: Listed, in full at the website. I discuss ingredients more in a previous post as well. Mainly non-toxic, organic, and natural.

Cost: The products I tried ranged from $12-$18 for 8 oz to 14 oz sized bottles.

Eco-aspects: I covered this in a recent post, is the CURLS line eco-friendly, which you can read to see the eco pros and cons of this company. However, if you just want the end result, I’d say they’re moderately eco-friendly and mostly non-toxic.

What I think:

Let me start off by saying that my curls have been a major pain my whole life. When I was little my curls were yeah, kind of adorable, but now my hair is almost to my waist and they can get a little crazy. I’ve tried literally everything to get my curls to stay smooth, frizz free, and manageable. I’ve tried a few non-eco-friendly products on my curls that sort of work, but one, not entirely, and two, I feel too guilty using stuff full of toxins that’s made by eco-baddie companies. I’ve never been able to find an organic hair care product I like that actually works on my curls. NOT ever.

In my dreams I’d want a product that works the same every time, that’s organic, that’s non-toxic, that makes my curls more wash and go vs. trouble, and that smells nice.

CURLS is about as close as I’ve come to the dream.

The shampoo: Pure Curls Clarifying Shampoo smells like oranges but lightly and is not full of those detergents that make all sorts of bubbles but actually drag your curls down. Because I have curls I rarely wash my hair. I tend to wash once a week or so and use conditioner only on all the other days. I used this shampoo three days of the week, and it seemed to work great without drying my hair out. It’s hard to tell how beneficial it was because I combined it with the other products.

The conditioner: Coconut Sublime Moisturizing Conditioner – OMG. I LOVE this conditioner. First of all it says coconut, so I was leery (not a coconut fan) but it really smells just like yummy vanilla cake batter. I loved the smell, my boyfriend flipped out over the smell (in a good way) and while it’s a nice perky shower smell it didn’t stick around all day and get annoying. It worked amazingly. The first time I used it I could totally tell the difference. Usually I condition then comb my hair in the shower or it’ll be too tangled when I get out. BUT even combing my curls is hard, even if I’ve just conditioned. Not with this conditioner. The comb ran right through my curls. It was amazing.

The leave-in: Curls Milkshake is a leave-in cream meant to define, defrizz, revive, hydrate, and soften dry curls. Light enough to use on fine curly hair too (although mine is thick).  I also loved this stuff. It had the same cake batter-like scent of the conditioner and smoothed through my hair nicely. Note, this is a nice product because if your curls start looking blah halfway through the day you can spritz some water on your hair, and reapply.

The tests: I usually use some sort of hair product like an organic curl gel and spray if I’m planning on going out (or I’d look crazy). That said, I tried all the products then used my normal gel and spray and my curls looked so much better than normal. Shiny, WAY less frizzy, and actually bouncy not dragged down and blah. Then I did a braver test. I used the CURLS conditioner and milkshake but then went commando. No hair gel or spray at all. And… my hair still looked much better than normal. My curls didn’t hold their shape as well, but they also were not as frizzy or fly-away as when I normally use nothing extra in my hair. So, on a busy day I could actually leave the house after only conditioning my hair. Nice.

OVERALL SCORE:

Four out of five pretty little trees! The company is not eco-perfect and I wish the whole line was 100% organic, but overall CURLS offers, hands down, the best conditioning hair products for curls that I’ve ever tried and since they’re semi eco-friendly it’s a perk as well. The packaging is pretty and recyclable and everything smells great!

I’m not so sure that I’d buy the shampoo but I don’t use much shampoo. I would absolutely recommend the conditioner and leave-in though. I can’t believe I could go sans gel and still have less frizzy curls but with these products I can. Lastly, I thought the prices were good. If you have curls you’ve likely spent tons of money trying super expensive products that don’t work. Well, these are moderately priced and do work, so it’s a bargain.

Visit the CURLS site to learn more and to find the best products for your sort of curls.