Product Review: L'Oreal Total Repair 5

I got a sample of this shampoo, conditioner, & treatment the other week and gave it a try. In fact, just this past Sunday, my mom also gave me her sample. So I actually tested this stuff out twice. Thanks for whatever mailing list we are both signed up for because I love trying out new stuff!

First, a run down on my type of hair that way you know if you have similar/dissimliar hair if you're opinion would be the same, better or worse. My hair is extremely long, thick, porous, color treated with both permanent and semi-permanent color in it. My scalp tends to be flaky if I don't exfoliate or have a good shampoo.

Ok, down to the review: the overall product line used all together is Meh to me. The shampoo seems alright as I don't have any flakes, itchyness or dryness after having used it. In both times using it, though, I had to use about a quarter size drop of my own shampoo because there wasn't enough in the sample for me. Again, I have ridiculously long hair. And even when you apply to just your scalp, it still soaks into the surrounding hair. So the shampoo was Alright/Not Bad.

The conditioner and balm/treatment stuff I had to use together both times. Again, excessively long, porous, damaged hair kind of required this. I again had to use some of my conditioner to go along with it. I'd probably say the first time I tried it, I used one part my stuff  to one part of the L'Oreal stuff. The second time, 2 parts the L'Oreal stuff and one part my usual. Both times, I was not impressed. Maybe its simply because I didn't have enough to really experience the product, but it just didn't seem to condition enough. The directions for each required you to leave it in. The conditioner 2-3 mins, the balm like 5 mins. I went with the longest time of 5 mins. I did the whole "wash, rinse, apply conditioner and then wash my body, brush my teeth, shave my pits to kill time" thang. That's normally what I do when I have to leave my conditioner in. I did comb it through to make sure it thoroughly saturated my hair, but it just didn't do the trick. My hair was frizzy and not notably softer than usual. My usual conditioner is much better on its own.

So there's my takeaway: Shampoo is fine, Conditioner & Balm I would not buy ever. It'd probably work fine for people with less damaged or porous hair. I wouldn't recommend it for curly hair or bleached hair. Again, the shampoo seemed alright, though I still prefer my Matrix Biolage Scalp Therapy stuff over the L'Oreal. I suppose if you had oily hair, the shampoo still wouldn't be for you because it isn't stripping either. So normal hair, not bleached, that isn't oily could use this shampoo. I think maybe if I got a huge sample (ok, a straight up bottle because let's be honest anything called "sample" wouldn't have enough to do my hair) of the treatment balm, I'd give it another try. But I'm very unlikely to buy anything after the experience I had so far.