L'Oreal Paris Advanced Haircare Total Repair 5 Restoring Shampoo and Conditioner - Review

Hello again lovelies! Sorry I disappeared again for a while, but things have been a little hectic. My husband has been working a lot lately, so I decided to take the weekend off so that I could just spend time with him and my daughter as we have far too little family time these days. Now, my husband works for a private contractor and their schedule is always subject to change. So on Monday my husband tells me he's going to be working out of town and that he'll be leaving in the morning and returning on Friday. This really makes it harder for me to blog because I'm the only one around to watch the kiddo. And to put the cherry on top, when my daughter woke up on Tuesday, she had a terrible cold and has been super clingy. She's starting to feel better and is amusing herself for a change, so I'm back.
Now for today I will be reviewing L'Oreal Paris Advanced Haircare Total Repair 5 Restoring Shampoo and Conditioner. I know I don't usually do reviews on hair products, in fact this might be my first one, but this stuff is deserving of a review. The reason I don't generally review hair products is because I find them for the most part to be rather meh. For me shampoo is shampoo, and I don't really use a lot of other products like pomade or hair color. I randomly got a free sample of this shampoo and conditioner in the mail, and I was almost out of my regular shampoo, so it was like okay, I'll give it a go. Well, I liked it so much I went and bought the full size (12.6 FL OZ) of both the shampoo and conditioner. They cost me $4.99 each at my local grocery store.

Now, according to L'Oreal, Total Repair 5 "Instantly and over time helps repair the 5 visible signs of damaged hair without weighing it down. Split ends. Weak. Rough. Dull. Dehydrated." and this product is designed for damaged, overworked hair.  Now it also says on the bottles "Ceramide" but there is no further explanation as to what it is or what it does. 

I'm not totally unfamiliar with ceramide, as it is one of the lipids that makes up the icky white stuff that covers newborn babies aka the vernix. And I know that the vernix is there to protect and hydrate newborn's sensitive skin after they've been born. But I wanted to know how ceramide worked to make your hair gorgeous. So after some internet searching, I have it figured out. I'm going to explain it the best that I can to you guys, and I don't know how much the average person knows about hair, so I am going to explain it as though you know absolutely nothing so that no one gets left out here.

Your hair shaft consists of 3 basic layers, the cuticle, the cortex, and the medulla. The outermost layer is the cuticle which is the protective covering for the hair shaft. The cuticle is composed of, on average, 7 to 12 layers of cells that resemble scales overlapping one another. Healthy looking hair has a very smooth cuticle with all of the scales staying nicely in place. When the scales start to fray away from one another you get split ends and rather dull looking hair. 

This is where ceramide comes in. Ceramides are the lipids largely responsible for keeping the scales in place

and thereby making your hair look healthy and happy. In damaged hair the ceramides that should be holding the scales in place are lacking or missing altogether. 

So the lovely scientists over at L'Oreal made a synthetic version of ceramide to use in their shampoo and conditioner to replace the missing ceramides in damaged hair and smooth that cuticle back down to where it ought to be. Science. It's a good thing.

But back to my review.. 

The shampoo and conditioner both smell really nice, it's a light scent that reminds me a lot of Garnier Nutrisse shampoos. The consistency of the shampoo is thicker than a lot of shampoos that I have tried and it builds up a nice lather that's rich and not too sudsy. The shampoo does a great job at cleansing the hair and scalp. Lately I have been having issues with flaking on my scalp, and after using this shampoo the flaking has gotten a lot better. It doesn't claim to help with this, so maybe the shampoo I was using before was the cause of it. I don't really know, I just know that this shampoo has made it much more manageable. 

The conditioner has a very thick consistency similar to a balm. The directions on the conditioner say to leave the conditioner on your hair for 1-3 minutes, but I left it on quite a bit longer than that. Basically when I hop into the shower I shampoo my hair, wring out as much water as I can, and then liberally apply conditioner. I leave the conditioner in until I'm done washing my body and shaving and such, then I rinse it out. 

And the results were amazing! My hair was more lustrous than it had been and the damaged ends were a lot smoother. Immediately after using, my hair smelled better, was shinier, and was overall more manageable. I used it again 2 days later and the results were even better. I've got to say that the synthetic ceramide that L'Oreal used to make these products works fabulously. My hair hasn't been this healthy looking in quite some time and it feels so soft. 

So basically, this is a fabulous product. I would recommend it to anyone who wants their hair to look and feel healthier, and I will most definitely be buying this again. It works so well, it smells great, and it's not very expensive. Needless to say, I'm totally in love with this line. There's also a balm and a dry oil in this line that I plan on trying out in the near future. 

So I hope you guys enjoyed this review and mini science lesson! I'd love to hear back from you guys in the comments, I do reply to all of them. Til next time!