L’Oreal Elvive Colour Protect Low Shampoo / £6.99

As someone with thick, quite curly hair, I am not a fan of overwashing my hair especially since it has been vibrantly coloured.  When I saw an advert about ‘Low Shampooing’ which appeared to be a more gentle way to wash your hair, I was instantly interested in what that meant.

According to the advertising, ‘low shampoos’ are a gentle way to wash your hair in one simple step. These cleansing creams have a no foam or sulphate formula and both conditions hair while gently removing impurities therefore helping keep your colour strong. You use them in place of your existing haircare regime 1-2 times a week so would probably only work for you if youre willing to not wash your hair too frequently.

You then leave on for 3 mins (I just clipped my hair up) and then rinse off. It seems a bit odd with no foamy lather but I recently discovered via a top hairdresser that much of the foaming in normal shampoos doesn’t clean your hair at all, it just makes you think its cleaner!  In fact the most common foamer found in shampoo is Soium Laureth Sulfate (SLS), a man-made chemical is often used to remove grease and oil from engines or floors!  Whatever the specific chemical, all sulfates remove natural oils from your hair and scalp, which can lead to dryness, thinning or even loss of hair or allergic reactions.

With this product you don’t use a conditioner but can use the day cream as a leave in conditioner (also new and priced at £6.99) if you want – I used it as a protection cream as I blow dried my thick wavy hair which it can also be used for. I do like a multi-tasking beauty product!

I’m already a fan of the Colour Protect range and pretty much only use them now I’ve had my hair deeply coloured red.  The new Low Shampoo is available in three different L’oreal range varieties: 

• Colour Protect Low Shampoo – helps keep coloured hair feeling protected and looking beautiful (my pick)
• Extraordinary Oil Low Shampoo – for dry hair leaves hair soft, shiny and resilient
• Extraordinary Oil Curl Nourishment Low Shampoo – for curly/afro hair helps to leave hair feeling nourished.

I usually hate the look of my freshly washed hair. I will never wash my hair the same day/night as going out for example, but after washing my hair looked really good. It didn’t look as ‘fluffy’ as it usually looks with normal shampoos and conditioners.  Time will tell on how vibrant my colour stays but unless my hair was very dirty I’m definitely now moving over to low shampooing regime a couple of times a week rather than the traditional wash/condition I was doing.

The range is available at all good chemists and supermarkets (I bought mine at Superdrug) and more information on the new products can be found here.