Conditioner experiment #2: Pantene Pro-V Aqua Light

[strange_complex]

What on earth is this post about? All explained here.

Name: Pantene Pro-V Aqua Light

Price: £1.19 for 75ml = £1.60 for 100ml

No. of applications 5 from a 75ml bottle = c. 7 per 100ml = c. 24p each.

Smell: Almondy / coconutty

Appearance in hand: White, creamy and moist, a lot like my old conditioner but a little bit more liquid. Slight pearlescent sheen.

Feeling when applied: Light and silky, 'vanished' quickly into the hair. Slight tendency to lather as I rubbed it in - not like a shampoo, but a few tiny bubbles forming in my hand.

First brush while still wet: Medium performance here. First few strokes of the brush smooth and resistance-free, but there were quite a few largish knots further down which took some time to work out.

Hair once dry: Pretty good. Hair mobile and fluid with a moderate sheen to it. A few stragglers, but not too bad.

Later brush: Really nice. Hair feels silky, soft and strokable, but not at all oily / greasy. Arguably it hangs slightly too poker-straight on this conditioner, though - the two broad sweeps I'm used to on either side of my face became less and less noticeable on each successive wash with it.

Overall: This is definitely encouraging - only the second conditioner I have tried, and I really like it. It's not perfect, a) because it requires me to fight through knots a bit more than my old conditioner did when I first brush out my hair, and b) because I'm not quite sure about the poker-straightness which it gave to my hair by the time I got to the bottom of the bottle. But my hair does feel lovely and smooth and silky on it, and it appears to fulfil the claim on the front of the bottle to be particularly suitable for fine hair, leaving it with 'virtually no weight'. 8/10.

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Comments

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

How are you controlling in your experiment for difference in technique of use i.e. if you are used to some performance qualities from your old conditioner and adjust things like your brushing technique to suit the performance of your old conditioner are you able to adjust for how a new conditioner might perform once you have used it for six months?

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

Well, obviously each bottle is only small, so I'm only going to get about 3-5 uses out of each one. That means my brushing technique is not likely to change radically within that period - but then again it may not be quite long enough to give each conditioner time to 'settle in' properly, and especially for the residue of the old one to be completely washed out of my hair. One thing I'm thinking of doing once I have worked my way through these small samples is to buy one normal-sized bottle each of the top three contenders, and give those three a longer testing period. But there may be such a clear winner at the end of this initial run of testing that I don't need to do that.

[foxy76.livejournal.com]

Ha! Pantene is the product that most hairdressers seem to bitch/curse about! I always had good results with Pantene too though, maybe hairdressing colleges run a module in slandering Pantene? ;-)

My hair does seem to enjoy having a product change every now and again - it seems to have a bit more bounce and lift, does that happen to your hair?

[venta.livejournal.com]

I remember using Pantene shampoo and conditioner when I first became aware of it in the late 80s/early 90s. I remember it being lovely... at first. Over a few years, my hair very slowly devolved into old rope. And really nasty old rope, at that. Because it happened so slowly, I didn't relate it to the Pantene stuff - until a hairdresser bitched/cursed at me and I switched to using something else. Over the next couple of years (I have long hair) my hair slowly turned back into hair again.

I realise it's hardly a scientific trial, but it pretty much put me off Pantene for life!

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

Hmm, this is a useful cautionary tale. I actually think this particular 'Aqua Light' Pantene may genuinely be quite different from their normal stuff, so maybe the same rules won't apply. But if I end up using it longer-term I will certainly keep an eye out for any tendencies towards old rope.

[venta.livejournal.com]

To be honest, even for the generic shampoo/conditioner I imagine they've changed the formulation many times in the last 20+ years. Although in general I do think it's useful to experimentally change products and re-assess every few years (even if the assessment is "nope, the old products are fine"!)

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

Yes, I've heard the same about Pantene, and venta's comment below certainly shows that it doesn't suit everyone. I may well give it a longer-term try-out than this one before committing to it.

I don't really know about the general effects of product changes, though, as before this experiment I had doggedly used the same shampoo and conditioner for about ten years I think. I'm kind of hoping I will end up identifying two or three that work for me, meaning that in future a) I can rotate them and b) it won't matter if one stops being manufactured.

[foxy76.livejournal.com]

I only ever used Pantene on a rotation and didn't find it too problematic. I've been using yummy organic biodegradeable shampoo and conditioner which has been lovely, but I'm starting to feel the call to switch products! I'm a bit envious of you using the same product for so long - it makes life so much simpler!