Herbal Essences Touchably Smooth

In the market for a new shampoo and conditioner, I decided to try out Herbal Essences Touchably Smooth collection. I figured, having curly hair, a "smoothing" collection would be good for calming down any frizz and keeping curls neat.



Overall, this is not a bad shampoo or conditioner. The scent is pleasant, the product is pink. The shampoo is a fairly standard formula, probably a little too heavy for someone with an oily scalp but good if you're a little dry. When I use dandruff shampoo I like to do the second wash with this product to keep my scalp from getting too dry. Within the Herbal Essences line, though, I have to say I think their basic Hello Hydration does a better job, and I certainly have products I like better outside of their brand.

As for the conditioner, I found it much too light. I ended up with a lot of split ends--now, I have been growing my hair out and I tend to get split ends past a certain length so I won't blame it on the conditioner per se, but I certainly get better protection and hydration from other products.

What I really found funny was the marketing of this product though. Maybe they've changed the packaging since I bought it, but the bottles I have look like the ones on the picture above and claim to make your hair smooth. If you look at their website, you'll see the bottles say "straightening", not "smoothing". I did actually find that it was a lot harder to style my hair curly and it seemed to be getting straighter and straighter. I ran out of the conditioner and bought a new one for curly hair and my hair seems to slowly be getting curlier again.

I would really be interested to know what ingredients are in this product that make your hair straighter. As a hairstylist, I've worked with keratin smoothing treatments and done chemical straightening procedures. Since these treatments rose to popularity I have seen keratin shampoo/conditioner combinations come out that claim to slowly smooth your hair out over time. But this product doesn't contain keratin, and since my hair has bounced back, I'm wondering if perhaps it's some sort of chemical that temporarily gets in the way of the bond arrangement in the hair.

Bottom line: If you are actually looking to make your hair a bit straighter, I would recommend this product. However, if you're just looking for smoothness, try something else.