Product Review: Shea Moisture Anti-Breakage Masque

I've been trying my hair out with quite a few of Shea Moisture's products lately and I'm sure you noticed a theme here.  I decided to do this because I'd always wanted to try the other range of products by Shea Moisture but I never did.  I'd only go to Target to stare at the display trying to convince myself to try other products but in the end I'd always choose my beloved Deep Treatment Masque from the Raw Shea lineup.  I've love the DTM as a styler but since I'd been trying out Donna Marie products as stylers lately (review coming soon), I figured I'd branch out with Shea Moisture.  This go round, I went for Shea Moisture's Anti-Breakage Masque.  I was a bit disappointed.

Ingredients:

Deionized Water , Butyrospermum Parkii (Shea Butter) , Cocos Nucifera Oil (Coconut) , Mangifera Indica Seed Butter (Mango) , Persea Gratissima Oil (Avocado) , Olea Europaea Oil (Olive) , Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Extract , Ammonium Salt (Conditioner) , Yucca Filamentosa Extract , Vegetable Protein , Adansonia Digitata Extract (Baobab) , Biotin , Panthenol (Vitamin B-5) , Rosemary Extract , Bamboo Extract , Sorbitol Esters , Caprylyl Glycol , Essential Oil Blend , Lonicera Caprifolium Flower and Lonicera Japonica Flower Extract (Honeysuckle and Japanese Honeysuckle) , Tocopherol (Vitamin E)

Product Description:

This all natural intense treatment masque with biotin & bamboo extract is for thin, fine hair. It penetrates to moisturize and repair over-processed, dry, brittle or damaged hair. It thickens, volumizes & softens.

• Baobab oil-Contains vitamins A,C,D,E and F to fortify and strengthen hair
• Yucca-Thickens hair and helps to prevent hair loss
• Biotin-A powerful B vitamin that strengthens the hair follicle

This product does not contain:

 parabens, phthalates, paraffin, gluten, propylene glycol, mineral oil, synthetic fragrance, PABA, synthetic color, DEA, or animal ingredients

This is cruelty-free product

My Experience:

The Good: The Shea Moisture Anti-Breakage Masque is nice and thick and it didn't take a whole mess of product to coat my hair. The Masque is the consistency comparable to a thick body lotion and it seemed more suitable as a styler or moisturizer than a conditioner.  I've only used this product once and since using it, I haven't seen as much breakage which is great.  The product spread easily and had a fresh, clean scent. After rinsing, my hair strands definitely felt thicker and stronger.

The Bad: Although I liked the fresh scent itself, it was very over powering.  Shea Moisture really over did it with scenting this product and I think they should have used a bit of a lighter hand.  The product didn't have any slip at all which doesn't make for an opportunity to detangle.  As the product claims, my hair felt cottony soft after rinsing but it didn't feel moisturized and it tangle easily causing and my hair became difficult to manage. 

In the pics below, you can see that my hair even looks matted.  My hair is actually wet in the bottom picture but it looks like I just let it dry and shrink on it's own.  My hair never looks like that while wet...never.  The Anti-Breakage Masque turned my after-rise process into a nightmare and it wasn't even worth trying to detangle at that point.  I ended up going back in the shower to wet my hair and add a softening moisturizer (ApHogee) just to be able to detangle it properly.

I think this product would have been great for me while I was relaxed as my hair strands are very fine and thin and I would have loved to have a product like this to help thicken and volumize my hair.

Price & Rating:

1.5 out of 5 Stars

I paid $9.99 for 12oz. at Target

Would I repurchase? No.

Top: Hair coated with product; Bottom: Unhappy hair after rinsing