Timotei Henna Copper Radiance Shampoo > Reviews (12)

As anyone who has ever read any of my many shampoo ops will know, I hav trouble hair - it's long, light and needs treating with care, plus, I've got sensitive skin and a lot of shampoos bring me up in a rash. My tireless search for something that agrees with me keeps bringing me back to Timotei products. Last year I was using the Shampoo for blond and light brown hair, to which I eventually developped an intolerance. For the last few months I've been using the shampoo for brunetts, so far so good.

This shampoo is designed for those of us who have dark hair. it has henna extracts in it, and therefore claims to give a reddy hint in most cases. I've used a few henna shampoos in the past, and usually they don't do anything much. I've also used henna, and have never got that to work either.

Timotei henna (I'm not typing out the full name, we'd be here for weeks if I used it every time) is easy to spot, it comes in a two tone copper coloured container, with a design on it evocative of the sort of things girls from eastern countries might paint on their skin with henna. There's a conditioner as well, and as I've always used the two together, I can't tell you exactly which attributes belong to which product. To a certain extent, you'll have to read this is a combined effect op, not a pure discussion of the merits of the shampoo - I've got to use conditioner, my hair doesn't come out well otherwise.

So, open the bottle, give it a squeeze, and you get a dark coppery coloured shampoo with sparkly bits - not bad on the eye, and quite pleasant to the nose. It lathers up well and a modest amount goes a fair way. I cannot fault its cleaning capacity, it removed gronk and grease from hair without doing anything nasty to the scalp or drying the hair out too much. It feels pleasant on hands and scalp, which is important.

After washing, I can tell its going to leave me a bit on the dry side, (most things do), so there is no way I would consider using this product without a conditioner.

The conditioner is very nice though, and excellent and getting my long wild hair to behave, without actually making it look like plastic lego-person hair.

I can see a difference in the colour, I am getting more red in my hair. it's more noticable in sunlight than electric lighting, but its definitely there, and it looks good, I think. it's subtle, but it makes quite a differece. Now, after the first couple of washes, I could hardly see any difference at all, so when you first start using this product, you may feel a bit let down. Stick with it, the effects improve as you go along. I don't know if its peaked yet or not - hard to tell really.

Between the shampoo and its conditioner, my hair is indeed soft, silky, reasonably managable (I doubt I'll ever find anything to completely subdue it) and a fair bit more red than it used to be.

If you use it in the bath, it doesn't scum up the water as some shampoos are prone to do, not even if you are using other bathing products alongside it.

It does what it says on the package, more than not.

Prices for Timotei vary - go to Boots or other large chemists and you can pay up to two pounds a bottle, go to Superdrug when they have an offer on, or some other bargin chains and you can often get it for £1.65 or less, which makes it very good value indeed.

I would certainly recommend giving this one a go.