I have a hair care product review for you all today! I just tried a new conditioner this week called "Henna Shine Enhancing Conditioner" by Nature's Gate. I found this conditioner at Whole Foods market. This product is considered to be natural. It is primarily an herbal conditioner with an Ayurveda herbal extract and other herbal extracts. I really like using natural products most on my hair (though I will try any product, artificial ingredients or not if I believe it will work lol). I've used this conditioner twice this week. I can do this because I have been wearing my hair in it's natural texture again. Before I was wearing my hair flat ironed straight for almost 2 months.
Before telling you about the product, I have to give a cautionary warning about this conditioner due to the fact that it has Henna in it (henna abstract to be exact). A friend of a friend ( hair stylist ) told me that Henna and Relaxers are a potentially a bad combination. So if you have a relaxer or any other chemical perms in your hair, you may want to strand test this conditioner first as a safety precaution before applying this conditioner to your entire head of hair. If you're not familiar with the strand test, it is where you take a few strands of your hair to test a product on first to see what reaction your hair may have to the product. If you get bad results, such as hair damage of any sort, than do not go forward with using the product on the rest of your hair. However, if you get NO negative results from the strand test, than you may choose to continue with the use of the product and apply it to the rest of your hair.
I personally don't have a relaxer in my hair (to the left is the back of my hair after wetting it with water). I am proudly 100% natural. The year of 2006 was the last time I got an relaxer. By 2007 I was making the transition from relaxed hair to natural hair. By 2008, I was all natural. Best decision I ever made for my hair. My hair has been much healthier, and much longer since I went natural. I still straightened my hair from time to time through the use of flat irons and pressing combs, but no longer through chemical relaxers. I won't even try an "all natural" relaxer, as I have heard those darn things will literally take your hair out and cause a lot of damage! So I am not 100% sure if the rumor is true or not about Henna's reaction to relaxed hair (and I will be doing research on this topic and posting about it later), but I like to always take caution , and therefore give those of you with chemical treatments in your hair a nice warning before recommending you use any product that may possible be rumored to be chemically incompatible. Don't be scared yall, just giving a fair warning cause I am definitely fair about my product reviews. lol
Moving forward, for those of you brave enough to do the strand test, and for those of you without a relaxer, I'd like to share my experience of using Nature's Gate Henna Shine Enhancing Conditioner. Okay, so I've used this conditioner twice so far, once last week and once this week so far. The first time I just wet my hair in the shower (as it was already clean) and I let it sit for 3-5 minutes before rinsing. Today I washed my hair using "Sunsilk Lusciously Thick & Long" shampoo ( has keratin and wheat germ protein in it and not an all natural shampoo, but I like it because it works for growing my hair ) and I used the Nature's Gate Henna Shine Enhancing Conditioner again.
Each time that I have used this conditioner I liked it. It does not dry my hair out like the Aubrey's moisturizing conditioner did last week. My hair felt better. I could tell it was well conditioned and moisturized. It was easy to detangle my hair in the shower by running my fingers and a wide tooth comb through it with the conditioner on before rinsing. Now I didn't observe that my hair was "shiny" or glossy looking. My hair's shine factor remained the same. But perhaps with time and continued use of this conditioner, the shine factor of my hair may show further enhancement in the future. The main results that I am hoping for won't be visible until maybe a few weeks later when I can see how this conditioner affects my overall hair strength, health and hair growth. My hair is in good condition, and so is the length. However, I'm always seeking improvements with getting my hair to be stronger (for less potential breakage and split ends) and seeing how much length I can encourage my hair to grow if I use good products. So those were my primary reasons for trying this conditioner. The moisturizing factor was secondary. The main ingredient that I'm focusing on for the hair strength, health and growth is the "Henna Leaf" extract. 
Henna is one of the more popular Ayurveda treatments that Indian women use (and now a starting trend among women in this country) to really condition (and to color) hair. I don't think this conditioner will affect anyone's hair color if they use it though, as there are no warnings listed on the bottle and only the abstract is being used, not the powder. Most who use Henna for the purpose to color their hair, actually use the powder form of the Ayurveda herb. There are different Henna powder variations that can range from red tones to dark brown and black color tints. There is also a type of Henna that can be used solely to condition the hair and has a neutral coloring affect with no tint at all. I will be posting more about Henna in another post later on. So if you do use Nature's Gate Henna Shine conditioner, don't worry your hair won't end up with a color tint of any kind. It will only be conditioned and hopefully will give you the same good results I am experiencing now.
Some of the other good ingredients in this conditioner that I really like include: Horsetail extract (known to strengthen hair for better hair grow and less breakage), Nettle, wild cherry bark, hydrolyzed soy protein, rosemary, burdock root, B5 vitamin, safflower seed oil, matricaria, and hops. A lot of good extracts for the hair.
I'm not sure what other stores may possibly be selling Nature's Gate Henna Shine Conditioner, but you can find it and their shampoo at a Whole Foods market in your located in your area. At whole foods it cost 6.99 plus tax. Not a bad price for a good conditioner that is satisfactory so far, and has potential to so even better results with time. If you're interested in trying this conditioner, and you don't have a Whole Foods market in your area, you can visit Nature's Gate web site at www.natures-gate.com .
I like this conditioner and will be continuing to use it for the next few weeks, maybe longer. If this conditioner doesn't show the results of strengthened, longer, healthier hair in a few weeks or more, than I will make sure to do another review to let you know. In fact I will likely do another review anyway regardless, to keep you all posted of the both the good and bad. Feel free to comment about the product if you've tried it, about the product review or if you have any questions about this conditioner.
-Autumn Bleu
Nice!
ReplyDeleteThanks Makeda :-)
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