Olaplex review
Olaplex is one of the few beauty brands built on a genuine piece of chemistry. The last three years have been a lesson in how quickly a chemistry story can be overwhelmed by a social-media one.
$30–$62Read review
Shelf
Haircare Brands
Bond builders, cleansers, stylers and scalp care, assessed on published evidence rather than salon folklore.
7Brands reviewed
7.6Shelf average
8.1Highest score
Briogeo review
Most clean beauty brands treat textured hair as an afterthought. Briogeo was built by someone with 3B curls, and it is the difference you can feel in every formula.
$26–$52Read review
K18 Hair review
K18 asks you to do one strange thing — leave the mask in — and charges a great deal for the privilege. On badly damaged hair, it is one of very few treatments that produces an obvious difference in a single use.
$29–$75Read review
Redken review
Redken has been teaching stylists about protein and moisture balance since 1960 and now sells the same products next to the cereal. The core lines survive the translation better than most salon brands.
$24–$46Read review
Living Proof review
Living Proof was founded by MIT scientists and sells itself on molecules nobody else uses. Two of its lines genuinely deliver; the rest is expensive haircare with a better-than-average story.
$26–$48Read review
Color Wow review
Dream Coat is one of the few haircare products of the last decade that does something genuinely new, and its sixteen-ingredient list explains exactly how. The rest of the catalogue is a permanent sale rack built around it.
$14–$63Read review
Ouai review
Ouai is a fragrance brand that sells shampoo. The scents are genuinely excellent and the formulas are genuinely unremarkable, and the pricing assumes you will not notice which is which.
$16–$48Read review