Product Review: Redken Extreme Conditioner

This is the counterpart to the Extreme shampoo, but it really is somewhat different from many of the conditioners that Redken carries. For one thing, there's no silicone...at all. Which is extremely surprising. Instead it's replaced by a high concentration of glycerin which makes hair really easy to detangle in the shower, but unfortunately rinses off rather than continuously conditioning like silicone. They hype the amount of protein in here, but really it's at the end of the ingredient list, which should tell you everything. Most people will still find that their hair feels and looks really repaired, the behentrimonium chloride and cetearyl alcohol provide that, but they provide very little protection against future damage unless the user never heat styles or colors their hair, which is off course, exceedingly rare. This is why the lack of silicones might be detrimental to the health of hair, there are very few people who never heat style.

For those who love to co-wash, don't like using silicones, don't heat style and don't color, well here's your holy grail conditioner. In fact it has the versatility of also being a great leave in (high glycerin content conditioners really help a lot of hair types if they're used as leave ins). The particular reason it would also function well as a co-wash is partially the lack of silicones but also the high concentration of cetearyl alcohol, which functions well as an emollient. The more pertinent function in this case would be the emulsifying function, which means it's a surface active agent which means it helps rinse dirt off the hair shaft. It's the second ingredient on the list which means you can count on hair that feel really clean.

Ingredients: 

1. Aqua/water- this is how the product stays liquid 
2. Cetearyl alcohol- conditioning agent which helps refat the cuticle layer of the hair shaft in addition to thickening the consistency of the product. 
3. Behentrimonium chloride- quaternary conditioning agent which helps fill in cracks in the cuticle layer thereby temporarily mending damage 
4. Glycerin- humectant which draws water into the hair shaft, thereby making dehydrated hair more pliable and elastic, but unfortunately it doesn't stay on hair after rinsing, so it's wasteful in rinse-off products 
5. Cetyl esters- thickener and emollient 
6. Isopropyl myristate- emollient that creates a super silky, velvety feel 
7. Isopropyl alcohol- this is the moisturizing kind of alcohol, as in a fatty alcohols which functions as a thickener, emulsifier and emollient 
8. Phenoxyethanol- preservative 
9. Parfum/fragrance- scent 
10. Lauryl PEG/PPG-18/18 Methicone- emulsifier that helps create a creamy consistency 
11. Cetyl alcohol- another fatty alcohol 
12. Behentrimonium methosulfate- one of the most powerful quat conditioning agents 
13. Citric acid- pH adjuster 
14. Chlorhexidine digluconate- preservative 
15. Quaternium-33- another quat conditioning agent 
16. 1-Dodecene-solvent  
17. Poloxamer 407- emulsifying copolymer 
18. Benzyl benzoate- fragrance 
19. Arginine- fluff 
20. 2-oleamido-1 3-octadecanediol- a synthetic ceramide created by l'oreal corp which helps deliver lipids to substrata 
21. Hydrolyzed soy protein- at this level, pure marketing fluff 
22. Hydrolyzed vegetable protein PG-propyl silanetriol- synthetic altered protein that often appears in products owned by l'oreal, but in these sorts of negligible concentrations