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.