The Good: Inexpensive, Great restorative powers, Nice aroma, Easy-to-use, Cone-free
The Bad: Weak scent on its own.
The Basics: A surprisingly good, inexpensive conditioner, the VO5 Tea Therapy Blackberry Sage Tea revitalizing conditioner is a great way to protect and restore damaged hair!
Virtually every month, I try a different shampoo and conditioner combination, both because I enjoy variety in my life and because I am not above altering my body in limited ways for the purpose of having more things to review. Two months ago, I bought a very harsh local generic brand of shampoo and it left my hair brittle and unmanageable. So, at the beginning of the subsequent month, I needed something that would revitalize my hair and I turned to my trusty VO5 conditioner line. This time out, I tried the Blackberry Sage Tea Revitalizing conditioner in the Tea Therapy line and I was pleasantly surprised to discover it did everything it promised, at least when used in conjunction with the same shampoo.
In the case of Blackberry Sage Tea, I purchased this with the accompanying shampoo (click here for my review of that!) and this conditioner worked within three applications to make my hair less brittle, stronger and more manageable. In addition to repairing the damage done by the harsh shampoo, VO5’s Blackberry Sage Tea conditioner truly stopped the split ends I had from getting worse and when I trimmed the ends, this conditioner held the ends nicely to prevent further split ends from forming. As a fan of VO5 conditioners, I was rather unsurprised when this adequately protected my hair against splitting ends. This, however, seems more a basic function of conditioners these days as opposed to a genuine selling point of a conditioner. But when I consider how this conditioner truly did restore my hair - I no longer found hair breaking off when I brushed in in large amounts - the VO5 Blackberry Sage Tea Conditioner is one of the best, inexpensive conditioners on the market.
Blackberry Sage Tea Conditioner is part of the basic line of VO5 hair care products, shampoos and conditioners that helps revitalize dry and damaged hair and protect it from the elements. It comes in a 15 fl. oz. plastic bottle and has an opaque light lilac color. In most retail outlets, it may be found for $1.00 when on sale. VO5 has a strong reputation (well deserved) for providing inexpensive hair care options and this fruit-scented product lives up to its promise to revitalize hair. The Blackberry Sage Tea conditioner is quite good, though it has a weak scent on its own.
The bottle is a simple soft plastic bottle with a hard plastic flip top lid. Recently, V05 remade their bottles to prevent slippage and the flatter (instead of tapered) bottles seem to be more slip-resistant when wet. The top easily flips open with a single thumb and makes it very easy to dispense the conditioner from inside. Even so, the top can crack if the bottle is dropped too often, but most people are not as clumsy as me. As well, this new bottle design may be closed easily with just a thumb.
Despite the fact that it does not say it on the bottle, the Blackberry Sage Tea Conditioner is a dry to normal conditioner (at least that was my experience). I came to this conditioner with pretty weak hair and it made it stronger and less fragile to basic grooming regimens. My hair looked better from using this conditioner, both compared to the last conditioner I used and to not using a conditioner at all.
I have long hair and in order to get enough of this conditioner to adequately coat my full head of hair, it took at least two dollops of conditioner, half-dollar sized each. This is a lot of conditioner and while shampoos lather up, conditioner does not. Instead, this conditioner requires almost four times as much product to cover the same area as most VO5 shampoos. This means that as far as usage goes, the $1.00 value shampoo and the $1.00 value conditioner just became a $5.00 hair care regimen, though that's not bad considering it can be stretched to last approximately two months.
The Blackberry Sage Tea conditioner added body and luster to my hair while making the strands of hair stronger. This truly lived up to the promise of being a revitalizing conditioner.
Like most conditioners, this requires a thorough rinsing in order to get it all out. I discovered very early on that this is not something that may be rushed with this product as it becomes a very heavy wet/waxy coating when it is not properly rinsed out. This is problematic for those who are on-the-go and eager to get out of the shower (especially if one has a lot of hair and doing a proper washing means finishing up as the hot water runs out!).
This product is not ideal for use with other shampoos for those who want to lock a scent into the hair. Unlike the accompanying shampoo, Blackberry Sage Tea has a very mild fruit scent to it that is not at all as distinct as that of the shampoo. When used with the appropriate shampoo it locks that scent into the hair, but with other shampoos, this conditioner's floral and fruity smell is lost, as it is very mild. This conditioner is cone-free, for those who are concerned about such things. Within five hours of washing and conditioning with the Blackberry Sage Tea shampoo and conditioner, the scent is gone from the hair. When the conditioner is used with other shampoos, the scent seems to dissipate within minutes after drying off.
VO5 Blackberry Sage Tea conditioner truly does revitalize hair, which is a real boon for those looking for an inexpensive conditioner that does what it promises. As one who loves richly-scented hair products, this was a little underwhelming, but easy to recommend and one I will use again!
For other conditioners, please check out my reviews of:
Suave Professionals Rosemary Mint Conditioner
Mentha Hair Conditioner
7/10
For other hair care product reviews, please check out my index page!
© 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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