The Good: Cleans hair, Lathers well
The Bad: Expensive! No recognizable scent.
The Basics: Pantene Pro-V Daily Moisture Renewal shampoo is a ridiculously expensive shampoo, despite its great cleaning powers, that lacks any memorable scent to enhance it.
When I first met my the woman who would become my wife, one of the things that was declared lovable about me was my hair. My friend and partner would bury her nose in my hair and inhale and declare her love for my hair. This, of course, was always pleasant for me and I appreciated the attention and would only sheepishly admit that it was the result of my V05 Vanilla Mint Tea Shampoo. Nevertheless, my wife continued to compliment my hair and enjoy the benefits of good-smelling, well-managed hair (at least when I remember to brush it).
So when I switched up my shampoo, my wife and I actually had an odd conversation about hair care and my hair. In the process of considering the products, the concepts of haircare products in general came up and I was forced to downgrade my considerations of Pantene Pro-V's Daily Moisture Renewal Shampoo, which I had tried. It is worth noting up front that using the Pantene Pro-V Daily Moisture Renewal Shampoo - at least in conjunction with the conditioner - did exactly as the name promised. My hair was noticeably cleaner, less dry and my wife insisted on playing with my hair for almost an hour after it was dry the difference was so noticeable.
The problem here, as she and I discussed, was simple: using any new shampoo is likely to yield clean hair. Using one shampoo consistently often leaves hair clean, but with build-up of some form based on the ingredients that other shampoos will eliminate. The moisturizing properties of this shampoo are likely more the result of using the accompanying conditioner and as a result, when the expense of this shampoo and the lack of a recognizable, memorable, pleasant smell on the hair afterward, are factored in, this is a far more average shampoo than an extraordinary one.
I tend to like shampoos that both clean and leave hair smelling good. The Pantene Pro-V Daily Moisture Renewal shampoo did the former well, but the latter abysmally. After my first use of the shampoo, my hair was perfectly cleaned and smelled clean and neutral. After my first use of the shampoo and conditioner, my hair was clean, bouncy, more manageable and looked better. The result was so noticeable that my fiance observed it. I tend to have hair that gets dry quickly when overwashed, so the idea of daily moisturizing was intriguing enough for me to try. Since I began washing my hair with the Pantene Pro-V Daily Moisture Renewal shampoo, my hair has never gotten back to dry and cracking.
With a cost of approximately $5.99 for a 12.6 oz. bottle, Pantene Pro-V Daily Moisture Renewal is quite expensive. The bottle is smooth and is more flat than round. When wet, it slips out of the hands easily. The cap has a flip-top that makes it very easy to get the shampoo out with only one hand. As well, the large cap makes it even easier, though because the hole is still fairly small, there is no waste from the bottle.
The scent of Pantene Pro-V Daily Moisture Renewal is surprisingly neutral. In fact, there is no scent left on the hair after the shampoo is washed out. My fiance and I tried to identify anything remotely recognizable in the scent. This shampoo smells like shampoo and the best analogy we could come up with was that it smells like Johnson & Johnson baby shampoo, only creamier. There is no scent outside "shampoo" and it does not linger in the hair at all when one washes it out. In fact, one of my problems with Pantene Pro-V Daily Moisture Renewal is that it leaves no scent. I have discovered I enjoy shampoos that trigger a scent memory and the generic shampoo scent of this triggers nothing.
Pantene Pro-V Daily Moisture Renewal is a white, opaque shampoo that is creamy and smooth. It has a nonwatery consistency and while it is not especially thick, it does not need to be watered down to get the most out of the product.
Like most shampoos, there is nothing mysterious to using this product. You wet your hair, lather it up with this shampoo and rinse. Most Pantene products I can get away with using about a quarter-sized drop and that is so with the Pantene Pro-V Daily Moisture Renewal. This may or may not be indicative of all the Pro-V line, but I quickly discovered that a quarter-sized dollop of the shampoo in my hand easily lathered up to be able to work through all my hair. I have long hair and Pantene Pro-V Daily Moisture Renewal shampoo lathered up incredibly to clean all of my hair.
This shampoo has an excellent lather quality. It took very little to work it up to a lather and that lather spreads into the hair and cleans amazingly. Indeed, with average usage, the product was one of the easiest shampoos I have used to spread through my hair. This required very little agitation to lather it properly and the results were spectacular, especially for the minimal effort.
This shampoo rinses out incredibly easily, as well. When I am in a hurry and can only wash my hair, the Pantene Pro-V Daily Moisture Renewal shampoo rinses out very quickly and leaves my hair very clean. Moreover, the shampoo alone leaves the hair without any scent, so there is nothing to rinse out. The Pantene Pro-V Daily Moisture Renewal required almost no effort to rinse it out, making is a quick shampoo to apply and rinse out.
When a product works this well, it is strange because there is actually so little to say about it. I don't like to spend a ton of time on my hair, but I like the results of a good shampoo or conditioner. The Pantene Pro-V Daily Moisture Renewal is a great shampoo, but one pays for the quality and it seems like the conditioner associated with this does a lot of the work of moisturizing, as opposed to the shampoo. One pays a lot for a product that is ultimately more likely more adequate than actually extraordinary.
The Pantene Pro-V Daily Moisture Renewal does not make my hair feel heavy when it is still wet, and once dry, the shampoo lives up to its promise of moisturized, healthy-looking hair. I almost wish I kept my lousy job in the harsh-hair environment (I worked in a factory for a while where brazing chemicals in the air stripped my hair and left it dry and brittle) just to see how this would hold up in hellish conditions, but in day-to-day use, this is a pretty wonderful and amazing shampoo.
And this does not dry out my hair, nor does it leave it with any greasy residue. It moisturizes well, though not well enough that it actually repairs the hair and protects it in the way a conditioner does.
What more can we ask of a shampoo that does all that it claims and then impresses us with the shine and bounce it leaves our hair with?
For other shampoo reviews, please check out my analysis of:
Suave Refreshing Waterfall Mint Shampoo
VO5 Kiwi Lime Shampoo
Bigelow Mentha Hair Mint Shampoo
6.5/10
For other health and beauty reviews, visit my index page here for an organized listing of the products I have reviewed!
© 2011, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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