The Latest “Buzz”: Burt’s Bees Color Keeper Shampoo

Thanks once again for visiting my Organic Hair Product Review blog. I’m Melanie Nickels, a 16+ year professional stylist, owner & founder of Raw Hair Organic Salon in Naples, Florida, and founder of Raw Hair Organics, a 100% natural / organic professional quality hair products line. For my complete bio, check the section on the home page of any of my blogs.

There seems to be a lot of hype with shampoos that claim to hold in the color, or help hair color treatments last longer. One of the latest in the area is Burt’s Bees. Burt’s Bees was founded in 1984 by Burt Shavitz and Roxanne Quimby. Without going into a whole lot of detail, the company is now owned by Clorox, which paid over $900 million dollars for it. Ms. Quimby has been very philanthropic with the money she made from the sale of Burt’s Bees, but it hasn’t been without controversy. On the other hand, Burt Shavitz has reportedly moved back into the converted turkey coop that he lived in before Burt’s Bees was started in 1984-ish. The whole saga is way too long for me to lament about here. In short, it was a two person company with a humble begining, and it’s now owned by a huge corporate conglomerate. Clorox, according to what I could find in a detailed internet search, is philanthropic as a company, donating almost $1 million dollars a year to environmental causes.

I purchased my 12 ounce bottle of Burt’s Bees Color Keeper Green Tea & Fennel Seed Shampoo at a Publix grocery store in my neighborhood for about $9.00. It’s amber-colored, and has a liquidy consistency. The scent is interesting. It doesn’t smell like green tea, and it doesn’t smell like fennel either. I personally don’t care for the smell, which by the way, stayed in my hair for 2 days.   I don’t understand why a company that uses synthetic fragrance wouldn’t take full advantage of the wonderful scents that you can get with them. I’m not saying that I’m FOR using synthetic fragrance, don’t get me wrong, but they could have used something better.

All Burt’s Bees products have a “Natural Bar” on the label which show the percentage of natural ingredients in each individual product. On some that I have seen, it can be a  pretty impressive number. For this shampoo, the level was 97.3 %. There are some good ingredients in it, such as green tea leaf extract, fennel seed extract, and jewelweed extract.  These plant-based ingredients are good natural uv protectants and can surely help protect your color from the suns rays.  However, it’s not a 100% natural product, and it does not contain organic ingredients.

Some other pluses are that the shampoo is sulfate free, and contains no parabens, phthalates, or petrochemicals. If you color your hair you want to use a shampoo free of sulfates to “keep” the color. Sulfates are strong detergents that can strip the hair color and cause the color to fade out faster. Burt’s Bees uses a coconut and sugar based gentle surfactant in this shampoo.  It does containe a betaine, that can be a possible irritant for sensitive scalps.  We measured the PH to be 5.2 which is within an acceptable range.  However, when I shampooed my hair with it, I could hardly work the product through my hair because my hair instantly started to matt up and tangle and feel completely stripped and dry as is I were using a deep cleansing or clarifying shampoo.  Thank goodness their Super Shine conditioner that I tested next was loaded with enough oils and conditioning agents to smooth out and detangle my hair. I find it a problem that companies only offer a “one size fits all” product.  You cannot have one shampoo that is good for all types of colored hair.  Someone with fine hair has totally different needs than someone with thick, dry, coarse hair like mine.

Burt’s Bees does no animal testing, and they use 80% post-consumer waste in their packaging. These are all great things, and Clorox should be applauded. I can only ponder as to why they would go as far as they have, yet not take that little extra step to have at least some organic ingredients (hint: $$$ is my guess). And I’ve already explained my position on fragrance. I also could not verify on the website that there are no GMO’s (genetically modified organisms). I looked elsewhere for answers, but couldn’t find any that I felt comfortable publishing here.

All in all, for the money and a non-professional product, I think it’s an ok option for a natural shampoo.

I give it a rating of 2 on a scale of 1 to 5 (5 being highest)

Please visit my Organic Hair Color Review blog at http://www.organichaircolorreview.wordpress.com 

Until next time, here’s to good, healthy hair.

Melanie

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The “Buzz” About Burt’s Bees Super Shiny Conditioner

Thanks for visiting my hair products blog. What I do here is examine & review organic / natural hair products. For those that don’t know me, or haven’t been to one of my other blogs, I am a 16+ year beauty industry professional, ABCH member, examiner, and the only organic educator in the organization. I own what is the first organic / non-toxic salon in Naples, Florida, Raw Hair Organic Salon. I have been internationally trained, was part of Inter-coiffure, a Broadway stylist on the hit show 42nd Street,  and hold college degrees in accounting and business. Those things aside, I am uniquely qualified as a hair product reviewer, as in 2007-ish I created my own full line of organic / natural salon quality products that you may have heard of, Raw Hair Organics. I was hands-on in all phases of R&D, formulation, etc. Thus, that is also my Full-Disclosure statement as well. However, I stake my years of industry integrity on writing honest, unbiased, professional reviews. I guarantee that you will never read a review of mine that stinks of bias. That’s just not my style, and my name and reputation in the beauty industry depends on that. I started this review blog because, frankly, I couldn’t find anywhere that had PROFESSIONAL, unbiased reviews from CREDIBLE, educated sources (if you’ve done any searching on Youtube for product reviews, you know what I’m getting at). This is solely done for informational purposes only. I do not work for, nor am I paid by any hair products manufacturer other than my own (which I already disclosed). All products that I review were purchased BY ME with MY OWN MONEY. None were given to me.

So, this week I am reviewing Burt’s Bees Super Shiny Grapefruit & Sugar Beet Conditioner. If you are not familiar with Burt’s Bees, they are a company that calls itself an “Earth friendly, natural personal care products company”. Their products are easy to find, with over 30,000 retail outlets nation-wide. Every product has a “natural bar” on the label, which tells you what percentage of natural ingredients are in it. I like that a lot. However, it’s not organic, and it does not appear to use organic ingredients. Just to ease my own mind, I went online to their website and searched in the FAQ area about my organic ingredient question. To my dismay, it’s not even addressed there. At all. Or anywhere, really. That was disappointing, not just that it doesn’t have organic ingredients in it, but by not answering that straight-forward question on their own company website is disheartening to say the least. I know, and I know they know, that the “organic” question is on everyone’s mind, especially people who are new to the Green lifestyle. So, as a company, be up-front and honest: Put the question and the answer on the company FAQ page. If you don’t have organic ingredients, that’s fine. Just TELL your customers that, and don’t leave them guessing.

As far as ingredients, there are a number of good ones in this product. According to the label, the product is 98.2% natural,  which is great. It contains lots of oils like grapefruit seed oil, orange peel oil, tangerine oil, and lemon oil, among others which are beneficial in giving the shine.  It also uses betaine from sugar beets that prevent dehydration so therefore keeping moisture in the hair which is good….if you don’t have fine hair.  Again, it is difficult to have one product for all hair types because there are different needs due to the varying degrees of cuticle layers and levels of protein and moisture.  This conditioner is great for hair like mine that is thick, dry, and coarse because it makes it soft and shiny and feels like it has a layer of oil on it.  People with fine hair though would not be happy because it would totally weigh their hair down.

Again, I did not personally care for the smell of the product.  With all the citrus oils, I expected it to have a wonderful, fresh, uplifting smell, but found it a bit odd.  Maybe it was due to the combination of all of those with an added synthetic fragrance.

We measured the PH to be 3.9 which is within a good range for conditioner.

I give the super shiny conditioner a rating of 3 out of 5.

If you are new to natural / organic hair products, or need to look for something with a lower price, I think this Burt’s Bees product is a good start for you. It’s not top-of-the-line, but it’s not $20 a bottle either. For $9 a bottle, I think it’s certainly worth a try.

If you are looking for Organic / non-toxic hair color reviews, please visit my other blog at:   http://www.organichaircolorreview.com

Until next time, here’s to good, healthy hair and good, healthy hair stylists.

Melanie