REVIEW: Trader Joe's Shea Butter + Coconut Oil Hair Serum
FEEL: 4/5 - Slick and slightly greasy on my hands but absorbs easily into my hair and leaves it super soft and shiny with no greasiness.
IMMEDIATE EFFECT: 5/5 - Shiny, happy hair with no fly-aways
LONG-TERM USE: 5/5 - Consistently shiny, smooth hair.
PACKAGING: 3/5 - Myeh. It’s not bad but it’s not super cute either, and I’m a sucker for great packaging and sink-side curb appeal. Points for the tropical, art-deco leaf motif and the gold print.
FRAGRANCE: 4/5 - It’s very heavy coconutty, and I almost gave it a 3/5 but the overwhelming coconut scent does not linger, it evolves into a really clean, nice scent.
PRICE: $3.99!!!
FINAL WORD: MY HAIR LOVES THIS!
On a recent quest to declutter and make some clean beauty swaps, I randomly picked this up on a shopping trip one day, and I absolutely love it. A bit about my hair - I have natural wavy, slightly frizzy, puffy Jewish+ Mediterranean hair. (You can read about how I really feel about it here, in a little essay that happens to be one of my most-read pieces month after month titled Confession: I hate my natural hair.) I wash my hair roughly every 3 days or so, and I always straighten it - either with a blowdryer and a hair straightener, or just a hair straightener. So, my hair sees a lot of high heat, not to mention bi-monthly balayage appointments. Bottom line - I need all the treatment, moisturizing, and smoothing I can get.
I’ve tried a bunch of products, and before this one, the only thing that came close to keeping my hair looking alive was Carol’s Daughter Marguerite’s Magic Restorative Cream ($11). I liked it, but I didn’t love it - if I didn’t put the exact right amount, my hair would instantly look greasy, meaning I’d have to wash it again sooner than my allotted 3-day window, which would lead to more dryness. I needed something light-feeling but powerful enough to hydrate, keep flyaways at bay, and seal damaged ends without looking greasy.
My hair is a few inches past my shoulders, and I use one pump that I rub through my hands and apply beginning around 3 inches from my roots (most people don’t really need to put styling product at their roots since your scalp naturally produces oil) and focusing most heavily on the ends. I apply it before using my hair dryer or straightening iron, since your hair really needs a barrier/shield against direct heat.
I need to really wash my hands well with soap after applying because it is so slippery I wouldn’t be able to hold my styling brush. It feels a lot like coconut oil, but luckily, once it’s in your hair it absorbs really well, and quickly. Straight from the bottle, it smells super coconutty, almost like tanning oil. Once it’s in, though, it just smells like clean laundry, with the faintest lingering coconut scent.
The ingredients are mostly good, but the first two are a little iffy - Cyclopentasiloxane and Dimethicone. I almost always consult Environmental Working Group’s Skindeep website to see if beauty products I’m considering are safe to use. EWG gives this a 3 on a scale of 1 (safest) to 10 (basically poison). EWG give Trader Joe’s Shea Butter and Coconut Hair Serum a rating of 3 - that’s about my upper limit.
Sidebar - it’s super addictive to check out all your favorite products on EWG, they have a search feature that makes it really easy to find brands and specific products, although not every brand is on here. Another fun fact - some of the most toxic perfumes are by DKNY, Maison Martin Margiela, Gucci, Michael Kors, Victoria’s Secret, and Calvin Klein…yikes!!
VERDICT: I really love this serum. It’ll be a mainstay for me - as long as Trader Joe’s keeps making it, I’ll keep buying it, happily.
A WORD FROM A PRO:
You know I always check in with my buddy Elena K, an aesthetician in Boston (visit her at Home Beauty Spa in Newton, MA), before buying and using new face products.
“I love it! I have been using it for almost a year. Great price point and ingredients. I actually replaced my Moroccan Oil with this hair serum.”
