The Nuance Salma Hayek hair product line offers a good hair conditioner called Raw Honey Color Protect Conditioner; the emollients and silicone in it might prevent some degree of hair color fade, but there’s nothing particularly innovative about the formula. It will adequately moisturize slightly dry to dry hair and provide a decent amount of volume to boot, but truly damaged locks will very likely need an even richer product.
As of this writing, 2-ounce sample bottles are available at some CVS stores for about $3, which is a great way for curious consumers to test it out and see if the formulation works well for them.
Raw Honey In Nuance Salma Hayek Raw Honey Color Protect Conditioner?
Honey is composed of various types of sugars, including fructose and glucose. It is a humectant, which means it binds water to skin and hair; and has been shown to work even better than that old skincare staple called glycerin. Honey is also a natural antiseptic, and consumers with an inclination toward organic and plant-based cosmetics certainly appreciate its alleged healing qualities. Putting raw honey in a conditioner would make it messy, sticky, and almost impossible to rinse off, though; so the Nuance Color Protect product contains an altered form called hydroxypropyltrimonium honey.
According to Ruth Winter’s Consumer’s Dictionary of Cosmetic Ingredients, this ingredient is a “quaternary ammonium compound” (often abbreviated as “quat”) that makes a great antistatic ingredient, because it has a positive charge (it‘s “cationic”) and sticks to negatively charged (“anionic”) substances such as hair. Other sugars such as dextrose and glucose, starches, and many animal and vegetable proteins may also be used to make these so-called cationic derivatives; and plenty of non-plant-based chemicals such as lye are used to synthesize them in the lab and at the manufacturing plant. You can even make one of them (Polyquaternium-42) out of silicone, but there’s no way advertising that fact will attract the all-natural crowd! In other words, even though the form of honey derivative in this product is helpful to hair, the idea of pure raw honey in it implied by its name is purely a marketing ploy and not reality.
One final note about honey: There’s a weird rumor making the rounds that it turns hair white or gray. Its mild antiseptic and preservative action is partially due to the fact that it can produce tiny amounts of hydrogen peroxide when mixed with water, but nowhere near the amount needed to bleach color from hair.
Other Ingredients in Nuance Salma Hayek Color Protect Conditioner
None of the above is meant to indicate that you shouldn’t give this conditioner a shot: It contains an effective mixture of oils and fats that should be able to penetrate hair and help keep it soft and make it easier to manage. It also offers hydrolyzed wheat protein, which binds to hair and makes it smooth and shiny. Plus it has four other types of quats in addition to the honey derivative discussed above, so problems with flyaway hair should disappear after the first use. A relatively small amount of dimethicone (a silicone) should provide some gloss without weighing down the hair.
It contains a fairly high concentration of mimosa tenuiflora bark extract, which is often called tepezcohuite. This plant-derived ingredient may have some benefit in skin care, but its reputation as a hair care miracle seems founded on anecdotal evidence (e.g., “it regrew hair on my bald spot,” “it totally cured my dandruff,” etc.). Some people have allergic skin reactions to mimosa.
As with use of any decent conditioner, some amount of color protection is provided by the conditioning agents and silicone in the Nuance Color Protect Conditioner. Sadly, no one has yet been able to invent a product that truly prevents the inevitable fading of hair color with time, sunlight exposure, use of styling products, and so forth. This product certainly won’t allow me to throw away my color-refreshing glazes any time soon.
This Nuance Salma Hayek hair conditioner has a pleasant texture, being neither too greasy or runny. It is formulated to smell rather like raw honey, although there’s a strange baby powder note in there that I wasn’t too excited about. The final fragrance as it lingers on the hair was fine with me, though. In all, a good bet for consumers with slightly dry to dry hair, especially if they suffer from those constant, difficult-to-tame flyaways. Consumers who struggle with extremely dry/damaged hair will probably prefer thicker, richer products over this one.
Readers of this article may also enjoy “Review of Nuance Salma Hayek Body Creams” and “Product Review: Nuance Salma Hayek Volumizing Hair Conditioner” in Suite 101’s Home & Style section.
Sources
- Feigenbaum, Harold and Bischoff, Dietmar, “ The Use of Cationizing Reagents in the Preparation of Conditioning Polymers for Hair and Skin Care,” quab.com.
- Field, Simon Quellen, Why There's Antifreeze in Your Toothpaste, Chicago, IL: Chicago Review Press, 2008.
- Moss, Brett, Ungvary, Vince, and Marchioretto, Sabrina, “Silicones as a Color-Lock Aid in Rinse-Off Hair Care Products,” Dow Corning Corporation, 2004.
- Novak, Dr. Nelson Lee, Saving Face, Los Angeles, CA: The Body Press, 1986.
- Romanowski, Perry and The Creators of TheBeautyBrains.com, Can You Get Hooked on Lip Balm?, Ontario, Canada: Brains Publishing, 2011.
- Winter, Ruth, A Consumer's Dictionary of Cosmetic Ingredients, New York: Three Rivers Press, 2009; “quaternary ammonium compound” quote may be found on p.295.
Amy Sillup - I have a B.S. in Chemistry from Delaware Valley College and a Juris Doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania. I have worked as a ...
