Hello everyone!
It’s been awhile since I updated any hair care products I’ve been using for the past few months. I wanted to review this earlier but was too lazy to take pictures of it (and often forgot to do so). When my search of better hair care products started, I stumbled upon posts and reviews regarding no ‘poo method (or in long, no shampoo) which seems promising as they experienced triumphant results. Some of them stated that to get the best out of this method, we have to start by going low ‘poo – which means to shampoo less than usual. To add on this matter, some of them suggested that going green is a better alternative while doing low ‘poo. So I decided to choose the latter as it seems easier to be done.
With the fact that I just ran out of shampoo, I hit Sasa and got myself Giovanni Eco Chic Technology Hair Care with Chinese Botanicals. As I was so noob on going green, when the lady promoter stated that Giovanni’s hair care is certified organic, I didn’t ask much and go ahead with it. It comes with two steps; step 1 (shampoo) and step 2 (conditioner). The shampoo costs me RM33.90 of approximately 10 USD while the conditioner costs me RM35.90 of approximately 11 USD for 250ml each. Here are the photos of it.
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| Giovanni Eco Chic Technology Shampoo With Chinese Botanicals (Step 1) |
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| Giovanni Eco Chic Technology Conditioner With Chinese Botanicals (Step 2) |
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| Shampoo's claims, direction of use and ingredients |
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| Close up |
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| Conditioner's claims, direction of use and ingredients |
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| Close up |
Products
Out of my consent, I just knew (and was informed personally) that Giovanni’s hair care is NOT organic. Some of the ingredients are certified organic but to look at the product as a whole – no, it’s not organic. I was so bumped to know this after purchasing it but I still use it until the last drop. It comes with a tall and thin dark turquoise plastic bottle that is nicely made. The lid is okay to me but often the shampoo/conditioner dripped on the sides of the hole thus making it a bit messy – not to mention pretty ugly. LOL. Here are the photos of it on different angles.
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| Sides |
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| Lid |
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| Hole (sorry it looks pretty gross) |
In respect to the name itself, both shampoo and conditioner smells like herbs. It’s not green tea kind of scent (when you think about Chinese Botanicals you’ll just think about green tea LOL), it’s more towards the combination of different herbs kind of smell. It’s somewhat overpowering and it stays on my hair until the next wash but I don’t hate the scent. I don’t find it bugging me or anything and it is somehow refreshing from my opinion. The shampoo itself looks and feels like honey while the conditioner is thicker in consistency (like usual conditioner does), with opaque light brown color. I forgot to take pictures of the items but I managed to squeeze out few drops for this review. Yeay me! Here are the photos of it.
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| Shampoo |
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| Conditioner |
As you can see, there is a dark brown residue on the shampoo itself. I think its sedimentation of the shampoo’s ingredients or something? When I first used it, it doesn’t look like that. It looks purely honey-like. On my last few usages, I found out that there’s this sedimentation soil-like residue beneath it. I think I should have shaken it well before usage. The conditioner on the other hand is thick and it’s not easy to get it out from the bottle. So I decided to turn it upside down the whole time to ease usage.
How I use it
Because I was on my journey to go low ‘poo, I learned few tricks to combat the hard water here in Malaysia that may cause adverse effects on shampoos and other detergents. Do you know that hard water can leave your hair straw like, dull and frizzy – plus leftover residues from the shampoo we’re using. This is because hard water contains a lot of minerals that may react with the chemicals in the shampoo we’re using leading to less effective wash. Hard water reacts mostly to organic shampoos as it does not contain chemicals to reduce the reactions. Soft water on the other hand contains mostly sodium and very less minerals (this is what I’ve read before) and we can drink this type of water without having to boil it first. Basically, most detergents – especially shampoos don’t react well with hard water causing our hair to go kababoom. Solution? ACV rinse! Aka apple cider vinegar rinse. And it does wonder to my hair.
You can actually google ACV rinse to know more about it. Depending on our hair’s needs, my suitable dilution ratio for my ACV is 1:3 (1 part ACV and 3 parts water). You have to try and error to find the best ratios to suit your hair well. And please use organic ACV. Since going low ‘poo, I shampooed on alternate days, increasing the days gap when I think I can handle the oiliness. This went on for 3 months until I finally finished up both shampoo and conditioner. I started off with shampooing my hair specifically on the scalp area (as it is most greasy/oily) with very little shampoo and lathers it up. I then rinse it and continue to use higher amount of shampoo to lather it out throughout my hair and leave it for couple of minutes and rinse it off. It doesn't lather that much but enough to cover the whole hair on the second shampoo. I then spray my hair with ACV rinse – focusing on the ends of my hair, let it sit for another few minutes and wash it off. Lastly, I just run the conditioner on my hair – focusing on my ends, leave it for another minute and rinse it off.
Effects
During the starting period of using this hair care, I didn’t notice the importance of ACV rinse. I thought it was so gross to spray food on my hair. And the smell is so annoying. It stinks by the way. I couldn’t stand it at first but I get the hang of it by time. The scent dissipated when my hair dried up but it comes back when I get my hair wet. Overall, I like this hair care. I have combination hair, oily on the scalp area and dry on the ends of my hair. I love how refreshing it is on scalp as it leaves a minty sensation (cold and refreshing sensation) especially on days I need it most.
The results are on and off for me. Sometimes, my hair turns yucky and it goes straw like, but most of the time it was lovely. Often, my hair turns beautiful on the next day after shampooing my hair. I love it! But I did use my hair serum so I can’t really say that this hair care did everything. On last few washes, I was no longer using my hair serum and my hair turns lovely too - which it feels soft and manageable and it never tangled my hair up. Brushing my hair was super easy since.
The drawback of this shampoo is that it causes dandruff for me. It’s not severe but it does build up on my scalp in time. Previously, I went no shampoo for 4 days and my dandruff goes crazy. It doesn’t combat itchiness too but my hair didn’t fall that much – just normal hair fall rate I can say the least. When I started using ACV rinse, my hair feels cleaner – with no leftover residue and my dandruff problem is at bay. But still, itchiness, hair fall and dandruff cannot be reduced too well as it claimed to be.
My ratings:
Effectiveness: ★★★☆☆ (it was okay for me but I needed more especially on scalp care)
Packaging: ★★★★☆ (elegant and well designed)
Price: ★★★☆☆ (it is pretty expensive for a partially organic shampoo but its not that expensive to compare with real organic shampoo or salon bought)
Long term effect: ★★★★☆ (I like how it helps reducing my hair's greasiness up until 4 to 5 days but at some point the itchiness really bothers me)
Overall, I do recommend this hair care to those who wants to combat oiliness on their scalp. Its very refreshing and it lasts me more than 3 months. Talk about cost management. LOL. If you have dry hair, I do not recommend this hair care as it strips off natural hair oils to some extent. I hope this review helps!
Regards
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