Beauty Review: Commence Hair Care

Once I started accepting gifts from brands, the PR packages began arriving in force. Lotions, sunscreens, serums and so.much.shampoo. I have dutifully tried every shampoo and conditioner sent to me. Until today, none were worth writing about. Certainly, there were no Prose-like disappointments, but sometimes, shampoo is just a shampoo. But one shampoo and conditioner gave me more.

Meet Commence. The clean hair care line developed for women over-40. (Yes, we’re old enough to need special shampoo.) Commence is designed to cure dull, lifeless, dry, brittle hair. They even make products to address hair thinning, a common concern for women of a certain age.

When I broke the candy-colored bottles out of their box at the start of summer, I figured I was opening just another shampoo pair. But after a few washes, I noticed that my ends were less dry, my flyaways were minimized, and my hair was actually shiny. No special serums, no creams or sprays, just shampoo and conditioner. Fascinating.

By the end of the second week, I noticed that my hair felt less dirty on the second-day. I even stopped using dry shampoo on day 2. Which meant I could go three days between washes, a previously untested feat. A friend ordered some for herself and found that her dry, itchy scalp was mostly-healed after a couple of weeks of use. She bought a set for her Mom who loved it as well.

Yet, despite all of these positives, when I ran out of gifted product last month, I grabbed another shampoo from the cupboard. Money is tight with summer camps, school shopping, and a new A/C unit, and I figured that it made sense to save the cash. But four days into using the other shampoo, I placed an order from the Commence Shampoo and Conditioner set.

Yes, it’s $47, a number that’s more salon than drugstore. But I’ve paid so much more to get less. My hair is so much shinier now. Given the amount of heat I use on my hair, I didn’t know it could be this shiny. I’m planning to try their root serum to see if I can thicken up this postpartum, perimenopausal hair without resorting to minoxidil. (Will report back.)

I like this shampoo and conditioner. I even like the packaging. It’s been years since I bought a shampoo that I thought was good enough to recommend. But Commence is good enough to share. I’m grateful they sent me some to try, because I don’t know if I would have found it otherwise. And I am more than happy to pay for it going forward because, as a woman whose entire personality is based on how her hair looks that day, I need it.

{Commence gifted me a shampoo, conditioner, and dry shampoo to try. I re-purchased the shampoo and conditioner. And I will re-purchase again. No other monies or contributions changed hands in exchange for this post}