Aveda Smooth Infusion Shampoo Review
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This is not just a shampoo, this is a salon shampoo. Moreover, it's a salon shampoo with pretty good green credentials -- both in terms of its ingredients and the manufacturer as a whole.
Having tried a whole load of different natural and 'ordinary' shampoos, we thought washing our hair with this Aveda shampoo was an extraordinary experience. As much as shampooing is ever an experience, that is. The shampoo itself is smooth and has the perfect consistency -- not too thick and not too thin. It's incredibly easy to massage into relatively long hair and it rinses off just as effortlessly. And the best bit, it leaves our hair soft. Whereas we normally have to wash our hair every day, this shampoo keeps it clean and non-greasy for two days, which is an enormous added bonus. It smells a bit like cough medicine, so we're not hugely pleased with that, but fortunately it's not one of those smells that lingers in your hair for hours afterwards.
The shampoo works so brilliantly that we find it hard to believe it's made from only flower and plant essences. And, in truth, it only sort of is. We've checked all the ingredients and while it's difficult to determine just how natural the processed versions of plant ingredients like babassu oil and aloe vera leaf really are, most of them are derived from plants. We would rather have been without the possible toxicants such as salicylic acid, geraniol, linalool and citronellol, however.
Aveda has been making products with strong green credentials from the beginning, when Austrian-born American Horst Rechelbacher founded the company in 1978. He was a stylist who believed that beauty products should be made from plants, but should still perform really well as this would benefit "service providers, their guests and the planet". A very good friend of ours in Minnesota has worked closely with Horst Rechelbacher for years and she assures us he has always believed strongly in doing business in the most environmentally friendly way.
Aveda was the first beauty company to manufacture its products with 100 per cent renewable energy (wind). From the beginning, it has put great emphasis on minimising the environmental impact of its packaging, and sources ingredients in a sustainable way. In this case it means that not only has this shampoo been manufactured in a factory powered with renewable energy -- albeit in the faraway US -- but the bottle was also made from 80 per cent recycled post-consumer plastic, the norm for most of Aveda's bottles. The company has calculated that this reduces its need for around 300 tonnes of virgin polyethylene every year.
According to an analysis of Aveda's success by ethical branding consultancy 'better thinking', Rechelbacher's way of thinking still strongly influences Aveda even though it's been sold to Estée Lauder. But despite Aveda's pioneering green and ethical spirit, we have to knock off a few points on the shampoo's ethical score because of the Estée Lauder takeover. Although Estée Lauder allegedly is "committed to the elimination of animal testing", it is on Uncaged's 'bad' list of companies that either openly use animal-tested ingredients or that fail to demonstrate that the finished product and the ingredients have not been tested on animals after a fixed cut-off date.
We must say, however, that Aveda's products, specifically, are not tested on animals and neither are the ingredients in the products. The company's other ethical credentials are pretty impressive as well. It sources its ingredients ethically from specific indigenous producer communities around the world and also spends a substantial amount of money on numerous good causes, including $8 million (£4 million) on its Earth Month Campaign and $1 million (£0.5 million) to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.
The main downside to this shampoo is the price. At £12.50 it's more expensive than even other natural shampoos. While we do think it's worth every penny, realistically we wouldn't spend that much money on a shampoo. Especially considering it doesn't last any longer than, say, Weleda's £8 shampoo, which is almost as good performance-wise and has similar green and ethical credentials.
Quality
Value
Ethics
Green
