I Tried Prose - Should you?

  I've gone through a lot of different haircare routines over the years. From the standard, "Whatever is cheapest at Costco," to No Poo to Conditioner only wash. I've tried baking soda and apple cider vinegar. I've done sugar scrubs and honey hair masks. I've made my own shampoo bars (I still do in fact). I've been slightly dissatisfied with my current routine as my scalp has been dry and itchy of late. Now, that could have to do with the varying climates I've been visiting this year, but who knows?! So, when Prose kept popping up on my social media feeds and I was gifted some post-Christmas money by my dad, I decided to give it a shot.

 The online ads led to a 50% discount offer, which was great as it allowed me to try out the shampoo, conditioner and curl cream for just over $50 when I signed up for a subscription. That's a great shopping hack, by the way. Companies like you to sign up for subscriptions because so many people don't notice and keep ordering things automatically, so they'll give you great promotions or discounts. I only use these when I am assured that they can be cancelled at any time without penalty, and then I put a note on my calendar for when to go back and reassess if I want to continue the subscription. 

 Now, this is A LOT more than I usually spend on hair care and I was seriously concerned about the full-price cost of these items and already planning out how to stretch them before they arrived. But, again, it was gift money to spend on myself and I was very interested in trying a product that had been developed specifically for me and my needs. This is Prose's niche. They have you take a comprehensive quiz and tell you what special ingredients would benefit your needs. Above is what they chose for my shampoo. I was drawn to this as Jasmine is my favorite flower/scent. The promise of relief from scalp sensitivity and frizz-free bounce for my curls was irresistible. 

 My first disappointment was in the lack of communication I received about my purchase. I'm used to receiving an order confirmation email right away after a purchase and I never received one. Thankfully I was able to log into their website and see evidence of my purchase. My first communication from them was to let me know my product had shipped, and from that point the communication started pouring in. I began getting marketing emails every day. I wanted to learn what I could about their products, and I didn't want to miss any important emails, so I didn't "unsubscribe" yet.

 I was excited to return home from our trip to Las Vegas to find my order had arrived while I was gone. I wish I had taken a picture of the packaging because it was very nicely boxed. I pulled them all out and set them up. Prose ships your products in bottles with screw on caps and then adds in pumps if you need them. If you have a subscription, presumably you could reuse the pumps from month to month and cut down on one-time-use-plastics. So I popped the pumps in the bottles, tossed the caps, and put them in the bathroom ready for me to use in my shower the next day. 

  Every once in a while I leave my hair down and let the curl set after my shower. Most of the time I just pull it back into a pony tail, which stretches the curl out for the most part. The picture on the left above is if my hair has dried in a pony tail. The one on the right is finger combing with jojoba oil and then air drying. Shortly after taking the picture on the right I probably put on a hair wrap (like a head band) because it drives me nuts when it gets in my face! I had hopes for those amazing bouncy, defined curls I keep seeing in the social media ads. Those hopes were not to be realized...

 I followed all the directions for the shampoo, conditioner and curl cream and my hair turned into a crunchy frizz ball! I figured that in my inexperience with hair products I had done it wrong so I tried again the next week (I only shampoo my hair once a week). It wasn't any better then. Again, sadly, I didn't get pictures of either fail, though I'm not sure I'd have the guts to post them if I had - they were that bad. I decided that the curl cream wasn't going to do anything positive for me, so the following week I tried just the shampoo and conditioner. I even tried the conditioner only as a wash after that. The best thing I can say is that my husband really liked the scent and would say, "What smells so nice?" after coming into the room after I had washed my hair.

Christy’s Shampoo ingredients

Water, Sodium Lauroyl Methyl Isethionate, Glycerin, Acrylates/Beheneth-25 Methacrylate Copolymer, Caprylyl/Capryl Glucoside, Cocamidopropyl Betaine, Decyl-Glucoside, Sodium Lauroyl Sarcosinate, Sodium Methyl Oleoyl Taurate, Sodium Cocoyl Isethionate, Propanediol Dicaprylate, Fragrance, Caprylyl Glycol, 1,2-Hexanediol, Sodium Benzoate, Guar Hydroxypropyltrimonium Chloride, Potassium sorbate, Trisodium Ethylenediamine Disuccinate, Propylene Glycol, PPG-Caprylyl Ether, Jasmin Flower Water, Tocopherol, Panthenol, Sunflower Seed Oil, Polyquaternium-10, Dipotassium Glycyrrhizate, Yucca Stem Extract, Cocamidopropyl PG-dimonium Chloride, Pantolactone, Citric Acid

 So, I examined the ingredients they had used in my "custom blend." I was deeply disappointed!  First off, ingredients are listed in order of the quantity used, so the largest percentage of this product is water. Yep, common H2o. At $30 for an 8.5ounce bottle, that's some pretty expensive water! Then you get into the incredibly long chemical names. I have no idea what most of those are so I ran them through the database of the Environmental Working Group. They rate ingredients on a scale from 1-10 with 1 being the best and 10 being straight-out toxic. Thankfully, most of these ingredients came back as safe-ish but a few of them were in the orange "concerning" zone. As a person with Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS), a condition where I develop random allergic reactions that can be anaphylactic, I need to be very careful with ingredients and I generally avoid things in the orange zone. You know what the top ingredient on the "cheap" Costco conditioner I was using is? Shea. A natural, real word ingredient that i can pronounce and identify in nature. And that is exponentially cheaper!

 In addition to my hair not looking or feeling how I would like, my scalp got itchier and itchier. Then I started to develop pimple-like sores on it and I said, "Enough!" I contacted Prose and canceled my subscription as well as requesting a refund. Following their process, I filled out a form that then informed me I would be contacted by a Customer Service Representative. I received an email shortly asking a few follow-up questions to determine if the product was not a good fit for me or if it just needed to be "tweaked" since they are custom formulas. I replied with my experience and promptly received a message letting me know that they had refunded my purchase. They did not ask me to return the product but just to try to recycle the bottles. They also asked me to fill out a survey intended to help them learn from my experience and better their product. Consider it an exit interview. The survey was pretty long and thorough, but I didn't mind because I appreciated their interest in developing a beneficial product. 

 About three business days later I received an email informing me that they had sent a refund to my credit card. All in all, I would say I was very satisfied with their customer service. Responses were quick, polite, and informed. As a business I would not hesitate to recommend them. As a product, however, I simply cannot. As I mentioned above, their highly chemical-dependent formulations are not safe for human skin, especially on sensitive individuals. In addition, the cost is exorbitant, especially when you consider that the highest content ingredient is water, and that is followed by alcohol in the conditioner and curl cream - which probably explains my hair's dryness.

Here's the Thing: I know better. I've spent over a decade curating my hair products, mostly making them myself. The only thing I put in my hair after a shower is a few drops of jojoba oil. I can tell you every ingredient of my shampoo bars because I make them myself. Ingredients matter. You shouldn't put anything on your body that you wouldn't put in your body. Your skin is your largest organ and it absorbs anything you put on it. I consider this an uncomfortable but relatively painless reminder of all God has taught me.