Product Review: Biolustre EMS Emergency Maintenance System Hair Repair Conditioner

My hair is medium length, very thick, and a bit coarse. In the past year I've had salon highlights once, and colored my hair at home twice, so it's a little damaged from the coloring. I'm lucky enough to have very few split ends, but overall my hair feels dry and very rough to the touch. I was looking for a product that would smooth out the hair cuticle, bring back shine, and make my hair softer.

This product definitely delivered results! You want to allow about 45 minutes to complete this process from start to finish. I purchased my kit from Ebay for about 50 bucks, but there are several online retailers you can purchase from. Your kit will contain the following products: Exfoliating Shampoo, Rescue Treatment, Daily Treatment Shampoo, Daily Conditioning Sealant.

Since many people are hesitant to try it because the instructions may seem complicated, I've broken it down into my step-by-step procedure. This should help a first time user with application of the product.

For Step 1, you apply the Exfoliating Shampoo to remove any product buildup. It's PH balanced at 5.5, so is gentle yet cleansing. I undertook this process with my head over my kitchen sink because that was more convenient than having to get in and out of the shower for all this shampooing/conditioning/rinsing. I shampooed twice, just to make sure all the gunk was removed from my hair. The shampoo lathers nicely, but don't be surprised if your hair feels very rough and tangled after shampooing. I couldn't believe all the tangles in my hair - it really makes hair feel "squeaky" clean after rinsing, and since no product residue is left behind to make hair feel slick, the result is a tangled mess. Rather than traumatize my hair with a comb or brush to remove tangles, I added a little shampoo to my hands and raked my fingers through my hair underneath the running sink water. Using your fingers as a comb is much more gentle than an actual comb or brush and will not break, tear, or damage hair! After a couple of minutes, the knots were removed and I was able to proceed to step two. If you want to further smooth your hair, you can use a regular comb or brush AFTER removing most of the knots with your fingers. But, you definitely want to make sure you use the comb after Step 1 - NEVER after step 2! Here's why...

During Step 2, you apply the EMS Treatment. You want to thoroughly coat hair with the treatment from roots to tip. I like to put most of my hair up in a big clip and apply the treatment section by section. I left the under-layers down and coated those first, then gradually let my hair out of the clip, coating each 4 or 5 inch section at a time. Once my hair was all out of the clip, I applied a little extra of the treatment to the top of my head and all over the top layers of my hair. (I find that the top layer is the most damaged and needed additional treatment because it suffers the most abuse from hot irons, curling irons & blow drying.) As I was applying the additional treatment to the top layers, I pinched each section of hair between my fingers and rubbed, to make sure it really got worked into the damaged strands. You NEVER want to comb or brush your hair during this step - as soon as the EMS Treatment touches your hair, put your comb away! Your hair will break and tear if it gets snagged by a comb during the treatment time.

Step 3 is to dry your hair until it becomes solid. It took me about 8 minutes to complete the drying process.
The directions instruct to seat yourself under a hood-style hair dryer. Most people probably don't have this item at home, so I went to the local beauty supply store and bought a $10.00 hood style bonnet that you can place over your hair and attach the hose to your hair dryer. I quickly found that this was a waste of time and money. The bonnet did an ok job of drying the top and outer layers of my hair, but the under layers were still wet - so I had to remove the bonnet and tilt my head sideways to dry the under-layers of my hair using the hair dryer by itself. The next time I used the treatment (about 2 months later) I did not use the bonnet at all. Rather, I worked the treatment through my hair and then used the dryer by itself - concentrating on the under-layers first. Once those were dry and hardened, I focused the dryer heat on the sides and top of my head until the solution was hardened completely. This seemed to work better, as I didn't have to disturb the already hardened sections of hair to get to the under-layers (like I did with the bonnet technique).

It's important to make sure the EMS Treatment hardens all the way, and that you don't disturb your hair while the solution is hardened onto your hair, or you run the risk of damaging the hair. The instructions warn you about not bending your hair after it's dried or it can cause breakage. This was a little intimidating at first, but as I dried my hair I saw that it was still a little bit flexible - flexible enough to where I could easily move my head without fear of breaking off my hair! Basically, you just don't want to contort your hair into any pony tail holder or clip after it's dried. Once your hair is completely solid to the touch, you can move on to step 4.

Step 4 entails rinsing hair with warm water until the hardened treatment dissolves. At this point, I finally got into the shower because I didn't want to break any hair by trying to flip my head of hardened hair over to bend under the sink faucet. I allowed the warm shower water to flow over my head for a minute before I touched it at all. While rinsing this out of your hair, you don't want to disturb the hair until the treatment has softened and has begun to rinse out of the hair strands. Once hair feels somewhat soft to the touch, you can begin loosening it to gently work the warm water into sections that still feel crispy. I used the same gentle technique I used to apply the treatment - softly raking through the hair strands to loosen and remove the formula. Once the warm water hits it, it softens pretty quickly and rinses out completely after about 5 minutes.

For Step 5, you want to shampoo once again with the Exfoliating Shampoo to remove all residue of the treatment. Work into a lather and use the 'finger-combing' technique to keep hair from getting tangled while you rinse out the shampoo.

For Step 6 you apply the Daily Maintenance Treatment Shampoo, work into a lather, and again use the 'finger-combing' technique to rinse out of hair. At this point, hair will still feel very rough to the touch. This is NOT indicative of your final result! Once you apply the Daily Conditioning Sealant in Step 7, your hair will feel like silk!

Yay! You've finally reached the last step. For Step 7, towel dry hair and apply the Daily Conditioning Sealant. Massage into hair strands and scalp. I absolutely love the sent of this conditioner! It has a refreshing minty scent that revives your entire head. It's a rich conditioner that feels amazingly good to distribute through tangled rough hair. It takes the knots and tangles out almost instantly. You want to leave the conditioner in for a minimum of 5 minutes. Since my hair is so coarse, I left it in for 15 minutes to achieve maximum benefits. After applying the conditioner I used a coated elastic band to put my hair up in a bun & prevent it from dripping while I waited the 15 minutes. Alternately you can cover it with a plastic cap - the heat retention naturally provided by the cap will help the conditioner further penetrate into the hair shaft anyways (as is always a benefit with any conditioner). This specific conditioner is meant to seal the hair shaft, protecting it from further damage and creating exceptional shine.

After all this hard work, the end result is super-shiny, lustrous, soft hair that looks like it's never been touched by a styling tool or hair dye. The shine results last for about 3-4 weeks, and the hair stays nice and soft for about 5-6 weeks. Personally, I've tried hundreds of deep conditioning masks and none can provide the long lasting results that EMS provided. Most will leave my hair soft and mildly shiny for only one day. I love how this one leaves a lasting finish for nearly a month! It's a pretty good value for the money - I paid about 50.00 for the kit on Ebay and got two uses out of the Treatment. I still have plenty of the Shampoo and Conditioner - I use those once a week. In between using the Shampoo and Conditioner that came with the kit, I use my regular Jhirmack Shine Shampoo and Pantene Deep Conditioning Mask daily.

Here is the only downfall:
The kit does not contain nearly enough of the Treatment. I still have more than enough of the shampoo and conditioner left, but none of the Treatment. I plan on contacting the company to see if I can purchase the Treatment by itself, or maybe I'll see if someone is selling a singular bottle of it on Ebay so I don't have to buy another whole kit just for the one product. The company needs to consider that some of us have thick, long hair that is going to absorb more of the product than someone with thin or short hair. I only got two uses out of the bottle, where someone with less hair probably would've gotten four uses.

At any rate, this product is worth the time and cost! I've had basic conditioning salon treatments done at 40 bucks a pop, only to have the results last just a few days. With this treatment, you can complete it in the comfort of your own home, at a one time cost of 50.00 for at least two treatments. I've heard this is an excellent treatment to do before chemical services (such as hair color or perm) - so before my next hair color I will definitely do the treatment again. I'm betting it will lead to even shinier softer color treated hair that's less damaged.