WEN Lavender Cleansing Conditioner Review

A couple of years ago I used to relax my kinky coarse hair and I used the WEN Fig Cleansing Conditioner to keep it healthy and looking great. I would've continued to buy it but I stopped using relaxers and transitioned to a natural style, so I started using shampoo again.

But after seeing WEN Cleansing Conditioners on QVC I decided to try it again to see if it would work as well on my natural strands as it did when I relaxed. I bought a 32oz bottle of the WEN Lavender Cleansing Conditioner for $44.82, but a 16oz bottle retails for $28 on www.chazdean.com.

The Lavender WEN Cleansing Conditioner comes in a terra cotta colored plastic bottle with a black pump and has a faded lavender label. It's supposed to be a universal cleanser for all textures, but it's specifically beneficial to dry, damaged, and wavy to curly hair.

The label claims that WEN Lavender is supposed to calm, soothe, relax and be invigorating to use. WEN also claims that the Lavender Cleansing Conditioner has a creamy formulation that moisturizes dry dehydrated strands without weighing them down and creates body and volume.

I used the Lavender Cleansing Conditioner a few days after it arrived. I followed the instructions and applied about 24 pumps mixed with a little water to coat all of my strands. The WEN cleanser felt like a light conditioner.

My frizzy tresses soaked it up and felt more moisturized instantly, especially the coarser sections. You're supposed to comb it through, which I couldn't do because my strands are so thick and tangled, but I left it on for 5 minutes.

The lavender smell was really nice and relaxing and the menthol in this opened up my senses and made my scalp feel really cool and tingly. When I rinsed it off I saw that WEN cleaned all of the heavy oils and products that I used and my scalp felt really clean but not at all stripped.

When I got out of the shower I immediately applied more of the cleansing conditioner as a leave-in. After shampooing my curls are usually quite big, bulky, and tangled, but after using WEN Lavender Cleansing Conditioner it was so much easier to detangle and it cut my styling time in half.

My tresses felt incredibly different, so much softer and smoother. I braided my hair wet so that I could take down the braids and have a wavy look the next day. The following day it looked really shiny, it felt quite fluffy, had almost no frizz, and was so much lighter and bouncy because of the Cleansing Lavender WEN. And WEN brought out my natural highlights and overall color and made it look brighter.

But since the WEN Cleansing Lavender made my hair so soft, it didn't have the same amount of hold that it normally does. So when I tried to separate the waves my style lost all its definition and started to look like a soft afro. My hair naturally holds its shape very well no matter how much I play with it, but the Lavender Cleansing Conditioner took that feature away.

And on QVC Chaz claimed that his WEN line could replace the majority of your styling products, and while that might be true for some people. Since I am African American I still needed to use an additional conditioner and a heavier oil to set my styles and add additional moisture.

In the End...

WEN'S Lavender Cleansing Conditioner is an amazing and gentle cleanser and leave-in conditioner. It cleanses well, conditions, and hydrates while still being very light. Even on coarse kinky textures like mines it works. It gave my kinks and curls moisture, smoothness, volume, shine, and manageability.

But I think its best suited for finer wavy and curly textures that need moisture and volume. My hair was so light that it didn't have much hold so I wouldn't use it to do wet-sets anymore. But when I blow dry my hair into straight styles I will definitely be using the Lavender Cleansing Conditioner to make my hair smooth and super bouncy.

I'm sure finer hair textures would give the Lavender 5 stars, but for coarse kinky textures like mine's I give it 4.5 out of 5. I think my hair type is best suited for the Fig Version. Whatever your hair issue is though, Lavender will make your hair feel incredibly healthy.