This year I celebrated my ten year natural hair anniversary. That’s right, I’ve been natural for ten whole years so you can only imagine how many products I’ve tried. After all of the trial and error, I can finally say that I have a pretty good idea of what works for my hair and what doesn’t. I may try a new product here and there but I’ve been using my daily products for a while now.
In today’s post I’m sharing about five of my personal favorite hair products. They all have aloe vera in the ingredients list and work great for my hair.
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Don’t Believe the Hype
When you’re browsing through hair products at the store it can be a little overwhelming. So many of them claim to work miracles for your hair on the label. It’s really all smoke and mirrors until you read the ingredients list. For example, a product can’t possibly strengthen your hair without having protein somewhere in that list.
In my case, aloe vera tends to act as a detangler so I look for it when I’m choosing hair products. I go into greater detail in my previous post on the benefits of aloe vera for natural hair.
Shortly after I wrote that post, I realized how many of my favorite products contain aloe as an ingredient. I kept going back to those products not knowing why they worked for my hair. I repurchased them again and again because I just loved how my hair felt when I used them. It turns out that aloe was there in the ingredients list all along.
Five Awesome Products with Aloe Vera
Tresemme Botanique Nourish & Replenish with Coconut Milk & Aloe Vera
Tresemme is a popular drugstore brand that has a full line of shampoos, conditioners and stylers. I have been using their products for years at this point and appreciate the amount of product I get for the price. I first tried a conditioner from their Naturals line which was discontinued years ago. That product was later replaced with the Botanique Nourish & Replenish with Coconut Milk and Aloe Conditioner.
I first tried this conditioner because it was silicone free. That was back when I was experimenting with the Curly Girl method and cowashing. The whole “no shampoo” thing didn’t go so well for me but I still use it because it’s a great conditioner with enough slip for detangling. It also leaves my hair feeling really soft and moisturized whenever I use it.
Bonus: This product also contains coconut oil which we all know is very beneficial to the hair.
Aussie Moist Conditioner
My second favorite rinse out conditioner is one that I also use as a leave-in. I’m talking about the Aussie Moist Conditioner that I’m always raving about. This product has amazing slip so detangling with my denman brush is never an issue. I use it to co-wash when I want to rinse heavy product from my hair (mainly hair gel) and my curls always seem to behave better when I do. When I use it as a leave-in my hair is left feeling moisturized and soft.
The only drawback to using the Aussie Moist conditioner is that it contains dimethicone which is a heavy silicone. This ingredient can only be removed from the hair with a sulfate based shampoo or else it causes build-up. For this reason I use a clarifying shampoo every few weeks to remove the heavy silicone from my hair. However, I still stand by this conditioner as one of my holy grail products because of all of the other benefits.
The Conditioner by Paul Mitchell
I found this conditioner while searching through wash n’ go videos on Youtube. The product is Paul Mitchell’s The Conditioner and is actually a creamy leave-in. I like how it not only moisturizes my hair but also gives it some slip so I can style it without tangles. It’s ligthweight and provides a lot of moisture underneath my heavier Eco Styler gel. This product is even light enough to use when I style my hair with heat.
Bonus: This conditioner can be made into a DIY spray leave-in by diluting it with water in a spray bottle.
Shea Moisture’s Curl n’ Style Hair Milk
The moisturizer I reach for practically on a daily basis is Shea Moisture’s Curl n’ Style Hair Milk. This product is all natural and contains shea butter and coconut oil in addition to aloe vera. I actually use this product to seal in moisture because of the heaviness from the shea butter. The only con would be that this moisturizer is actually so heavy that I feel like it only works for my low porosity hair when wet.
DIY Aloe Vera Spray
One of my most popular blog posts is one that I wrote years ago about how I made my own Aloe Vera Spray leave-in. The spray is great for hair but can also be used on your scalp because aloe is actually good for that too! For this version I like to purchase aloe vera juice from a natural grocery store. It’s the kind that needs to be refrigerated once open but is the best in my opinion. You can check out the full recipe here.
There you have it! 5 hair products that all contain aloe vera and can be added to your hair routine. I like to keep things simple so when I find something that works, I stick with it.
Be sure to check out some of my other posts for tips on healthy natural hair. You can also follow my hair journey on Facebook and Instagram.