Is Shea Moisture shampoo and conditioner worth the hype? I tested it out so you don’t have to.
As someone who travels a lot, my hair has been through some things I kind of wish it hadn’t. Chlorinated water, being washed in countries with undrinkable tap water, extreme heat and humidity, snow and frost, extreme amounts of sunshine, and all the things I did to it in between, like bleach, box dyes, and heat tools – you name it! So when I discovered DevaCurl, I thought I’d found the answer to all my curly hair problems. My hair was detangled, shiny, and curlier than ever before – why buy anything else?
That is, until it stopped working.
You know when you find a new moisturiser or cleanser and your skin feels the best it has ever felt and you think ‘hells yes I’ll use this forever’, and then it seems to stop working and your skin looks less than average again? That’s what happened to my hair with DevaCurl.
The search for something new resumed.
I’d heard about Shea Moisture, but I have fine hair that gets weighed down really easily, so I figured anything with shea butter in it would be too heavy. If you’ve ever held a block of raw shea butter, you’ll understand. It’s dense. It wasn’t until I tried Maui Moisture for a few weeks and my hair dried out like sand on a hot day that I realised I needed something else.
So my dry, tangled hair and I wandered into Priceline, found Shea Moisture Jamaican Black Castor Oil shampoo and conditioner on special, and found myself at the checkout, debit card in-hand. Long-story-short, Shea Moisture was the bomb. I was actually shocked, and wondered how and why I avoided this product for so long.
On another note, it’s also cruelty-free, vegan, curly girl-friendly, and Jamaican black castor oil promotes hair growth. Win!
Shea Moisture: A Review
First of all, the shampoo looks, smells feels really unappealing. It’s a dark shade of brown – kind of like lice shampoo, without the really acrid smell – and feels thin. A far cry from the thick, white and creamy consistency of DevaCurl. Having said that, a core ingredient is Jamaican black castor oil so, you know, the colour and consistency is to be expected.
On my head it went. It does foam a bit, but it’s not like anything with sulfate in it – just enough so that you feel like your head will be clean. I also didn’t need to use too much – two pumps, each around the size of a bottle top.
I should mention the instructions basically say to douse all your hair in it – from roots to ends – but that seemed a little extreme for me so I only went scalp, and everything was fine.
It washed out easily, and I moved on to the conditioner. Unlike the shampoo, the Shea Moisture Jamaican Black Castor Oil conditioner is thick, creamy, and a light caramel colour. After using around two pumps to start with, I raked it through my hair to see how easily it detangled.
It didn’t make my hair feel silky as soon as I used it like some other products do, so I was surprised at how easily the knots came out. It wasn’t a miracle product by any means - my hair didn’t magically fall flat and knot-free on my shoulders, but it was easier than usual to rake it through.
I washed it out, wrapped it in a microfibre towel for 20 minutes, styled with a bit of DevaCurl Wave Maker and let it air dry.
The Result
After it dried, I noticed the difference.
As much as I loved DevaCurl, it did weigh my hair down and took quite a lot of fluffing to bring the volume back. With Shea Moisture, it barely took any effort at all.
I was pretty concerned the mixture of shea butter and black castor oil would make my hair feel oily, stringy, and heavy, but it was nothing like that. My hair felt lighter, the curls were bouncier, and only once it dried could I feel how soft the conditioner made my hair.
I’ve now been using it for a few months and I’m still really happy with it. It also never irritates my skin, doesn’t leave a weird smell in my hair, and when it is feeling dryer because of external factors like weather and humidity, I use the DevaCurl Deep Sea Repair and it fixes it right up.
The Verdict
Shea Moisture doesn’t give you that huge boost of moisture you get with DevaCurl so it might not be great for people with high-porosity hair, thick or course hair that requires a heap and heaps of moisture, but it is a really good alternative a lot of other products out there (like Maui Moisture, for example – do not recommend. At all.), and they do have a few deep conditioners that are apparently worth a try! I haven’t tried them because it’s serious overkill for my hair - way too heavy - but I’ve only heard good things.
They also have a huge range for you to choose from that’s suited to all kind of hair types, which is something DevaCurl doesn’t really have, so it would be easy to shop around and figure out what works best for your hair.
Shea Moisture is also a great option if you’re finding DevaCurl too expensive. It’s priced comparatively well, so it’s easier to justify buying spending the money on it before you know whether it’s going to work for you.
All in all, I’ve had great results with Shea Moisture so I absolutely recommend it to anyone.
