L'Occitane En Provence: 5 Essential Oils Sample Review.

I recently picked up an issue of In Style magazine (October 2014 issue) and with it came two rather generous 50ml samples of shampoo and conditioner created by the ever wonderful L'Occitane. They are advertised as having 5 essential oils in the ingredients which are angelica oil, lavender oil, geranium oil, ylang ylang oil and sweet orange oil (the conditioner also contains sweet almond oil but the shampoo doesn't) so you can initially see how natural of origin the ingredients are which I love in a product.  I'm not the sort of person who religiously purchases magazines for their content, rather their freebies, is that cheeky? When I saw these samples I could not resist picking up a copy and what was more enticing was the price of the magazine was almost cut in half anyway! So I took the plunge and after a week or so of traveling/coming home/sorting out miscellaneous things I finally got around to testing them out. I've ended up with mixed thoughts about the two products and I'd be extremely interested to hear what you thought of them if you have tried them.

Application.
So the first thing I noticed about these products (besides the gorgeously chic packaging) was the intense herbal scent they produce! You really do get a huge hit of something floral/grassy as soon as you start using the products which is reminiscent to me of medicated shampoo. A smell which you either love or hate, and I personally LOVE it! So first things first, top marks on scent!
When using the shampoo I was overcome by both how easily it lathered up in the hair and also how easy it was to work through the scalp and the lengths of the hair. And when rinsed out my hair felt really noticeably clean and quite soft. I did actually do a lather/rinse/repeat of this step as I'd previously had hairspray in but even with two applications of shampoo my hair was still feeling healthily clean.
I then went to use the conditioner and this is where things went downhill. Firstly I noticed there were no directions on the sample bottle so I was unsure how long to leave it in (I ended up going for around 3 minutes) which I find very disconcerting as I don't want to over condition my hair and end up looking greasy as a result. Once I rinsed out the conditioner my hair felt actually a lot dryer than it did after simply shampooing alone and in no way shape or form did it feel conditioned.

Drying.
I left my hair to sit in a towel for around 10/15 minutes before roughly towel drying it. Then I went to comb through it and was so past infuriated. This combination has absolutely no detangling properties in it at all (which are actually stated on the packaging of the conditioner) and so I had to spend around 5 minutes trying to get all the knots out before I could blow dry it, obviously, creating more damage which I have been trying exceptionally hard to avoid. Whilst blow drying I also noticed that my hair was feeling very heavy as if it were full of product and at this point I really was not having a good time at all. Once dry and brushed through my hair did feel quite soft at the roots but you could easily see the damage at the ends of my hair and there was absolutely no help involved for my frizz problem.
The finish of my hair after blow drying was so underwhelming. When I think about all the super oils in these products I expect gorgeous shiny, nourished, healthy looking hair and what I ended up with was a thin and dull hot mess! So while I didn't want to add any more product to my hair due to trying to review two products alone I felt I had to add some of my VO5 Smoothly Does It Heat Protect Serum. This calmed the frizz down, added some shine and set a protective barrier for the styling.

Styling.
At this point I was really fed up of looking at my hair and so decided to straighten it simply for haste and ease reasons. Things began looking up at this point as it straightened really easily and well for a change. Usually I do have to go over it a few times before the ends are straight but this time just once seemed to be enough and I wish I knew what this was down to! I ended up with actually a really nice finish but I can't help but wonder whether that has more to do with the VO5 serum as appose to the shampoo/conditioner. The finish was very lightweight and soft but my hair had absolutely no volume at all which was disheartening.
However, after around an hour of finishing the whole process I can still smell the product very very well which is just swell!

As I said I have been left with very mixed feelings about these products. I think if I saw the shampoo on sale/offer somewhere I might pick it up as that was really nice but I wouldn't go out of my way to buy it. However the conditioner is just so ridiculous that I don't even think I'll be keeping the rest of the sample. I feel that the shampoo would be better either alone of paired with another conditioner so I might play around with that as I have about 4 uses of the sample left. Unfortunately I have been left extremely disappointed by the duo and genuinely wouldn't recommend them at all. Let me know what you thought about these products in the comments below. I do hope this was helpful to someone!

Much love, G x