Review: Redken Color Extend Shampoo and Conditioner {Not a Fan}

Guys, I admit that it this point I'm not really sure what color my real hair actually is. I started highlighting my hair when I was 13 or 14 and it just never stopped. I've had every color under the sun, both natural and not so natural. So at this point, I just don't know. I think it's kind of light brown.

My favorite hair color is red. What can I say, it just looks really good on me. Also, my little brother is a redhead and I've always been very jealous. It's totally not fair. No guy every wants to be a redhead. When my brother was born my mom started crying. When my father asked what was wrong she said, "Have you ever seen an attractive redheaded man?!" 

Harsh, mom. Harsh. While my brother turned out pretty well I still strongly believe that I should have gotten to be the redhead in the family.


But, I have a problem. And that is fading. I don't know what it is, apparently my hair wants to be its boring light brown shade because I can dye my hair and it will have faded several shades within two weeks. This is especially annoying when you start off with a lovely dark auburn and two weeks later you have brown roots while the rest of your hair is flaming copper. This results in me roughly resemble an insane 80 year old lady with traffic cone on her head every time I decide to put my hair in a top bun (which is often).

So for Christmas my mother got my this lovely Redken Color Extend set, which included both shampoo and conditioner. I roughly subscribe to the curly girl method of haircare because I have super dry hair that tends to frizz. Even though Redken is a no no in their method I thought I'd give a shot because 1). I don't like looking like I have a traffic cone (with roots) on my head, 2). It was free.

Here is what I think:
The shampoo was fine but I didn't notice anything special. I only wash my hair 2-3 times a week max and my roots still faded in a couple weeks and by the third or fourth week my entire head was probably 5 shades lighter. No joke. Basically it was like every other shampoo I've used. Disappoint.

The conditioner sucked for me. I seriously used about 1/5 of the bottle every time I washed my hair. Which is not good because the bottle is quite small and quite expensive. In no way did it leave my hair "smooth, manageable and radiant" and it took about 5 minutes to detangle every time. In fact, sometimes I would condition my hair with this, decide it sucked after I rinsed it out, and then use a different conditioner just so I could comb my hair. I do not recommend.

In general I wasn't impressed with either product. I think you can do much better for much less. If you have fine color treated hair I think you probably won't have a problem, especially if you've gone lighter than your natural color. Maybe you'll even love it then. However, as a curly haired girl with dry hair  I am not a fan at all. In fact, I think I'll give them to my sister who has pin straight hair and is in the process of going blonde.

By the way, apparently I'm the only one who dislikes this stuff because my hair dresser (or are they hair stylists now?) loves it and so do most of the people on amazon. Meh.