L'Oreal Elvive Extraordinary Clay Collection

We put our hair through a lot these days, whether it’s daily heat styling, a love for dry shampoo or a colour change every month. I’m always on the hunt for products to help me look after my scalp and leave me with lovely soft, shiny locks that don’t need washing every day.  L’Oreal’s new Extraordinary Clay range has been created for what I like to think of as ‘combination hair’ – oily roots and dry ends. It can be tricky to balance out the two without oversaturating the root or leaving your ends feeling dry, but they’ve managed to do a great job with this purse-friendly new range.

The hero product has to be the Pre-Shampoo Clay Masque, which is designed to be used once or twice a week on dry hair. Massage plenty of the mask into the roots using your fingers prior to shampooing and leave on for up to 5 minutes. The clay helps to balance out any oiliness and also works really well at removing any product build up that might be weighing the hair down. Application can get a little messy if you’re not careful (the product itself is blue/green!), so take your time and apply in small sections around the head.

I was really impressed with how refreshed my roots and scalp felt after using the masque; especially as they didn’t feel as though they had been totally stripped and dried out. That feeling lasted for a good 48 hours and I was able to wake up on the second day and not reach for my trusty can of dry shampoo, which is virtually unheard of.

To help prolong the effect, you can also use the matching Re-balancing Shampoo and Conditioner which help to keep that fresh feeling for longer by balancing out the oil at the scalp and moisturising the drier ends. I’m not a huge fan of the shampoo as I try to avoid sulfate-based ones (they irritate my scalp), but the conditioner manages to be nice and light, yet really hydrating and won’t weigh down finer hair at the roots. If you have very colour processed hair, then I’d recommend adding in a weekly hydration treatment as I’m not sure this will be moisturising enough for you, but for uncoloured/unbleached hair it’ll work a treat.

The Extraordinary Clay collection is available at Boots and Superdrug with prices starting at £2.89.

*contains PR samples