L'Oréal Botanicals Fresh Care Soothing Lavender haircare

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If you suffer from sensitive scalp, finding shampoos and conditioners that deliver lots of TLC can still be quite hard, in the mainstream. L’Oréal might not be your first thought for a go-to brand offering a gentler alternative – but they should be, with their Botanicals Fresh Care Lavender range.

With sustainability and greener, cleaner beauty climbing the agenda, big companies are having to change. This new range is 99% of natural origin –and avoids silicones, parabens and colourants. (Vegan, too.)

It also happens to be fab to use. The thing about a global beauty giant like L’Oréal, of course, is that they have a massive R&D budget. So here, they’ve made sure there are no compromises on fragrance, texture, pleasure-of-use… Formulated with organic lavender oil (and even that’s not a word we thought we’d see on a L’Oréal label – albeit referring to an ingredient that’s there in tiny quantities), it has a wonderful soothing scent – and is designed to have an equally soothing effect, too.

There’s a particularly interesting product in the range: the Lavender Soothing Pre-Shampoo Oil, which you massage onto a dry scalp and through the hair and leave for 5-10 minutes before shampooing. It’s great for a LITERALLY dry and flaky scalp (a few of those around right now, thanks to the long, cold, centrally-heated winter), and for shine.

The Botanicals Fresh Care Lavender Shampoo and Conditioner are both fine and really rather dandy – but alongside the Pre-Shampoo Oil, our favourite is the Lavender Soothing Therapy Masque: rich, nourishing, great for fragile hair – and a bit of a spa-in-a-jar product, with that calming, rebalancing lavender scent.

Lavender’s blue – but to paraphrase the nursery rhyme, lavender’s also getting greener…

£9.99 each (for 100 ml Pre-Shampoo Hair Oil and Soothing Therapy Masque) - buy here