Our Silk & Satin Shampoo and Conditioner: A Client's Perspective

Are you looking for a quality, local shampoo and conditioner with ingredients approved by the Environmental Working Group? Then look no further!

I have an autoimmune skin condition . . . which if you also have, you know my struggle to find a quality shampoo and conditioner that doesn’t inflame my skin but is also able to actually clean my hair. Suffice it to say, at this point in my life I feel like I’ve tried it all . . . terrible homemade concoctions that do nothing; ultra hippie brands that meet my ethical standards, but that either do little more than nothing or smell awful; national brands that work, but it turns out they are masquerading as ethical or vegan, and are actually using basically all the same ingredients that "regular" shampoos and conditioners are using - just with a few tweaks so they can "legally" get that certain stamp on their bottles.

When I looked into Your Elegant Essentials, and the Island Local group, I honestly did not have high hopes, but I was very pleasantly surprised! The first thing that I fell in love with was the scent. It’s there, but it’s light. No cloying at my nose with an ultra-perfumey chemical smell. Just a very nice, outdoorsy scent that sort of comes and goes as you shower. The scent itself is quite mysterious, a hint of forest and maybe a little ocean breeze. It smells like a nice West Coast walk on a spring day. The best part was that the scent, I found to be very unisex. It’s so hard to master a truly unisex scent, but Your Elegant Essentials has done it somehow! Nothing too rugged, and definitely nothing too feminine. If they sold this as a candle or a home fragrance oil, I would definitely buy it!

Then there’s the fact that it actually works! It lathers so well. A nice, dense lather. I don’t wash my hair every day. If you do or you wash every second day, one shampoo should be enough. But if you shampoo every third day or less like I do, I found that to get my hair squeaky clean - like literally "I can hear my hands squeaking through my hair" clean -  I’ll need a second shampoo round. Completely reasonable - especially since I use product in my hair daily; so after three or four days there’s quite a lot of buildup. I don’t use conditioner as a rule because I don’t shampoo every day and I have fine hair. But I did really enjoy this conditioner. Usually vegan and ethical conditioners tend to really weigh my hair down post-shower. But I was very happy with the volume I was able to achieve after using the conditioner, so it’s clearly rinsing out very well in the shower.

After testing the shampoo and conditioner set out for a couple of weeks, and having such good results I decided to look up the ingredients. I was certain that what was in it was probably going to be utter garbage. So I went onto the Environmental Working Group’s website and looked up every ingredient in their database and I was shocked. Almost every ingredient had a rating of a one or a two! A few ingredients had a range, say one to four, indicating that the ingredient’s rating depended on its application. But considering most of the other ingredients have such high ratings, and the company’s focus and goals, I was quite confident that these applications - if I had delved into them further - would have also been rated a one or a two.

This brand has clearly done its research to use the most effective ingredients that meet its high ethical standards. I am extremely happy with the quality and ethical standards of Your Elegant Essentials. The fact that it is local is the cherry on top of the sundae. It’s now my go-to recommendation for shampoo and conditioner.

Written by Christina Findlay

April 19, 2021