Because there is such an abundance of hair care products on the market, there is naturally a wide range of varying opinions on such products, and what often happens is that a lot of potential misconceptions start cropping off, either warranted or unwarranted. I want to talk about one particular brand that has plenty of bad rap associated with it and that is Pantene.
Note that this article is going to go through a lot of different stories and beliefs about the Pantene brand in general, but keep reading as there is a point to all of this, I promise!
I first started hearing negative press regarding Pantene based on a friend who read online that Pantene is actually really bad for your hair. Although Pantene is known for making your hair smooth and shiny (as is the case with a lot of other hair care companies), the argument that was making the rounds online was simply that although yes it actually did succeed in making your hair appear to be smooth and shiny, the way they did it was actually really damaging to your hair.
While most products claim to achieve supple hair by moisturizing it and letting great natural products soak into each hair follicle, people are claiming that instead of doing that, Pantene actually coats hair with a plastic or wax like substance. So while the hair may physically feel smooth and appear shiny, the hair is actually being suffocated by these foreign (i.e. natural) ingredients.
And I’ll be honest, when I first heard this claim, I didn’t actually believe it. Knowing that Pantene is quite a reputable company with millions of dollars in revenue every year, it naturally is hard to side against them. And after a bit more research, I started seeing arguments against this pretty serious claim, the main one being that Pantene has millions of dollars in revenue selling their products, and if this was a serious claim, it would have been a lot more widespread by now, if not completely proven.
That’s a decently fair point, but making that sort of argument doesn’t really prove anything, more than it does just deflect the situation and try and diminish the seriousness of the claim. Their argument was basically to tell other potentially worried customers not to believe everything they read online, and that is not a good look on any reputable company. Admittedly these responses were not directly from Pantene officials, but rather from hardcore Pantene fans, which is not as bad, but I wouldn’t doubt that such responses were leaked through Pantene officials somehow.
In any case, I wasn’t sure how to feel. I hadn’t actually used Pantene in quite some time so I wasn’t particularly concerned, but I was definitely curious, and also knew that there was a good chance that I would be faced with a decision to buy Pantene (i.e. if it was on sale) at some point in the future, so I knew I had to get a definitive answer for myself. So I did what any other sane person would do: I bought some Pantene shampoo for myself and tried it out.
When using it in the shower, I didn’t notice any particularly bad tingling and as I rubbed the shampoo into the roots of my hair, I honestly didn’t notice anything different from any other shampoo I’ve bought in the past, which was to be expected for the most part. When it came to observing my hair later on in the evening, I noticed right away that my hair definitely felt smooth and appeared shiny. I couldn’t deny that whatsoever.
The problem came with trying to determine if my hair was getting proper nourishment from the Pantene shampoo, or if I was being cheated out of proper hair care by Pantene. Determined to figure out for sure, I kept using Pantene for over a month, trying to see if my hair deteriorated at all. But unfortunately I could not tell any difference in the quality in my hair before I started experimenting with Pantene and after over a month of use.
However, I still felt good using Pantene in general, despite the claims out there on the internet. So what did I do? I kept using it. Despite all of those claims made against Pantene, I personally did not agree with them based on my own personal experience with the product. That’s all there was to it.
So what are the lessons to take away from this? First off, don’t necessarily believe everything you read on the internet, good or bad. And secondly, the only way to truly determine if a product works for you personally is to try it out for yourself. And this applies not only to Pantene but any sort of product that you buy. Rather than rely on online reviews or even comments on the internet, take matters into your own hand before coming to any definitive conclusions on any products that you may be considering using extensively.