WHAT IS IT?

Brand: Davines
Product: Essentials Haircare range, particularly the Minu Shampoo and Conditioner
Price: £22.75 and £24.75, respectively

WHY IS IT SO GOOD?

I’ve been getting a lot of compliments on my hair recently. This is despite the fact that I’m breaking a lot of the tenets of healthy hair – dying it increasingly lighter blonde, not having regular trims (my last haircut was in October), having hot showers and exclusively towel drying it. One contributing factor to my hair’s surprisingly good condition, no doubt, is that I’m not actually using bleach in my hair – I use Bleach London’s No Bleach range which gives you high-lift permanent colour without the bleach, meaning your hair gets less damaged.

Another factor is one of my favourite haircare brands: Davines.  

I first came across Davines in 2018, when the brand’s OI range was going viral and I decided to test it for myself. Since then I’ve tried out various products in the Essential Haircare collection depending on what my hair needed at the time, from the gentle everyday range Dede to the anti-breakage Melu for damaged hair. But it’s Minu, the range aimed at protecting coloured hair, that is currently in my shower rotation and which has been keeping my hair soft and strong. 

I love Davines products. They all smell really good, they work, and I think the packaging is very chic, in an eco-warrior kind of way. And I love that the brand actually is an eco-warrior. Davines has always prioritised sustainability, from sourcing renewable ingredients and championing regenerative farming to an alliance with Rodale Institute, an agricultural research and education nonprofit. The company is B-corp certified and has certification from the Regenerative Organic Alliance. And now they have reformulated and repackaged the Essential Haircare range to make it even more eco-friendly (in an actual way, not just a greenwashing way).

The Essential Haircare collection, which includes nine different lines dedicated to different hair types and needs, will now come in tweaked packaging made with bio-circular ISCC-certified plastic. This approach allows bio-circular materials – derived from waste sources, for example used cooking oil – to be integrated into the production process, encouraging a shift away from fossil-based resources. 

When it comes to the ingredients, the reformulated range now contains, on average, 93 per cent ingredients of natural origin and 92 per cent biodegradability. The ingredients are Regenerative Organic Certified, which means they are sourced from farms that practise regenerative organic agriculture, which supports soil regeneration, biodiversity and CO2 sequestration. Apart from the texture, which is now more fluid, the products themselves don’t feel any different (a common fear when you hear a favourite brand is reformulating), plus there are nine new additions for the range including serums, milks and oils.

There are so many brands and products out there right now, and it can be really hard to know where to start and what to use. But if sustainability is important to you, then you really can’t go wrong with Davines. As someone who has been to the Davines Village HQ in Parma, Italy twice, had tours around the farms and factory, and sat through some pretty extensive presentations on regenerative farming and the brand’s commitment to being as sustainable as possible, I can attest that they are doing the work. And the products actually work. A win-win!

QUICKFIRE QUESTIONS

The fictional character who would use this product is… Sheila Franklin [from the musical Hair], second semester, NYU and she’s a protester.

This product feels like… you’re standing in a lush, idyllic Italian wood, surrounded by trees and listening to the gentle sounds of the freshwater stream as sunlight dapples the tall grass.

If this product was one of the astrological signs, it would be… Cancer.