Kevin Murphy Hydrate-Me. Wash & Rinse

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: A high price tag doesn’t equal an amazing product. Case in point is Kevin Murphy’s Hydrate-Me. Wash and Rinse. This set of shampoo and conditioner will run you around $80 for the pair of products (though because Kevin Murphy is generally sold only through salons, the price can be a lot more than that).

Now, these products certainly have some amazing claims to go along with their high price tag. Kevin Murphy says to think of both products as, “as a hair concealer as it disguises the damage. (They) will nourish dry hair and make split ends unrecognizable. This formulation is still packed with antioxidants as this gives the hair a healthy glow and stops the hair from losing any more moisture.” All of that sounds great, as do the claims that once applied to hair, these products will give, “hair a glossy shield than hid any signs of damage and resulted in a smoother cuticle.”

Unfortunately, while the wash did a fine job of cleaning my hair and together with the rinse, did leave it a bit glossy, as well as quite manageable, it didn’t wow me. My hair looked good but just that, good. Initially I thought I just needed to use the wash and the rinse a few more times to see some amazing results but nope, the results were always the same: Good but nothing special and certainly nothing worthy of an $80 price tag.

To be clear, these aren’t bad products. They certainly didn’t dry out or damage my hair and they did leave it feeling fairly soft and smooth. Both products are free of highlight-harming sulphates and are packed with various vitamins and oils, as well as Shea butter and other healthy ingredients. So I can kind of understand why these products are so expensive; they are high quality. However, the results they deliver are pretty much the same as what I get when I use one of L'Oreal's $12, sulphate-free lines.

Thankfully I didn’t pay for either the wash or the rinse. Instead, I tried these products out using a couple of deluxe-sized samples that my hairdresser gave me.

But while her advice on which shampoo and conditioner to use didn’t out to be useful, I am glad that I took her recommendation to pay an extra $10 for Kevin Murphy’s Born Again Essential Treatment. It brought the wow-factor and gave me impressively glossy and silky hair that stayed that way for days after the treatment. It will happily be paying for it again, the next time I’m at the hairdresser’s.

Would I buy these products: No to the Hydrate-Me. rinse and wash but I would totally pick up the Born Again treatment if it was available to non-hairdressing people (sadly, it isn’t).

 Should you buy these products: Because of its high price tag, I wouldn’t pick either the shampoo or the conditioner up unless you’ve tried out a sample and loved the results. If you are in the market for a "nicer" shampoo/conditioner that actually is worth the money, check out Redken’s  Color Extend Shampoo and Conditioner.