As a clean beauty lover and a self-proclaimed girly-girl, if there’s a “clean” shampoo, you can almost guarantee I’m going to try it. Naturally, when I first heard of a whole new subsect of ingredients that people are avoiding (ie., pore clogging ingredients), I was intriqued while also doing a mental eyeroll. It feels like one step forward in a low tox journey reveals 457,569 other things that we need to look out for and I’ve gotten to a point where I value peace over fearing every single ingredient. For that reason alone, I sat and quietly watched while the internet raved about Clearstem and their mission for providing products that don’t include pore clogging ingredients. Finally, out of frustration from feeling like my thick, heavy hair was no longer as luxurious as it once was, and let’s be real - plain curiosity, I ordered Clearstem’s Restorative Shampoo and Repair Conditioner. Here’s my honest thoughts after almost a year of using both.

Things I like:

IT SUDS. If you’ve tried other clean shampoos, you know this is pretty easy to miss. I understand the science enough to know that suds aren’t what clean your hair, and most conventional shampoos use synthetic ingredients for no other reason than creating that sudsy lather you see on shampoo commercials, but man did I miss those cleansing bubbles.
It has a clean smell. Some clean shampoos leave my hair smelling like essential oils, others tend to have no smell and leave me missing that ‘clean hair’ smell you get when you walk out of the shower, but Clearstem’s shampoo has a subtle, fresh spearmint scent. At first I didn’t care for it, but after just two or three washes I’ve really started loving it. I know this is one of those things that is personal preference, but I enjoy the minty smell now.
The ingredients are ones I’m comfortable using on myself and my daughter. For being freshly 6, she’s got some pretty impressive hair. Kids shampoos are a joke when it comes to her hair so anything that I use needs to be something I’m also comfortable with her using and this one passes the ingredient test.
It’s hair color safe. Not a major thing I need, but the fact that it is safe for color-treated hair means it’s also not going to be super harsh on uncolored hair.
It doesn’t have pore clogging ingredients. This is an entire rabbit hole you could go down if you wanted to, and it’s not something I personally test every product for, but it’s important to a lot of people so it felt worth mentioning. Besides, it’s what Clearstem is founded on - products that contain no pore clogging ingredients. Clearly it’s something many people are caring about and needing!
It does a great job removing oil from my hair. With other clean shampoos, I’ve found that I have to shampoo 2-3 times if my hair is greasier than normal and even still, sometimes I will find spots along the back of my head that feel slightly greasy when I get out of the shower. I realized the other day that I’ve not shampoo’d twice in several months. A little goes a long way, and it helps so much not needing to use it 3x to get my hair clean.
It comes with a 30 day Money Back Guarantee. I love a company that stands behind their products but also understands that not everything works for everyone.
It’s only $28. I can’t even begin to tell you how much money I’ve spent on shampoos over the years so finding one that works AND works with a budget is so refreshing! If you grab it with my code ERYNC, it ends up coming out to less than $24!

Things I don’t love:

This really isn’t a big deal to me, but I know to a good portion of people in the low tox community care about this - it comes in a plastic bottle. Again, this does not matter for me in this season of life, especially if it means having a shampoo that works well.
The smell. I know, I know - I put it under things I love because I love that it has a fresh, clean smell. I also know that some people don’t want that, especially a minty smell. It’s personal preference on if that’s actually a good or bad thing.
It’s not super moisturizing. If you, like me, have thick, coarse hair, you may need to pair this shampoo (and the conditioner) with a leave in conditioner. My go-to that I’ve used for years is from Honest and it works great for both me and my daughter.

Conclusion

I am really happy with this shampoo! I love my hair and this shampoo makes taking care of it easy. I’ve had several close friends start using it as well, and they’ve all had good things to say about it also. In fact, one friend started struggling with psoriasis on her scalp shortly after having her first baby. She tried many things to treat it holistically, address the root cause, all the things you’re “supposed” to do but ultimately only found relief with topical steroids from a dermatologist. After seeing how much pain she was in and knowing she was doing all she could but still had to wear hats when she left the house because it had gotten so bad, I can’t even tell you how happy I was to receive the text below from her just a few days ago! If this doesn’t speak to how great of a product Clearstem’s Shampoo is, I don’t know what will! As with everything, I know that it won’t work for everyone, but this is a product I’m happy to recommend and stand behind.