Review: L'Oreal Elvive Extraordinary Oil

L'Oreal Elvive Extraordinary Oil 100ml - RRP £9.99

Around 6 weeks ago I was lured into the temptation of trying this oil when the advertisements and blog features for it were literally everywhere and I just couldn't seem to get away from them; I couldn't resist and off I hopped to Superdrug to pick myself a bottle of this new hair oil by L'Oreal. It was on offer at the time with 1/3 off so I got it for £6.66 and at this very moment in time the same offer is on at Boots so go and grab yourself a bottle now! The bottle that I got is for 'all hair types' but there is another variant that is specifically for coloured hair (this one has a red pump if you're looking out for it).

This versatile hair product is intended to leave hair silky and soft without flyaways and can be used in multiple ways: as a pre-shampoo treatment to put on before washing, as a finishing product to perfect your style, or my personal favourite: apply while damp and use before blowdrying/leaving to dry naturally.

It is described as being a '5-in-1 miracle hair perfector' and the five hair benefits that is boasts are: 1) Hair has a glowing shine - check! I definitely agree that it leaves my hair shiny; not greasy. 2) Feels intensely nourished - half check! 'Nourished'? Yes. 'Intensely nourished'? I suppose this one is a little bit of a matter of opinion but for me I wouldn't say the nourishment levels blow me away - it is still pretty good though. 3) Flows with silky softness - check! I apply this when my hair is damp and once it is dry I can swish my hair about and look just like the typical girls on hair care adverts. 4) Seems sumptuously smooth - check! I always look out for the key words in hair products such as 'seems', 'appears' and 'looks' smooth/healthy/repaired/shiny because they shout out to me that it's effects are just an illusion and the benefits to your hair are just a quick fix. This is telling me that it will make my hair 'seem smooth', not actually 'be smooth' - does that make sense to anyone but me? But as long as they're upfront about it I'm okay with this not giving my hair long term benefits and only making it smooth for just the time being, probably until it's washed out, as long as my hair is smooth for a little bit it's okay. Finally, 5) looks beautifully perfected - check!

As it's important to some people when choosing a product I thought I would point out that this is silicone based and therefore not a very natural product; silicones provide a quick-fix beneficial illusion to the hair, like I was talking about in point #4 about making hair 'seem smooth'. If you are wanting something like this to be a permenant solution to damaged ends then you are looking in the wrong place as this isn't going to penetrate your hair shaft at all to repair and improve the condition of it. However, if what you instead want is a smoothing finishing treatment that L'Oreal should have instead named something like 'shine serum' instead of 'extraordinary oil' then this is something that you should try out.



The bottle looks luxurous and is made of glass too, making it look quite expensive and I love having this sitting on my dressing table, looking like a pretty bottle full of liquid gold. I really like that the bottle has a pump dispenser because often pouring straight from a bottle can lead to a bit of a mess and too much product being wasted. I'm really generous with the application of this and that's because my hair is very long, thick and dry - I need quite a lot of product with anything that I use anyway but it's so porous that it drinks up any oils and treatments like a dream, so although the directions on this are to use 'two pumps' I happily use 3-5 and my hair isn't left greasy, sticky or with a lot of build up but of course it's a matter of trial and error to find out what's right for you and your hair. I've done a bit of math with how long I've had this for and how often I use it and figured out I've used around 50 (give or take a couple) pumps of this and the pictures show how much is still left in the bottle so I've got a feeling I'm going to stuck with this for a long time!

This is my 'weekend oil' as it's my favourite one that I use when I'm at home, and my 'through the week oil' is the one that I love using while I'm at uni at that's the Babyliss Pro Argan Oil that I did a detailed review on here: link. The Babyliss oil is my all time number one favourite, but this L'Oreal is sitting pretty in second place of many that I have tried and when it costs less than £10.00 for 100ml of product it is one that I would recommend to anybody.

♥