The Mane Choice - 4 Leaf Clover Review

A major part of a look is your hair. If you're rocking a bomb outfit, but your hair looks a mess, the outfit gets lost and can be underwhelming. It's important that a look is pulled together from head to toe. So for this post I will be switching things up a little bit, and discussing hair!

I recently tried out new hair products from The Mane Choice and wanted to share my thoughts. They developed a line specifically for type 4 hair. It aims to help with overall manageability, softness, and getting that definition that is tough to achieve with type 4 hair. Honestly, I don't know what type of hair I have, but I know once it is wet it becomes unruly and unmanageable so I definitely wanted to give it a try. The line is called 4 Leaf Clover in honor of the 4C girls. What better way to honor March and St. Patrick's Day, then by trying out this collection!

Background Information

I've used The Mane Choice in the past and they have really great products that work well with my type of hair. Wash day has never been fun for me, so I wanted to add some products into my routine that would make this easier. So I picked up their 4 Leaf Clover shampoo and conditioner. Now, The Mane Choice has a whole entire line of six products for their 4 Leaf Clover collection. Each of their products averages at about $15, so the average person can't just drop $100 for a wash day, but they will need the key components. I wanted to do this review based on what the average person needs and will grab at the store, which is the shampoo and conditioner.

Prior to washing my hair it was in box braids for a month, so it was definitely in need of a good wash. I started out by detangling my hair a  pre-poo. Yea, I know I said I would only use the two products. But detangling prior to washing is much needed for any natural. Otherwise, you'll end up with a matted mess. You can detangle with whatever you choose. This pre-poo is from a The Mane Choice as well but from another collection called Heavenly Halo that focuses on moisture and softness. This was also my first time using this product from them as well! After pre-pooing, my hair was definitely detangled, but it felt very sticky as opposed to soft and moisturized. Luckily it gets rinsed out, but it wasn't really quite what I expected.

Shampoo

Now onto the actual washing! The one good thing about the shampoo is that it definitely cleans your hair extremely well, and you don't have to use an abundance of product for it to do so. Prior to washing, my hair was so itchy from being in braids for a long time. After washing my scalp was super clean and my hair had a nice luster.

However, when I started out with the shampoo, the shrinkage was crazy! My hair instantly shrunk up into a bunch of overwhelmingly tight curls. I am not used to this at all and to me it just made everything get super re-tangled. I straighten my hair often so I liked that it showed me that I do still have curls. However, I feel like it made everything extra poofy as opposed to curled and defined. During this process I lost a lot of hair. When I wash my hair I divide it in 5 sections to avoid unnecessary shedding and hair loss. However, because it got re-tangled and poofy I feel as though it contributed to additional hair loss as I combed through it.

Conditioner

When I moved onto the conditioner I hoped that it would work some miracle on my now, poofy short hair. Unfortunately it did not. I was hoping that a conditioner for type 4 hair would have a lot more slip than this did. My hair was still shedding and really poofy as opposed to nice separated curls. I left the conditioner in for about 20 minutes.  Sometimes my hair does better when there is a little heat is added, so I even sat under a dryer for a little bit. However, it didn't really do much.  After rinsing out the conditioner I just braided it into 5 sections and ended the process.

The Aftermath

In the morning, after my hair was fully dry, I took the braids out. I didn't add any extra products and it was actually nicely defined. My hair also had a nice shine to it. I don't usually get this nice of a definition with my other products, immediately after washing.  However, it was very dry and brittle. It felt no different then when I use the basic hair products you get at a grocery or drug store. I left my hair like this for one day and then moved onto flat ironing it. I used my usual heat protectant and oils. As I worked throughout my hair, it was very dry especially at the ends.  My hair did have a nice luster and shine. However, because of how brittle my hair was I had to use a lot of hair products in the following days to gain some softness and improve the texture. This isn't really helpful because I'm just getting my hair dirtier faster because of all the products I have to use.

Overall Rating

Overall, I would not recommend these products. I liked that the products got my hair really clean, my scalp felt great after. The definition was decent, it brought my curls back to life. However, I didn't like the amount of shedding that took place, and my hair was extremely dry. Since this was a higher end product that claimed to cater to my hair type, I was hoping for better results and unfortunately that did not happen.  The products just didn't do anything spectacular to benefit or help my hair. I would have gotten the same results if I used TRESemmé's $3 shampoo and conditioner.

Now don't get me wrong, I absolutely love The Mane Choice. Their brand and CEO give me LIFE! I have been following them since the very beginning! Their growth oil is amazing, it's my absolute fave. Their original core collection has amazing products. The Mane Choice has another line called the Ancient Egyptian Collection, and those products are beyond AMAZING. My hair is always super easy to detangle, soft, shiny, manageable, and I have minimum shedding with these products. I highly recommend investing into the Ancient Egyptian Collection to help benefit your hair and get a great wash day results. It's just I had really high hopes for the 4 Leaf Clover shampoo and conditioner too. Unfortunately, those products just didn't work out well for me. It may be the line, or it may just simply be my hair. Try out the products for yourself and let  me know how they work out for you!

-FASHMIRA