After a brief hiatus (in which at one point my husband had to come home for lunch from work because I was crying so hard he couldn’t understand what I was saying, because I was SURE I got a D in my math class, and I couldn’t take that class anymore, and it turns out I got a C and cam move on.) I am back with a product review for you.

I bought the Cantu Shea Butter from the weird hair place around the corner from my house. It is ran by a family. I once went in there asking if they had the crackle polishes. The woman told me no, and asked me why I would want that, as it is ugly and unkempt! I just kind of goggled at her and left. Their nail polish looks old and scary for the most part, so I guess it is a good thing they didn’t have it.

Anyway, I heard of Cantu ever since I had gone natural. I always wanted to try it, but I never really saw it when I was out and about. It wasn’t something that I sought out either. However, when I was buying flower hair accessories in the local hair shop, I saw the leave in conditioning repair cream for $4.99 and decided to pick it up.

The front of the product says the following:

stops and mends hair breakage

leaves hair soft, shiny, and manageable

formulated for severely damaged, dry, or coarse hair

Here is the first issue I have with the product; The grammar on the front of the product. There are no capital letters in the previous statements, no periods, however, we have commas. Just looking at the statements drive me batty. Meh.

The product gives you three sets of directions based on what you wanted to do with it. You could use it for daily styling, a leave in treatment, or for frizz free hair. I used it as a daily treatment for the better part of a month

As you can see, I used about half of the jar. The first thing you notice when you open up the Cantu leave in conditioner is the smell. Oh man! It smells like fruit punch. I had Jeff do a sniff test, and he enjoyed the smell too.  It is a water based leave in conditioner, so it is kind of runny. I liked the fact that it seemed to revive my hair. It made it moist so that I could style it however I chose. A lot of times in the morning, I would put this on my hair and add a little of my Belle Butters and go. When I did two strand twists at night, I would slather this on, and add Belle Butters on top of it, twist my hair and cover it. In the morning it would still be slightly damp and pliable, so I would put it in a poof and go.

After a little bit, I noticed a slight problem. You see, when I do a twist out, just using Belle Butters, My twist outs can last about a week. They get bigger and bigger, and they are fully moisturized. With the Cantu stuff, It would get bigger, but my hair was incredibly dry after two days. The ends of my hair would look crispy and frizzy. It was not cute. When my hair would get like that, nothing could revive it. I would have to co-wash and start over again.

So yes, I don’t think Cantu Shea Butter leave in conditioning repair cream is right for me. It took styles that normally last up to 5-7 days, and made them last only 2-3. It made my hair feel dried out and crispy. I wouldn’t recommend this product.

Have you tried anything by Cantu? What were your results?