Let’s face it, we all want Jennifer Aniston-level hair. From “The Rachel” ’do of yore to today’s tousled and impeccably highlighted mane, the actress has been setting the hair standard for decades, perpetually churning out looks that are simultaneously effortless and perfectly imperfect.
Now the masses are two steps closer to achieving that benchmark, thanks to Aniston’s hair care line LolaVie finally (finally!) dropping a shampoo and conditioner.
What’s most intriguing about LolaVie’s trajectory is that the company has done the opposite of most brands out there, launching just three products in its first year. Unrushed and unbothered by pressure to race new products to market, Aniston instead has opted to focus on innovation and perfecting each rollout’s all-natural formulations. She’s just now debuting the shampoo and conditioner — typically a hair care line’s staples that drop first — a full year after the brand debuted.
“Sure, shampoo and conditioner feels like the easiest and most obvious product to launch with, but we also wanted to get those right, because there are so many shampoos and conditioners out there,” Aniston told CNN Underscored in a recent Zoom interview. “For me, my biggest issue was tangling — my hair can get kind of nasty and hard to brush through when it’s wet — so I’ve always been in the market for a great detangler and that just happened to be the product that LolaVie perfected first.”
(Great is an understatement — read our review to learn how that hero product saved my relationship with my four-year-old daughter, who prior to the Glossing Detangler, would sob nightly as I combed through her bird’s nest of tangles.)
Just in time for LolaVie’s one-year anniversary, the Restorative Shampoo and Restorative Conditioner are available directly to consumers today on LolaVie.com, alongside the brand’s Glossing Detangler, Perfecting Leave-In and Lightweight Hair Oil — and Aniston has no plans to offer the products anywhere else. “We have such a great relationship with our consumers, we love having a direct line to [them] — they give their reviews and we, our team, we hear it and we put that thought into the next product that’s coming up,” she said.
Lucky for me, I got a sneak peek of the latest duo and have been testing them out for a week. Here’s what I thought.
What we liked about it
First things first, let’s discuss that packaging. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, LolaVie has the most glamorous aesthetic — contained in chic, black-and-white, rectangular-shaped vessels, all of the products look like they belong in Aniston’s glass-and-marble bathroom in Beverly Hills. Which is to say they’re fancy, but minimalist, too. And that’s no accident.
“There are so many levels of creating this product, from what’s inside the bottles, but then also figuring out the bottles themselves and the shapes and the size,” said Aniston. “And you know, just having books upon books of different ideas and inspiration pages and old photographs from the sixties and seventies that were very iconic to me. But yet, we also wanted a very simple and streamlined look, too — ‘less is more’ was definitely what we kept landing on. Something that would look beautiful in your shower and isn’t busy.”
Next up: the goods. Packed (almost) to the brim with plant-based ingredients (the shampoo is 96% naturally derived, the conditioner is 99%), both products work not only to repair existing damage, but also to protect from future damage by tapping into everything from avocados and peas to rice, coffee, grapes, chickpeas, acai and more.
And surprisingly enough, surfacing these backyard ingredients is Aniston’s favorite part of the process. “We have so much fun, it’s kind of an adventure — you know, how can we get more slip in the conditioner? Let’s try coconut so we don’t have unhealthy silicone!” she joked. “There’s all sorts of new technologies that are going into the products. It’s the fun science side of all of it, combining nature and science in these products.”
I used both the shampoo and conditioner in tandem three times over the course of a week. Like their other LolaVie companions, both smelled delicious — also not an accident, as Aniston tested the scents vigorously among her female and male friends to ensure their aromas were more spa-like, less perfume-y. During each of my uses, the shampoo doled out a healthy, scalp-tingling lather that I thoroughly enjoyed, while the conditioner had a slip that immediately tamed, hydrated and even detangled my hair.
After showering, I followed up with the Glossing Detangler and the Perfect Leave-In, air-dried my hair for 20 to 30 minutes and then blow dried. The results were lovely — lots of shine, hyped-up volume and seemingly much less frizz and flyaways than usual. After a long summer of pool- and beach-hopping, my hair is currently much drier than normal, and adding the shampoo and conditioning duo to my product lineup definitely improved the luster and boosted the overall appearance of my hair.
My hair also stayed cleaner longer. Typically I’m reaching for the dry shampoo 36 to 48 hours after showering, but after LolaVie I went three full days with little to no grease and my hair was still bouncy.
What we didn’t like about it
Honestly? Not much. If I had to pick something I guess I’d say the price. While it’s comparable to other luxury shampoos and conditioners, the $29 price tag for each — that’s $58 for both— means that these aren’t available to the masses. And that bums me out! Because I want everyone to be able to access this level of high-quality hair care (not to mention the sleek bottles) without having to break the bank.
Bottom line
I love me a fancy product, but it has to deliver if it’s going to be taking up precious real estate in my shower. And I found the LolaVie Restorative Shampoo and Conditioner duo do just that. They produced tangible results, not only while I was washing and conditioning, but also in the days afterwards, and they look great on your countertop when not in use. While they might not give you Aniston’s magical head of hair, they will certainly upgrade your strands’ current status.
