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Bullshit Survey Finds Top 3 Supermarket Shampoos

July 11th 2006 02:42
Every mid to upper market shampoo shop I have stepped into has its own army of shop assistants trained to deliver the "supermarket products are crap" speech incredibly convincingly. They are so convincing, that I now have about 50 Litres of overpriced salon products stacked up in my bathroom.

Sometimes I do ponder at the validity of these claims.

A recent survey made it to the news today where consumers were found to prefer cheap supermarket shampoo to expensive salon stuff. They have found the top 3 supermarket shampoos preferred by 500 Choice Magazine home testers who have trialed up to 41 unlabeled shampoos. These are:


1. Frutrience Raspberry and Prink Grapefruit Enriched

Insert Title Here
Sunsilk Frutrience Raspberry and Pink Grapefruit


2. Dove Revitalizing Shampoo

Insert Title Here
Dove Revitalizing Shampoo



3. Garnier Fructis Fortifying Shampoo

Insert Title Here
Garnier Fructis Fortifying Shampoo



These results took me by surprise, as I have tried all of the above shampoos and have found the results ranged from mediocre (Dove) to disastrous (I swore off Garnier for life). Having another read of the report, it turns out that the survey only offered to test on people with "normal" hair and have asked them to rate the shampoo by overall performance, fragrance, and clean-feel performance.

Now, I can see some things wrong with this study:

1. Fragrance is not good for your hair. The reason that fragrance is factored into the study as a measure of performance is ridiculous.

2. The report appears to only factor in the immediate reaction of these consumers, without documenting the long term effects of these products (which has the potential to cause shampoo build-up over time).

3. The uniform measurement benchmarks "overall performance" and "clean-feel performance" are too vague and unreliable. The everyday users tested might all have different expectations and interpretations of these terms. For example, a shampoo which harshly strips your hair of its natural oils might have scored highly in the "clean-feel" category.

4. The testers all trialed the "normal" hair range for these shampoos. This will either imply they all had normal, non-problematic hair, and/or they have trialed a product not suited to their hair type. This will obviously cause a major inconsistency with this survey. In addition, the consumers with hair problems (ie. NOT normal hair) are the ones most likely to purchase and benefit from salon products which target these problems. So a study comparing 'normal' shampoos is unlikely to help them.


As you can see, I am finding it very difficult to take this study seriously. It looks like just another gimmick to me. I mean, there is a reason people keep going back to those salon products: because they work better than Unilever soap.

I am more than happy to try and use cheaper products if they DO end up performing better than the overpriced ones. But until somebody produces a plausible and sufficiently scientific survey to prove it, I'm sticking to my salon babies.




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4 Comments. [ Add A Comment ]

Comment by Cibbuano

July 11th 2006 23:11
and the salons thank you heartily for it!


Comment by Bunbury

July 11th 2006 23:35
After spending a fortune on salon products, it's natural to be in denial is it not?

Comment by Anonymous

July 23rd 2006 04:22
When I heard the results I was suspicious of how they tested the shampoos because I've used the Fruitrience and it did nothing....I also wondered what 'hair types' tested the shampoos.

For me Pantene Pro-V is fabulous! Best shampoo ever.

Comment by Bunbury

August 16th 2006 07:59
Yes I was extremely surprised that Pantene didn't make the list since generally it's best-liked among people who wash hair

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