Ask anyone who knows me, and they will confirm that I am perhaps the laziest beauty director the world has ever seen. This is a truth most evident when it comes to my hair routine. The idea of washing and styling my hair every day fills me with total dread. I admire my beauty-editor colleagues with envy as they walk into rooms with hair full of shine, bounce and gloss, but the truth is, no amount of jealousy could ever make me willingly stand in the shower for 15 minutes with a hair mask on or attempt to give myself an at-home blowdry. It is simply not my idea of a good time.
As this approach to hair styling would not be so bad if I were self-assured and confident enough in my hair's general appearance not to care, but I do care—a lot. You see, my hair is naturally fine and flat. Volume is not in its vocabulary. On top of that, it has experienced over a decade of bleach appointments, matting and knotting (that I graciously choose to hack out with a hairbrush once a day), and then there's the fact that I refuse to part with my beautifully chic but undeniably hair-damaging linen pillowcases. The result? Limp, lifeless, split and broken strands.
And whilst I know there are incredible hair products and treatments out there that could help better my hair woes, their laborious application processes mean nothing has ever really stuck, until now. Introducing the all-new Olaplex No.3 Plus Complete Repair Treatment.
I'd be a fool for saying I didn't already know just how good Olaplex products are. The brand single-handedly created the bond-repair category, and the original No.3 Bond Perfector led the way. Whilst I have long used Olaplex shampoo, conditioner, serums and hair oils in my routine, I'll put my hands up and admit that I wasn't the world's biggest user of the iconic No.3. Why? Because despite the fact it was, hands down, the brand's most efficacious, results-driven, transformative at-home product, I was never going to commit to using it given its 15-minute pre-shampoo wait time.
But now, the new No.3 Plus Complete Repair Treatment promises to deliver all of the same bond-restoring, strengthening and softening benefits of the original, all in just three minutes. So, naturally, as soon as I found out this product was launching last autumn, I wanted to try it. Then, two months ago, a nondescript, unbranded bottle arrived on my desk with nothing but a label that read: "Olaplex TOP SECRET". Since then, I have used No.3 Plus every single week, and the results? Well, they speak for themselves. Here's what to know...
Olaplex is a brand famed for its science, and you can take it from me: without its technology setting the bar, no other bond-repair product would exist. The highly secretive know-how behind the patented Olaplex Bond Building Technology has long proven the gold standard of damage repair. And now, in the new No.3 Plus formula, that top-secret patented ingredient features a new complex, something the brand is calling its Damage Defense Cationic Complex.
In layman's terms, this ingredient works to repair all three of the bonds that make up our hair's structure: disulfide bonds, salt bonds and hydrogen bonds. This works to help repair existing damage (thus preventing risk of irreparable breakage and splitting) and strengthen the hair in a way that better protects it against future damage, too. The big claims? Olaplex No.3 Plus is clinically proven to deliver three times stronger, three times softer hair, and it reverses hair damage in just one use.
Beyond the science, the thing that makes No.3 Plus so much better than anything else I have tried is the fact that it works in just three minutes. I strongly believe the best beauty products are the ones you use consistently, and that's exactly why No.3 Plus is such a bigger winner for me—using it adds absolutely no time to my routine.
I simply get in the shower, wet my hair, apply No.3 Plus from mid-lengths to ends (although, I'm going to be honest here and admit that because the breakage is so bad around my hairline, lately, I've been slathering it all over), leave it on for three minutes whilst I do the rest of my shower routine, rinse, shampoo and condition. (Should you be interested, I use Olaplex No.4 Fine Bond Maintenance Shampoo and No.5 Fine Bond Maintenance Conditioner to help strengthen my fine, fragile hair without weighing it down.)
Then, after drying with a hair-dryer (which I should add, I always do, as my hair is too fragile to leave wet and air-dry), I apply a drop or two of Olaplex No.7 Bonding Oil to the very ends for a hit of extra lightweight nourishment. It really is that simple.
Truthfully, I don't feel like I have to say too much here, because the results speak for themselves. I'm not exaggerating when I say that five of my Who What Wear UK colleagues have complimented my hair this past week alone. I know this because I actually made a physical tally in my notebook every time someone said something—it really is that rare for me to receive compliments on my hair.
Immediately after I apply No.3 Plus, my hair is instantly smoother. So much so that I can run my fingers through it in the shower before I put the shampoo in. The next big result comes once I'm out, in that my hair brush glides through my long strands with unparalleled ease (I'm usually facing dry matts at this stage).
However, the real magic is visible as soon as my hair is dry. The shine is next-level, which coincidentally also makes my colour look fresher. It's so soft that I have to remind myself constantly to stop touching it throughout the day. There's more lift in the roots and movement in the lengths. More than anything, though, it is undeniably stronger. The breakage around my hairline and throughout my parting is growing back stronger and longer, and I'm not constantly seeing snapped-off clumps of hair when I brush it at the end of the day.
Olaplex No.3 Plus has truly changed my hair game forever.
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