K18 hair mask review: Does it actually work?
K18 hair mask review: Does it actually work?
K18 leave-in molecular repair mask has been touted as the holy grail of bond builders, repairing your hair from the inside out. But does it work?
Unlike many other bond builders on the market that apparently repair the outside of each strand, the K18 leave-in mask is supposed to be best for internal hair care. Basically, it’s meant to reach right through to the keratin bonds and heal them, giving you healthier and more resilient hair.
I was after a bond repair product because I have curly hair tangles very easily and I wanted to know if the issue stemmed from inside the hair strand. I read a lot of positive reviews, mostly from people with bleached hair and visible damage. I was spending about half an hour detangling my hair with conditioner every wash day and I was pretty desperate to fix that problem (here’s how I actually fixed the problem).
According to the K18 hair product website, your hair will be ‘like new’. It’s also meant to be for all hair types and works its magic in just four minutes.
I was sceptical, but I love a popular product and a bold claim so I decided to give it a crack. Here’s what happened.
K18 hair mask review
The first thing I noticed about K18 bond repair mask was how expensive it was, particularly when I didn’t know if it would work or not. I bought a 5ml sample size tube which still costs about AU$16, but I figured it was better than buying a full-price 50ml bottle for $120. Since I only had a small amount, I didn’t have much to experiment with so I followed the instructions carefully.
According to the instructions, you’re supposed to wash your hair with shampoo but don’t condition it. Towel dry hair until it’s damp and rake one pump of the K18 treatment through your hair, adding more as needed, working from the roots to the ends. Let it sit for four minutes, style hair as normal.
For someone with curly hair that tangles easily and relies on conditioner alone to detangle, the prospect of not conditioning my hair after shampooing was frightening. Nevertheless, I gritted my teeth and got on with it.
What happened
As expected, my hair was nice and tangled after using shampoo. I briefly tried to detangle with my fingers but gave up quickly, hoping K18 would solve those problems. My anxiety levels increased again as I towel-dried unconditioned and matted hair.
My hair was damp by the time I picked up the tube of K18. There was no drip at all. I squeezed a bit onto my hand and started trying to rake it through. The product is white, thick and feels a lot like a conditioning mask to touch. Sadly, it did not behave like a conditioner.
I immediately started applying it to the ends of my hair, where the largest knots were, slowly trying to detangle with my fingers while trying to imagine the shiny, lush locks I’d have once this painful process was over. I ended up using a tangle teaser to get them out properly, before working the rest of the product up the strand.
I’m not going to lie, it was tough. The product has very little slip, which essentially means it won’t properly detangle hair. This process took quite a long time. I did eventually manage to get a brush through it, making sure each strand was coated. My damp hair felt brittle with the product in it, but I hoped that would fade away as it dried.
By the time I was done, I’d used most of the 5ml tube. I didn’t use any other product and left it to air dry.
The result
I would actually call this a disaster.
My hair felt like hay. It was crisp, brittle and flat. There was no curl definition at all—there was barely a wave. My hair hated the lack of conditioner and it really hated being detangled with virtually no assistance from a product with high slippage.
Sometimes, when my hair becomes brittle after using a high-protein treatment, it softens throughout the day. I wondered if that would happen with K18. It did not. Nor did it soften the next day. By day three, it was matted and looked terrible and I had to wash it again. I used conditioner this time, without K18, and everything went back to normal.
Usually, my hair becomes brittle when I use a product with too much protein. I did some research and found K18 is not a protein treatment. It has no protein at all, so that can’t have been the problem.
I noticed no improvement in my hair after using K18.
The second attempt
After the disaster, I left the tube of K18 in the bathroom and didn’t look at it again for months. It wasn’t until I went to the hairdresser that I decided to give it another go.
The hairdresser used K18 on my hair, but he applied it after conditioner and on very wet hair. I asked why he did that because the packet explicitly says to use K18 on unconditioned hair. He confirmed you are technically only supposed to use it on unconditioned hair, but he also said it doesn’t really matter—the product works whether you condition it or not, but it might be a bit less effective if you’ve conditioned and rinsed your hair. When he was done cutting my hair, it did feel amazing. There was no dryness at all, like there was after my own attempt with K18.
I was floored and decided to give it another go.
I washed my hair, conditioned and detangled, as normal. This time, I didn’t towel dry my hair. I applied K18 pretty soon after getting out of the shower. It was easy to apply this time and I brushed it from root to end with ease. I let it drip dry. My hair felt great. I decided to give it a proper go with a full-size bottle.
Over the following months, I used K18 every five to six washes, as stated on the packet. At the start, it was hard to tell if my hair only felt good because of the conditioner, rather than because the K18 was repairing my hair. After a few months of use, I was convinced that was the case. The last few times I used it after rinsing out the conditioner, my hair started feeling brittle again.
It continued to feel brittle until I stopped using K18.
The verdict
I still use K18 about once every six months, largely to use up the rest of the bottle. If I use it more frequently than that, my hair feels brittle all over again.
According to the K18 website, brittle hair after use can mean there’s product buildup on the hair which stops the K18 from penetrating the strand. To fix that problem, they recommend using the K18 clarifying shampoo…because of course they do. I used a sulphate-heavy shampoo to remove buildup and it made no difference.
I know this product works for a lot of people, and I was pretty sad that it didn’t work for me. Of course, that doesn’t mean it won’t work for you. As I mentioned, people with bleached and dye-damaged hair have reported huge success with K18. The product clearly works, but like a lot of things, it’s highly dependent on the individual.
