Garnier Fructis Triple Nutrition – A Review

In A Nutshell –

On it’s own, the Garnier line works well. With a few additional products in your lineup, though, this can be your hair styling dream team (of sorts).

The Long Story-

I came upon the Garnier Fructis Triple Nutrition line a few months ago, during a trip to Walmart. There was a sale on the shampoo, conditioner, and 3 Minute Undo cream…3 for $10! At such a deal, I couldn’t bare to pass them up.

Right after I bought the line, I went no-poo for a month and a half, during which time I almost tossed the shampoo. Good sense made me keep it, and now after months of sitting in my closet, the Garnier line is back out for Round 2!

By reading the full review, you’ll not only see my thoughts as I was using it, but I’ll also include some of my own go-to tips and techniques for certain steps in washing, conditioning, blowdrying, and straightening your hair.

Here we go!

Step 1: Shampoo

Before I go any further, I want to make something very clear. If you are intending on using the conditioner, PLEASE use the shampoo. I know, shampoos dry your hair out, they’ve got sulfates, and all that good stuff. But unfortunately, the system is made to work in conjunction with one another. They KNOW the sulfates are bad for you, which is why the conditioner works the way it does. If you want to get the best results, you’re gonna have to suck it up and use it.

This is what it looked like post-shampoo and rinse. Ack! I rinsed with lukewarm water. Here’s a secret: all those sulfates in shampoo are activated by warm water. My attempt at neutralizing those effects is to make the water more cold. As you can see, there aren’t many curls in my hair, but the ones that are curled are CURLED. It looks really dry and nasty, but it felt like soft cotton after this step.

Step 2: Condition

Now, I’m used to using creamy conditioners, because my hair needs all the moisture it can get. This conditioner was a bit more runny than I’m used to, but once I started to apply it it felt REALLY good. I left it in for about 5 minutes, which isn’t a lot but I knew I was doing another conditioning step. This step, to me, was simply to further neutralize the shampoo.

These are the curls post-condish. My hair was starting to feel fuller by this stage. The conditioner was pretty soft, and my hair still felt good after rinsing.

Step 3: Reversal Treatment

Not much to say about this one. It’s an interesting conditioner with avocado seeds in it, which makes it a pretty cool conditioning scrub of sorts. It is thicker and creamier than the regular conditioner, so I expected big things.

Nice. My curls have become more defined, and a big fluffier than before. You can actually see that my hair is curly. To be honest, at the time I didn’t feel a huge difference after using the treatment. In fact, I felt like my hair was actually getting rougher, not softer. But, I’ll admit that the change wasn’t huge, and I continued on.

Thus far, the Garnier System is working very well…you can see the curl results for yourself. I would add a little gel and wear my hair just like that. But, if you want to see what it ended up straightening like, continue reading…

Step 4 – Blow Dry

Here, I changed up my arsenal to include my all time favorite products for straightening my hair. For blowdrying, my fav is Redken 02 Satinwear Blow Drying Lotion. I remember it being kind of expensive, since I bought it at a salon, but BOY do I love it for blowdrying!

Holy shit – my hair looks like kinky twists! This is after I applied the product, before I blowdried. As you can see, my curls are now CLEARLY defined and stacking. As an added bonus, my hair felt soft and ready for blowdrying. And for the record – this product doesn’t always do this, so it may have something to do with the Garnier. I would most DEFINITELY stop the process here, gel it up, and leave. But, of course, I didn’t.

Ahh, what heat does to your hair!!! This is what my Remington Ionic blow dryer did to my wonderful curls. *Sigh*

But look at how shiny it is!! It also felt like a dream when I ran my fingers through it. It was puffy, but nonetheless felt great.

Tip: I only blow dry until my hair is dry. I’ve learned that no matter what I do, a blow dryer is NOT going to straighten my curls. And if you have curly hair, you’d be wise to avoid making that mistake. In the end, you’re only going to fry your hair more. That’s why my ends are not straight in the first picture. That’s what the straightener is for. Which reminds me…

Step 5 – Straighten

I’m going to come out and admit that I spent (rather, Jay spent…he’s so awesome) waaayyyyyy too much money on my flat iron. I have the Royale from the mall kiosk. I know, I could have gotten a CHI for cheaper. I also know that my flat iron is AWESOME. And it’s under warranty for 5 years. I’ve already taken it back once, because for the first month or so that I had it, nobody could stop knocking it off the sink to the tile floor :(.

This step is where I incorporate my second go-to, the Tresemme Thermal Protection Spray. YOU NEED A HEAT PROTECTANT FOR YOUR HAIR. I understand that the Tresemme has lots of silicones. Here’s another secret, ladies: if you want straight hair, you need ‘cones. I’m sorry. It’s the cold, hard truth. Your hair will NOT stay straight unless you use them. Plus, protectant spray makes your hair even softer and shinier. So it’s a very good idea to have some in your arsenal.

This is a good way to show how good my flat iron actually is (I’ve sold a complete stranger the flat iron based off of a picture I already had that was very similar to this). As you can see, my hair is SUPER shiny and straight to boot!

Step 6 – The Finisher

Now, I’ve straightened my entire head. My ends are NOT straight yet.

To be fair, my ends haven’t been trimmed since February. Also, for some reason, even when they are trimmed, they never seem to look quite right. And, the bottom of my hair, as I mentioned earlier, is still bleached and very badly damaged. As you can see, though, it doesn’t look horrible at the ends, but they are sticking up. Time to call in:

THE ENFORCER: IC Fantasia Hair Polisher for Color Treated and Chemically Damaged Hair. Again, I know some of you ladies are not huge fans of ‘cones. This is the best working concoction of ‘cones I’ve ever bought, though. It is shiny and smoothing, it makes my hair feel amazing, and it doesn’t weigh it down.

Before I show the end result, this is what it looked like before I even started…

And now…

My hair feels AMAZING. It is shiny, flouncy, soft, fluffy, and moisturized. It’s got healthy volume without being too huge. I LOVE IT.

In Conclusion –

Honestly, if you’re expecting a miracle worker out of the Garnier line, you’ll probably be disappointed. BUT, it does make a difference…and it certainly didn’t hurt my hair. Plus, it’s only $3-4 per bottle, and the bottles are pretty big. AND Garnier smells amazing. If you’ve got ten bucks to use on hair products, I would recommend at least giving it a try. If you don’t like it, there are plenty of people out there who will take the leftover bottles off your hands…me included!

Also – My hair falls really quickly…if you’re a curly, you understand what I mean. For REALLY good results, add a few more drops of the hair polisher and wrap your hair before bed. When you wake up, your hair will have tamed, it will be EVEN softer, and your style will stay much longer.

Hope this helped! As always, comments are welcome. I also accept ideas for new products to try and review, so leave those too.

Ciao, bellas!