Many of-the-shelf shampoos and conditioners contain harmful ingredients that strip away your hairs natural oils causing frizz and breakages. Curly hair products contain heavy ingredients, which are perfect for thick curls, yet weigh wavy hair down. That's why the Merwave kit has been formulated for wavy hair. The kit contains five lightweight, healthy products, to transform your hair into soft, defined beach worthy waves. Perfect if you want to embrace your natural hair texture and achieve that gorgeous effortless look.
merwave.co.uk
Pros
- Made my curls more defined
- Easy process once you get used to it
- Can use the whole kit, or shampoo/conditioner seperately if in a rush
- Hair felt healthier
Cons
- Hair's quite knotty after sleeping
- Can air dry, but really it requires purchase of a diffuser for hairdryer
- Cleanse shampoo: Contains Jojoba oil, avocado extract and quaternary polymers. Vitamin and mineral rich ingredients that deeply cleans, revitalises, soothes and nourishes your hair.
- Repair conditioner: Packed with hydrating ingredients such as Glycerin and Jojoba oil. Which when blended deeply nourishes and moisturises your hair. This hydration hit detangles your hair before holding onto the vital moisture needed to prevent your hair from frizzing and breaking.
- Feed treatment: Hair is made up of 90% protein. Over time your protein structure will deteriorate causing weakness and breakages. No.3 is a leave in treatment that feeds your hair with the vital nutrients and proteins required to stay elastic, strong and healthy.
- Cast foam: A lightweight, non-sticky foam that locks our waves into a cast, without weighing them down.
- Protect gel: Strong hold gels are required to hold our gorgeous waves in place throughout the entire day. This gel is lightweight enough not to weigh our waves down, yet strong enough to maintain a soft hold that will clump your waves together for longer.
Testing the Merwave Wavy Hair Kit
I’ve always had a bit of a wave to my hair, although not a distinct wave or curl and I’ve always found it a bit of a beast to tame thanks to frizz and it being very thick. I was excited to try out Merwave as I’d seen their before and after videos on social media.
The kit arrives in a nice box, which I've kept to store steps 3-5 in as I don't keep them in the shower. I like the packaging and the colours used - the colour coding makes it easier to tell which to use when, you get used to the order! All of the products were quite easy to dispense, especially the cast foam. I actually think the other bottles would benefit from having some sort of pump dispenser as well. This would really help with knowing how much of the product to use too.
The five step process seems like a lot at first but once I’d got into the swing of it, it doesn’t actually take that much longer than using shampoo and conditioner as normal. They say on the website that it's a 15 minute at home process, and that's probably about right, it didn't feel like it took too much time out of my usual routine. The smell of the products was a bit chemically, not unpleasant but not that strong of anything fragrant either.
The process took a bit of trial and error, the first time seemed to work really well, I found I needed to towel dry my hair a bit first before doing steps 3-5. My hair seemed to respond especially well to step 3, the feed treatment. You don’t have to put it on every time, there's a quick hair protein test explained below to see if your hair needs more protein. My hair definitely felt healthier after using it though and I think it looked bouncier too.
Shop this product
The Merwave website is great actually, the instructions are really clear, the videos on site are helpful. I'd definitely recommend having a read and a watch before trying it out for the first time.
You can see from the before and after, this was the first time I used Merwave and there was an immediate change - before (on the left) my hair is much straighter with a bit of a flick at the ends, and after using (on the right) it created bouncier, better defined waves and gave my hair much more texture.
There were a few things I did struggle with, and it could be because of my hair type, but for the first day just after it had been washed, the waves looked great. However, after sleeping on my hair after using Merwave, my hair turned into a knotty mess at the back and there's no way to comb it out without completely ruining the waves. As mentioned my hair is very thick so other hair types might not have the same experience as me. I tried combing my hair while wet and the conditioner was in to try to counteract this. Merwave do recommend trying a silk pillowcase so maybe I need to give that a go. It meant that I have to plan when I want to use the kit, so I know the lovely waves will look their best.
I also had to let my hair air dry as I don't own a diffuser, and your hair is still quite wet after using the kit so I got lots of tops with damp shoulders! The website also mentions 'scrunching out the crunch' once your hair is dry, but I never really had a crunch - perhaps this was because I air dried, I'm not sure.
Shop this product
Final thoughts
I'd definitely say this is worth giving a go if you have wavy hair. It did work for my hair, but I think I'd need to make a few additional purchases to make the most of this product. The information on the website is fantastic and really clear, the product definitely does what it says its going to do, but I'm still figuring out how to make the waves last.
Also, figuring out the right amount to use depending on length of hair etc would be much easier with a pump dispenser.