Ojon Damage Reverse Restorative Hair Treatment Review

Everyone wants gorgeous hair, right? Silky, smooth, shiny, bouncy-n-behavin' hair. Sadly, most of us don't have it naturally. For most of us, it takes a village to get our hair whipped into shape, and by village I mean chemicals, heat, and God-knows-what products. So our hair, which started out only marginally acceptable in the first place, ends up completely fried. Enter conditioning treatments, which promise to restore it to it's original (or better) state. Ojon makes such a miracle product in the form of the Damage Reverse Restorative Hair Treatment. But is it a true miracle worker? Hmmm....

All Ojon products are made with Ojon Oil, which has a lipid composition similar to that of our own hair. According to the company's literature, by using the Restorative Hair Treatment, your hair will be restored to a soft, shiny, healthy-looking state. It's specifically formulated for extremely dry and damaged hair. 

Now, first of all, let me tell you about the hell I put my hair through. To start, it's fine and thin and straight, but not totally straight. Therefore, I dry it and then end up ironing the living daylights out of it to smooth it down each day and prevent little flyaways. If that wasn't bad enough, I also color it each month because I'm starting to get those pesky little gray hairs. I use a very gentle color, but still...

All this abuse has left me with a monster of a problem. My hair has become brittle and dull and breaks easily. It's extremely dry on the ends, but since it's so fine it looks oily very quickly, so I have to wash it each day. In short..it's a disaster. 

Now, I'd head about Ojon for quite some time, but between the price and the mixed reviews, I hadn't tried it. I finally bit the bullet a few weeks ago because I just couldn't handle my hair any more. I figured this would be a last-ditch effort to save it before I start contemplating the dreaded scissors. So, here's my experience: 

First of all, Ojon Restorative Hair Treatment is very thick. It almost looks waxy in the jar: 

It comes with a little spatula to help scrape some out of it and into your hands. There's also a "ritual" (yes, that's what they call it in the directions) that goes as follows: 

1. Scoop 1-1.5 tsp into palm of hand. 
2. Warm by rubbing hands until it transforms into an oil. 
3. Distribute evenly throughout hair and scalp. 
4. Continue steps 1-3 until hair is thoroughly saturated. 

Okay, now, here's my first issue with all of this. First of all, that's not a "ritual," it's pretty much how you would apply any oil-based product to your hair. Trying to make it sound more mysterious by calling it a ritual is just silly. But whatever. 

Second, it takes a lot of product to get your hair "saturated" from a dry state. I have hardly any hair at all and it still took several passes before I felt my hair was adequately covered. Someone with thick, long hair (like my daughters) would be lucky to get more than 2-3 uses out of this jar. Given the price ($33), you would almost be better off just paying for an in-salon treatment. 

Third, there's the scent. Now, I had read (and read, and read, and read) about the smoky smell of this treatment. Complaints ranged from "smells like a stale cigarette" to "ashtray on my head" to "cigars". However, before you think me mad for even trying it, I also read a fair amount of reviews stating that the smell was more like chocolate or cocoa or shea butter, all of which I like. So I was willing to gamble. 

In my opinion, Ojon Hair Restorative Treatment smells like a wood-burning stove with a hint of chocolate. Not as bad as a cigarette, cigar, or ashtray. However, I don't particularly want my head to smell like burning wood, either. Or burning leaves, or any of the other scents of Fall. I want my head to smell clean, fresh, flowery or fruity. And the scent lingers, so even if you like it, you better really LOVE it, because it doesn't come out with the first wash. Oh, no. It lingers for at least a day. So there's no option to pamper your hair by skipping a wash the next day. Trust me, you WILL be scrubbing your head again the next day. 

So, with all of this, does the stuff actually work? Well, sort of. For my hair, it did a great job at moisturizing and repairing my fried ends and giving my hair a sheen it hasn't had in quite a while. From about my neck down, my hair looked fantastic after I used the Ojon. Unfortunately, from the neck up I looked like a limp, greasy mess. It took another day of scrubbing to fully remove all of the oily residue...which sort of defeated the purpose of doing a heavy-duty repair treatment. By the time  I finally got everything out of my hair, the ends were pretty much back to their original state. 

Bottom Line: This treatment may be great for thicker, coarser hair, or even ethnic hair types. Sadly, for fine hair, it's a no-go. The fragrance, although not as horrible as I had been led to believe, still isn't something I want lingering in my hair for a few days at a time. Proceed with caution.