With the recent launch of her Target-exclusive hair care line, Blake Brown, Blake Lively has become the latest to enter the ever-growing world of celebrity-founded beauty brands. Her eight-product line features daily shampoos, hair masks, a mousse, dry shampoo and leave-in spray, all of which sold out almost instantly on the Blake Brown site and in Target stores.
Luckily, we got our hands on a few of the Blake Brown essentials and spent the last two weeks washing, rinsing and repeating to find out if they’re truly worth the hype.
Designed to deliver daily cleansing and moisture to your hair, this Wild Nectar Santal shampoo is one of two shampoos in the Blake Brown line. It’s formulated with notes of bergamot, fig, cardamom and sandalwood to keep hair perfumed with a warm, woody scent between washes.
You’ll find no conditioners in the Blake Brown line. Instead, choose from one of two hair masks to replace your regular conditioner. This mask is made to strengthen and smooth hair, while adding shine and the scent of vanilla, dry ambers and vetiver.
For use on damp or dry hair, this leave-in spray promises to help combat tangles and frizz, while smoothing, softening, shining and defining your hair’s texture. And all with an earthy bergamot scent too.
What we liked
Everything smells very good
As soon as Blake Brown dropped, one thing became very clear — this hair care is all about scent. The smell is so integral to the line that the back of every product includes distinct fragrance notes, followed by the line “because your hair is your most memorable scent.” And, I’ll hand it to Blake on this one — the brand delivers on its fragrance promises. All the products in the line have a similarly warm and woody smell underlined by base notes of things like sandalwood, bergamot, Tonka, vanilla and cardamom.
Using them feels a bit like an aromatherapy experience with the earthy, mellow scents getting amplified by the steam of the shower. These scents are right in line with what I like to wear when it comes to fragrance, but I appreciated that they weren’t overpowering enough to badly mix with any other products or fragrances I put on. Once my hair dried, the scent was pretty subtle and only noticeable if my hair was right under my nose. However, I did notice that even after sweaty workouts, multiple swims in a chlorine pool and throwing heat, hairspray and other serums on my head, the Blake Brown fragrance still lingered in my hair long after I had washed it.
The shampoos lather well and the hair masks are creamy
Both the shampoo formulas delivered a nice lather in the shower, letting me get down to the scalp and through my ends easily. Similarly, both hair masks have a creamy formula that’s thick enough to scoop out a decent-sized glob with your fingers while still effortlessly spreading and combing through the hair.
You may notice there that I said “hair mask” and not “conditioner”, and that’s because the Blake Brown line doesn’t have any. Instead, you’re instructed to use the masks in place of a conditioner, leaving it on for two to five minutes before rinsing out. During my testing, I found that for all intents and purposes, these masks are no different and no more special than a regular conditioner would have been. I think the exclusion of a traditional conditioner is meant to make the Blake Brown line stand out from others on the market.
My favorite product from the group I tested was the All-In-Wonder Leave-in Potion, which claims to be a miracle product that can detangle, soften, defrizz, prime, perfume and define hair. I didn’t find that it performed wonders for styling my hair, like when I used it as a primer before blow-drying or air-wrapping my hair, but when used on damp hair and left to air dry immediately following a wash, my hair did feel softer and less tangled than when I went without it. And of course, just like the other products, it has a warm bergamot woods scent that’s nice to get a whiff of.
What we didn’t like
The packaging is frustrating to use
Despite how nice the products smell, Lively’s first foray into beauty is not without fault.
The geometric bottles look cool at first, but they’re a bit of a pain to use. I had to twist the caps completely off the containers to use both the shampoos and hair masks. I know that sounds like a very trivial complaint, but it meant that by the time I was ready to squeeze or scoop out the product, there was nowhere to put it since my hands were already holding either the cap or the bottle.
This then led to an awkward shower shuffle of finding a place to set the bottles down while I lathered, and then repeating the whole dance in reverse to get the cap back on. It’s especially awkward on the hair mask containers where the lids are thinner, harder to grab and where the product has to be manually scooped out.
Almost every time I used these products, I would end up dropping or fumbling the caps which made for a more frustrating in-shower experience that I would have preferred to do without, even if it means sacrificing some aesthetic for more function. The bottles also seemed to take up a lot of real estate in my shower. One shampoo bottle and hair mask barely fit onto the corner shelf of my tub. You can stack them nicely, but that will lead you back to the awkward dance of shuffling around one bottle to reach the other.
Overall performance was just okay
As far as the actual performance of the line goes, I felt it was just okay. My hair feels clean and smells nice, sure, but as far as feeling more strengthened or nourished, I wouldn’t say the shampoos or hair masks made a big difference. Both the nourishing and strengthening shampoo left my hair and scalp feeling clean and free from any product build-up, but they give you a squeaky clean scalp and almost dried-out hair. I’m used to this kind of sensation when I use more intense clarifying shampoos, but it’s not what I want from a shampoo I use daily. I always felt like I had to follow up with the hair mask after each wash to rehydrate and bring some moisture back to my strands. The only noticeable difference between Blake Brown’s nourishing and strengthening formulas, as far as I can tell, is the scent. I didn’t notice that my hair looked any healthier, shinier or felt any softer or stronger when I used one line more than the other.
Admittedly, when I look back at the before and after pictures, my hair does look smoother, less frizzy and shinier after using the products. Granted my hair had just been freshly washed in the after photos and was coming off a day of heavy heat styling in the before. Day to day though, I didn’t notice big changes in the way my hair felt, moved or performed when I styled it as I normally do.
The Blake Brown products surely helped a bit to improve the look of my hair over the two weeks of use, but they didn’t blow me away to where I would consider switching to them full time. My long, straight hair is also generally pretty unfussy, so I imagine that if the performance is just okay on my hair type, those with curlier, more textured and more moisture-deprived hair might see even less impressive results.
The price is high for the amount of product
Another cause for pause is the price of the line. For $19, you do get 14 fluid ounces of shampoo, which is a pretty generous amount, but still more expensive than other drugstore shampoos that range from $8 to $14 for around the same amount of product. At $20 for the 8-ounce hair masks and $19 for the 6-ounce potion, you get even less product per dollar.
With higher-end shampoos and conditioners starting around $30, Blake Brown seems to be trying to occupy that middle ground between drugstore and beauty store prices. Unfortunately, I can’t say the line is breaking new ground with formulas and results we’ve never seen before, so you’re better off saving your money and sticking with drugstore brands, or splurging a little more on hair care that can do more than just clean and perfume your head.
Bottom line
If your top priority with hair care is having clean, great-smelling hair then Blake Brown might be the line for you. The trendy, warm and woody scents left my hair nicely perfumed and my scalp clean, but the buck tended to stop there. I can’t say it outperformed my regular drugstore shampoo or conditioner or left me with noticeably shinier, healthier hair that was worth fawning over.?For those who are still eager to try the line for themselves, I’d recommend grabbing the Miracle Leave-In Potion, which can slot easily into any kind of hair care routine and showcases two things that the entire line does pretty well — softening and perfuming hair.
If you have hair that’s at all textured or tend to prefer products formulated for intense hydration and repair, you’re probably good to skip this line and look into some more restorative hair care options.
