I Did the Pantene 14 Day Challenge

This past April, just a couple weeks shy of my birthday, I decided to take my hair back to my darker roots after years of being bleach blonde. I loved being blonde -- it was fun, fresh, and brought out my personality in a way I never really expected my hair to do. But after years of stressing my tresses with peroxide and way-too-frequent heat styling, I felt like I needed to switch things up - both out of style fatigue and a real need to give my hair a break and work on bringing it back to life. So, with that, I went to my trusted stylists (Holland and Nick) and made the decision to do a complete hair-180 and go dark and cut a blunt fringe for the first time since childhood. I loved the change -- but had one little problem; none of my go-to shampoos or conditioners seemed to be cutting it anymore. Even though my hair was theoretically on the road to getting "healthier" - it felt brittle, it would get greasy quickly, and for the first time, felt challenging to style. Because hair is such a source of strength and confidence for me, it would really affect me when I was having a bad hair day. I even griped about this on Instagram Stories a couple months ago and mined all the feedback and suggestions in search of The One!Then, a few weeks ago, Pantene approached me with an interesting proposition: to try out Pantene Repair & Protect Shampoo and Conditioner for 14-days. I figured, why not?! If it didn't work out for me, I haven't lost anything because I was already feeling disappointed and underwhelmed by all the different things I was trying, and if it worked - then I'd finally have found a solution to my hair gripes. The Repair & Protect Collection is specifically made for colored hair that feels the heat (hello, major hand raise there). I'm constantly heat styling my hair for shoots, business presentations, and events, and am dying it every couple of months to maintain the color and tone. The Repair & Protect Conditioner also works as a deep conditioner which allows the pro-vitamin B5s to fully penetrate the hair, providing extra hydration and moisture, which my hair desperately needed (and for really damaged hair, there's also a 3-Minute Miracle Mask, which TBH, I wish I knew about when I was still blonde!) The whole collection is color safe and is one of the best shampoos for damaged hair - so I was excited to put it to the test.Day 1, my hair immediately felt softer and silkier -- truly. I styled it myself to go to the VC Polo Classic and couldn't believe how shiny my hair looked in photos. I spent all day running my fingers through my locks. A couple of days later when I went into the office, Gabi commented on how good my hair looked and smelled, and I was excited to share that it was the new Pantene collection I was using. By Day 7, I was already convinced. My hair was feeling moisturized, it looked luminous and dimensional, my scalp was feeling great, and if I styled it after washing in the AM, it was still looking fab by the PM. The realest test, though, was when I went to visit Nick again towards the end of last week for a quick bang trim - and he immediately noted how radiant and healthy my hair looked. Then, as he started to trim it, he commented on how it felt and that my hair smelled like a "basket of freshly picked fruit," (I had to quote this exactly because, well, it was brilliant). For the stylist who I've been seeing for years, and through many hair periods (from long extensions to bleach blonde to pink to blonde again) to comment on the visible health on my hair was major. Finally, Day 14, I was on set for a photoshoot and could not get over how glossy my hair looked. Bad hair days, be gone. This 14 Day Challenge just might have been the thing to find my totally-wallet-friendly holy grail. I'm in for the long haul, and I'm pretty sure I'll be using the Pantene Repair & Protect Collection for the foreseeable future.

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This post is sponsored by Pantene.All content and opinions are my own.