Was it Really Necessary to Totally Reinvent Hair Conditioner?

In a word: Yes. Here's why...

Most traditional high street hair conditioners don't work. Realistically, you can't expect them to work: You scrub them in, and then wash them straight out. That's fair enough for shampoo; you're using shampoo merely to wash your hair. But if you're washing out something that should be conditioning your hair, how can it work if it isn't there?

So if they can't logically work, what's actually happening? 

Conditioners contain silicones. The sole purpose of this chemical, is to coat the shafts of your hair in a reflective (almost 'plastic')membrane, which is designed to reflect light. This is what makes your hair look shiny. But it's superficial, and it's not actually contributing to the real health of your hair.

In fact, the opposite is true. That silicone is indiscriminate: As well as coating your hair, it's smothering your scalp too. Both your hair and scalp are membranes and living organisms that need to breathe. And they can't do that, if they're coated in silicones and chemicals.

With medium to long-term use, your scalp gets starved of hydration, becomes drier, and can develop dandruff. That means you'll be returning to the high street for anti-dandruff shampoo to sort out the problems that the conditioner has given you.

Remember, your scalp is the very foundation of your hair: Bad scalp health, leads to bad hair health. So your hair also becomes dry and brittle, and develops split ends and breakages. 

But don't worry. Believe it or not, this all helps. It helps grow the profits of the companies you're buying from. 

We decided this all needed a rethink, so we started with a blank sheet of paper and redesigned hair conditioner (someone had to). 

The very first thing on our wish list, was to develop a conditioner that you massage in, and leave in. The action of massaging in a product gives you some valuable 'you time', and stimulates blood flow to the scalp. Once you've left that product in, it actually has time to do something positive.

Second, it had to be packed with natural ingredients, because our skin and hair care philosophy is centred upon the independent research that up to 60% of what we spread on our skin, gets absorbed into the bloodstream. That's why Gnarly Joe® avoids chemicals. Long term exposure to certain chemicals used in skin care is not good.

Our Hair Conditioning Mask is made with 100% natural ingredients, plant oils and butters, and healthy botanicals. It contains ingredients that are harmonious to our bodies; and that hydrate and nourish. There's no need to wash our conditioner out. In fact, the longer you leave it in, the better it works.

We believed firmly in the efficacy of this product, and after two years of development and testing, we put it into production. Customers loved it, and came back for more. Job done, right?

Not at Gnarly Joe®.

After a few months, Joe got twitchy fingers and wondered whether we could do more to push the product benefits further? His thought was: If we're getting customers to leave this product in, what else could it do whilst it was there? Could we deliver even better value, by making the conditioner do even more tasks, which would save customers money as they wouldn't need to buy additional hair products?

The answer seemed obvious: Add ingredients that would give the product hair-styling properties too. But they had to be natural ingredients to maintain the integrity of our 100% natural mission. So we were off again, on another 2-year mission, to improve a product that customers were already happy with.

It turned out that a careful blend of kaolin clay, beeswax, vegetable oils and rice bran were perfect for delivering natural hair-styling properties, as well as adding texture and shine... and invisible hold too. 

So without diluting the efficacy of the goodness that was already there (Shea Butter, Castor Seed Oil, Avocado Oil, Argan Oil and Jojoba, for example), we managed to turn the humble hair conditioner into an even higher-value 4-in-1 Hair Clay.

Our Natural Leave-In Hair Conditioner now gives the benefits of hair wax, styling and moulding pomades, as well as being a far healthier alternative to Sea Salt Spray (which dries your hair).

And now Joe is really happy with it.

The revamped hair conditionerwas relaunched at the start of 2025, and was also accompanied by a new product; an alternative 4-in-1 hair conditioner, in the form of a Hair Spray with caffeine, to assist with even stronger hair growth. We formulated this product using additional ingredients discovered during the design stage of the revamped Hair Clay.

You can use either the Hair Clay of Hair Spray depending on your preference. Or combine them to get a double-boost of hydration – as well as giving a much stronger hold (but still with a natural and invisible look).

So, was it really necessary to take a hair product that most people use quite happily without much thought, and totally reinvent hair conditioner? We think it was beyond time to do it.

But we've done our bit now. We'll let you be the judge.