K18 Shampoo review - Which one to choose?
I have been getting a lot of questions about which K18 shampoo to use and why they don’t have a conditioner?
Today I want to help you to choose which shampoo you should use and when to use them. There are two shampoos from K18, the PH balance and the Detox?
And How to use K18 shampoo with the K18 hair treatment mask.
To understand why K18 launched their product line like this, first we need to understand how the K18 peptide works first.
To put it into a simple term, K18 is hair peptide that is most similar to our human hair keratin bond so it replaces and rebuilds our damaged hair by mimicking the natural hair polypeptide chains, which means it can restore our hair up to 80% its virgin status. If you want to know more how this bioscience work, you can watch my other video on youtube “K18 vs Olaplex”,
But this post is about their new range of shampoos.
K18 launched their first K18 leave-in hair mask in late 2020, and that is one of the best, I mean THE BEST product I have ever used, if you saw my Olaplex vs K18 video, you know our client gave lots of great feedback about K18 hair leave-in masks and how good their hair has improved.
Why did K18 launch these two new shampoos and not have any conditioner to go with it?
Because the secret is still in the hair mask.
After their successfully launch and grown the company to $1.5 billion in 2022, they realised their K18 treatment users may not getting the most benefit from the treatment because often their hair has too much product build up from other products like dry shampoo/toning purple shampoo or other hair conditioner products which contains silicon and blocking the hair cortex.
Which means the K18 peptide can not repair the polypeptide chains in the hair.
Here is how those two shampoo was born so you can use it along the side with the K18 peptide mask.
Next let’s have a look at the two different types of shampoo and which one suits your daily routine?
If you have bleached hair or coloured hair. So if you have any kind of highlighted/balayage/ombre/foilayage hair colour, you shouldn’t wash your hair too often, because your toner will be washed out quickly
To keep your hair colour better, I do recommend using a good quality dry shampoo on the same day you wash your hair to prevent your hair getting oily so you can wash your hair less, I would say try to wash your hair every 3-4 days, if you could stretch out to a week that’s even better.
Next thing as part of your hair colour maintenance at home, you should be using a purple toning condition, especially the one that is custom made and mixed by your hairdresser which could give you the most accurate tone. I would suggest not to use toning shampoo because they often dry out your hair too much, but you can use a toning conditioner booster instead.
>>Evo FAB Pro
Now you understand your basic home hair care for your toner to last better, here how you can ‘use the K18 Hair Shampoo and Leave-in hair mask as part of your routines.
The K18 pH Maintenance shampoo can be used as your daily washing shampoo, which means if you wash your hair every 3 days, you can use that twice a week, it will cleanse and remove dirt and oil without leaving hair feeling dry. Now your hair is well prepared for the K18Peptide molecular repair. Towel dry and apply hair mask as the leave in treatment. 
I would suggest using the K18 detox shampoo every third wash. You would notice it’s black colour and it contains Charcoal Powder that helps to clarify and clear excess buildup, oil+residue on scalp and hair fibres to promote a healthier environment. By removing excess blockage, the hair environment is prepped for the K18Peptide molecular repair to penetrate most effectively.
To sum up the review of K18 hair shampoo and leave-in hair mask, I really like those are a great tool for hairdresser and colourist to produce better result in the salon and also great hair care product for home use as daily routine, not only because their biomimetic hair science works great, also as a company they are really care what not to use as their ingredient. Often we see lots of other brands using heavy oils, silicones or heavy conditioning agents to give you an instant cosmetic feeling, but those are only warping and patching the surface which give you a fake feeling.
People often compare Olaplex vs K18?
Olaplex is all about bond-building but K18 is creating synthetic biology. Using biomimetic science which we see more and more in hair, skin and cosmetics in recent years.
If you want to try it out, we are doing a 20% off combo for the shampoo+mask at the moment with free shipping within Australia, check out our Shop Now page.
If you have any question about how to use it, feel free to email me:
lukahairsalon@gmail.com
