If you live in Uganda, it is very likely that you have heard about Kentaro Homemade Organics at least once in your life. This is a review of Kentaro Tea Tree Tingle Leave-in Conditioner

In the past, hair and beauty products made in Uganda made me nervous because you just didn’t know how you would react to them. You risked substandard and counterfeit products that could make your hair fall off (true story!).However, there has been progress made the last couple of years and there’s a variety of good Ugandan natural hair brands to choose from; how amazing is that?! Say goodbye to waiting on basummers to bring you made-in-USA products :).  Now the review! Kentaro products good public review, and I am getting in one of my own; my very-honest-zero-bias-I-am-not-getting-paid review.

By the label, this product is all natural ingredients, PH-balanced, and has no nasties (I had to look this up). This leave-in conditioner is meant to soften, add shine, aid in detangling, make styling easy and “wake up your curls”. Now who doesn’t want to wake up their “sleeping curls”?  Come on, sleeping beauties! I wonder what happens if one don’t have curly hair at all…

List of ingredients
Purified water, Organic Olive Oil, Organic Sesame Oil, Organic Avocado Oil, Vegetable Glycerin, Aloe Vera Leaf Extract, Hydrolyzed Wheat Protein, Cetearyl Alcohol, Polysorbate-20, Tea Tree Essential Oil, Peppermint Essential Oil and Organic Preservative.

Packaging
A tall bottle that’s good looking enough. When uncapped, the mouth of the bottle is completely open. This makes is hard to use straight out of the bottle, but there’s always a way around that.

Texture
Is a light consistency- a watery cream, pale yellow in color (trying so hard not to say a watery cream with a cream color). Light and watery equals no flaking, no matter hair porosity, which is great!

Did my curls wake up? (How well it works)
Curls? What curls? Nothing to see here, just fab fros :). Okay I used this product 6 times before writing this, once after a protein treatment, another after a moisturizing treatment and the rest as touch up through the week. At this point, I feel confident about how this product works on my 4C low porosity hair.

First thing to note is this product contains hydrolyzed wheat protein. One characteristic of low porosity hair is that it’s prone to build-up from protein-rich products, which can leave it feeling stiff and straw-like.  And indeed, my hair felt a little stiff, I could feel the friction between my hair and fingers when it dried. Apart from the stiffness, my hair was not dry, but it wasn’t “super moisturized” either. I know this because my hair wasn’t as moisturized as some of the other products I have used (I have insert photos below).  That’s not to say this product doesn’t work, it does. In fact this product worked better on my 4B texture (the hair at the back of my head is 4B).

My nearly empty product

The verdict
Overall, Kentaro Tea Tree Tingle Leave-in conditioner is a good product. The hydrolyzed wheat protein throws it off a little bit for low porosity hair, and I think it would work better without it. I also think this product would work better or finer softer hair. Nonetheless, I will still continue to use this product, but only after moisturizing deep treatments.