We tried Prose to see if their personalized shampoo actually works
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For many of us, creating a hair care routine is not a simple game. While some lucky folks might be happy with the same shampoo and conditioner they’ve been using for years, most of us struggle to find hair care products that make us look and feel good.
This is where Prose comes in. The New York-based custom hair care company promises to craft a set of personalized hair care products for each client, based on individual hair conditions, needs, and goals—for a price of $25 or more per bottle.
As beauty geeks, professional reviewers, and complicated hair-havers, we were intrigued. So we tested Prose firsthand to see if its custom solutions could actually work on different hair types in ways that no drugstore products had before.
Prose offers customized shampoo, condition, styling gel, and more.
Prose aims to cut through the industry noise and purchasing misfires by using a survey to design a hair regimen made especially for you.
This falls in line with a wave of customization that has recently taken over the beauty industry—we’ve seen everything from shampoo to foundation and skincare.
While hair care brands like Function of Beauty and Ouai offer similar hair care customization services, Prose claims to set itself apart from the competition by offering one of the most thorough consultation processes on the market.
The result? A shampoo, conditioner, and hair mask, each made from a combination of customized ingredients, with instructions on how and when to use each product. (Since this review was originally published, the brand has introduced a pre-shampoo mask, hair oil, curl cream, leave-in conditioner, and more hair care products.)
All Prose products are free from parabens, sulfates, phthalates, dyes, and other controversial or artificial ingredients. These custom formulas don’t come cheap—one 8.5-ounce bottle of shampoo and conditioner each cost $29 or $34, depending on if you subscribe or buy once, and the mask can cost $41 or $48.
On its website, Prose states that its ingredients "come together to create the most natural formula for you, with everything you need and nothing more." It’s an uplifting, albeit vague, promise.
Will the Prose custom shampoo, conditioner, and mask treat our specific scalp concerns? What about split ends, color preservation, and frizz control? It seemed that Prose could really tackle all our hair problems and, in fact, give us "everything [we] need and nothing more."
Prose products come labeled with your name and other cute characteristics on the bottle—but calling me a "fitness lover" is a bit of a stretch.
While nothing about this heavily customized process sounds simple, Prose’s survey is just that, a quiz filled with direct, jargon-free questions, such as, "How much of your scalp can you see on the top of your head?" and "What are your hair goals?" They also take into account how often you exercise, if and when you heat style your hair, and the climate you live in, down to the ZIP code.
After answering the questions and choosing among scents, Prose generates a breakdown of hair and scalp characteristics, followed by the ingredients in each of the products. Though our testers have very different hair types and hair goals, at first glance, there appeared to be a lot of ingredient overlap in our formulations—only upon receiving our products and reading the full ingredient breakdown did we see the true customization.
In one tester’s survey, she indicated that she wanted smoothness and shine, and no volume or curl (“got plenty, thanks”). Her resulting concoction was said to be designed to focus largely on dryness, sensitivity, dandruff, and damage. Another tester’s hair is much more fine and Prose’s hair analyses were very different, but the resulting shampoo, conditioner, and mask concoctions looked similar on the website. That raised a flag, considering there are so many possible combinations.
However, once the products were received, it was apparent from the full, detailed ingredient list that the formulations were actually quite distinct. The concentration of ingredients used varies person to person and product to product, Prose told us.
While Prose's website tends to highlight the same eye-catching ingredients for different customers, it's clear that there is more going into each product than what you see after your survey.
The products arrived within a week in neat, apothecary-style bottles with our testers’ names on them. Prose even generated cute labels based on our surveys. Fun!
The accompanying instructions said to use the shampoo and conditioner every other day, and the mask just once a week. Three pumps of shampoo, two pumps of conditioner, and one scoop of mask. It was simple enough for anyone to remember.
Prose offers customized shampoo, condition, styling gel, and more.
Our testing of the Prose hair care products was conducted by Jessica Teich, Reviewed’s former Health and Beauty Features Editor, and Cassidy Olsen, our former Kitchen Editor.
In addition to abusing her hair by testing hair tools and products on it for a living, Jess regularly experiments with new styles and hair treatments. In her words: “What results is damaged hair (particularly on the ends) and breakage on her already-dry, thick, curly hair.”
When your hair is this dark—and this curly—yet you insist on changing both of those facts, your hair is sure to suffer
On top of that, she has a flakey, dry scalp that somehow still feels oily in the middle of her head when it air dries. Freshly after washing, while her hair is still wet, she can even see bits of dry skin floating in the roots of her hair. “It’s sad—and disgusting,” she says.
Unlike Jess, Cassidy barely knows what she was doing with her hair. Her hair is naturally brownish, but she’s had blond hair since childhood. This has led to a lot of processing and experimentation—she's bleached, dyed, and chopped her hair so many times that the original texture and color is something of a mystery to her.
At the outset of my Prose trial, I was dealing with a lot of damage from bleach—and my trips to the beach didn't help.
At the time Cassidy heard about Prose, her hair was looking pretty worse for wear. She hadn’t been to a salon in five months and hadn’t bleached her hair in eight months, meaning she had long, brown roots and yellowish-blond ends as a result of going pink and letting it fade out over the white base. Her ends were dry and breaking, and her scalp was oily and acne-prone thanks to changing medication and good old hormonal swings.
Between Jess’ hair—thick, damaged, and curly, with a dry scalp—and Cassidy’s hair—fine, straight, over-processed, with an oily scalp—**our testing aimed to see if Prose could help very different hair situations and goals**. While Jess wanted smoothness and scalp hydration, Cassidy desired volume, shine, and scalp balance.
Cassidy kicked off the product cycle on a Sunday with the scalp mask, followed by the shampoo and conditioner. The scalp mask smelled nice and had a shiny, somewhat thin consistency that went on easily, though was difficult to scoop from the jar. She had to fight the urge to slather on more than was recommended, but she trusted the instructions and used one scoop.
The only problem? The mask had to sit on her wet hair for 15 minutes, meaning she had to climb in the shower, wet her hair, apply the mask, and then get out and wait. She ended up sitting in the bathroom on her phone while she waited.
Jess, in the meantime, hung her head over her kitchen sink the first go-round, and aimlessly stood in her shower staring at her watch the second week. Over multiple uses of the mask, Cassidy learned to just apply as soon as she got in the shower and go about the rest of her routine before washing it out—she didn't always hit the 15-minute mark, but it got the job done.
Upon washing out the mask, Cassidy’s hair felt like it had already seen conditioner, and left an oily-like film on Jess’ scalp, which she said “made me wonder if it would rinse clean, but was probably soothing for my dry scalp.” They each followed with the shampoo and conditioner as directed.
This intensive pre-wash treatment aims to help restore balance to your scalp.
The shampoo was a thick, clear product that produced a decent amount of suds for a sulfate-free product. The conditioner was a different matter, however.
For Cassidy, the conditioner was thinner than she likes—and it didn’t seem like it could coat and detangle every strand. The directions said to run a comb through her hair while she conditioned, but even her Wet Brush couldn’t handle the hair knots she always gets in the shower.
Jess used several pumps of conditioner that barely saturated her thick hair before she gave up and opted for her go-to deep conditioner. "Using just the Prose conditioner, there was no way I could get out of the shower without a mass of tangles,” she says. She didn't (i.e., wouldn't) use it moving forward.
Prose shampoo is a sulfate-free cleanser that is customized to your needs.
Prose conditioner is a nourishing moisturizer that is customized to your needs
Both our testers were pleasantly surprised to find how balanced their respective scalps felt for those first few days after the scalp mask. Cassidy noticed a considerable change in her scalp health as a result of the mask—less acne, less sebum build-up, and less visible oil in the second day after showering.
Jess, for the first time, saw zero flakes on her scalp post-shower. But toward the end of each week, they each noticed their old scalp characteristics popping back up, and re-masking was the only thing that seemed to change that. The mask didn’t seem to have long-term healing efficacy, but more seemed to work like a Band-Aid.
Unfortunately, neither of them saw the shampoo and conditioner doing that kind of work. Cassidy’s scalp felt better, but her hair itself was similarly dry and dull during the day, with a tendency to get knotted and frayed. These are characteristics she mentioned in her survey—and Prose wasn’t an improvement over the other sulfate-free products she was already using.
During her trial period, Jess was asked several times if she’d highlighted her hair. “I hadn’t in a while, which makes me think the product may have been stripping my hair of toner, making my highlights look more stark—not a good thing.”
By the end of their respective runs with Prose, our testers were both, coincidentally, due for salon appointments. When Cassidy returned to Prose, her feelings about the products were mostly unchanged. The mask was perfect for her, and the shampoo and conditioner were just alright.
Salon visits helped us manage our hair damage in a way no shampoo and conditioner could.
After the initial publication of this article, Prose reached out to discuss their process. They offered Cassidy a new consultation with their customer service team to try improving her formula. They explained that a 100% satisfaction guarantee is offered to all customers, although the page that explains how and when to contact customer service about it is rather hidden on the Prose website.
Still eager for the best hair possible and hopeful that the service could wow her with some formula re-tweaking, Cassidy accepted. She chatted on the phone with a customer service representative about what she likes and didn't like about her existing hair care products.
According to Prose, this reformulation process is most often conducted over email—or simply by re-taking the survey on the website. Cassidy said the phone call was incredibly helpful, and hopes Prose can offer the same one-on-one time to customers in the future.
After the consultation, Prose suggested she go fragrance-free, try a mask for her ends in addition to the one for her scalp, and get a more hydrating conditioner. Ultimately, she was pleased to find that the new "ends" mask helped with some damage and that the fragrance-free formula helped balance dryness. However, she still switched back to drugstore stuff and found her hair was smoother, silkier, and more manageable away from Prose.
Because it's a truly customizable, personal service with a 100% satisfaction guarantee, there's a chance that your Prose formula will wow you. And for some people who already spend an arm and a leg on a million different products in order to manage their dry, oily, color-treated, or difficult hair, the simplicity of Prose more than justifies the price.
After the highs and lows experienced during our testing, however, that wasn’t the case for us. Neither of our testers say they saw enough results for the cost.
Prose offers customized shampoo, condition, styling gel, and more.
The product experts at Reviewed have all your shopping needs covered. Follow Reviewed on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, or Flipboard for the latest deals, product reviews, and more.
Prices were accurate at the time this article was published but may change over time.
Prices were accurate at the time this article was published but may change over time. The product experts at Reviewed have all your shopping needs covered. Follow Reviewed on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, or Flipboard for the latest deals, product reviews, and more.
Prices were accurate at the time this article was published but may change over time.
The product experts at Reviewed have all your shopping needs covered. Follow Reviewed on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, or Flipboard for the latest deals, product reviews, and more.
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