Minardi: System 3 Nourishing Lighteners Balancing Intro Kit

This system is one of 3 systems designed to protect and restore color treated hair. It contains a pre-wash, a shampoo, and a conditioner. I have fine, long, red, heavily hi-lighted hair that looks almost blonde. Normally my hair is silky and shiny and I get a lot of compliments on it. I also normally use Pureology products.I liked the idea of a pre-treatment to make my hair even silkier so I decided to try this kit. I wish i could take that decision back. My hair is now a tangled mess of straw. The pre-treat didn't seem to do anything other than detangle my hair when i applied it. You are told to apply it to dry hair (which i did) but it doesn't seem to do anything. i even left it on overnight. You are then supposed to use the shampoo and conditioner. The shampoo was soo drying that after one wash my hair was such a rats nest I couldn't get the conditioner worked into it. The shampoo is also very watery making it hard to apply in the shower. The conditioner is watery as well and does not detangle or condition from what I could see. The packaging is cheap drugstore packaging and the scent is so boring and average that you'd think they'd at least try to make it smell good to make up for the lack of conditioning. I've honestly had better luck with drugstore brands.After using this system my highlights have turned an odd orangey brown shade (looks like from some sort of buildup because my water is extra filtered and has never added any sort of tint to my highlights or changed their color), it is so inflexible I can't style it or dry it. I had to shove it under a hat and run out to replace this mess with my pureology product. I hope i save at least one persons hair with this review because mine looks so bad after using this kit that i want to cry. The positive reviews I saw on this were from salon owners and beauticians who sell this product. So upset by this product and it's makers for pushing such a horrible product. Huge thumbs down! Save your money, even pantene works better for color treated hair in my opinion.

I love the entire Minardi line! I've used everything on my hair and nothing has worked like the Minardi does. I do have a cosmetology license, and yes I do have access to all hair brands available, and this is my top pick hands down! My husband uses the System 3, which is for bleached, damaged and very dry hair to tone down the volume and smooth the hair. He loves it and won't change even though his hair is colored with a semi-perm color. But it is dry and thick, and this gives him the moisture and sleekness he needs. It has also kept his color in longer than anything we've tried. I use the System 1 which I'll review under that product. This line is a must try!

Let me first say that I am a licensed cosmetologist. I highly respect Beth Minardi and her work as well as Joico, which happens to be my HG brand for hair care. That said, I had been looking for this since I heard about it. Even after seeing many negative reviews, I wasn't to try it anyway, thinking that maybe they're not doing it right or whatever. When I finally saw that CosmoProf had it for sale, I was ecstatic! Since my hair is over-processed and damaged, I went with system 3. The first impression was awful. My hair felt like greasy straw. I followed the directions exactly. I decided to give it a couple more shots because I don't like to judge a new product solely off of one single use. So, I continued using it and my hair kept getting worse and worse. To the point where my friends and family were telling me "wow what happened to your hair? It looks awful!" (Gee, thanks!) *as a side note, although my hair is over processed and damaged, it doesn't look or feel like it is.*This system did not work for me at all, it blew out my cuticle and left my hair completely unmanageable. I really wanted this to work for me but sadly it didn't. Luckily Cosmoprof is awesome and let me exchange it for my tried and true Joico K-Pak! :)