I have put some weird stuff through my hair in my time. I have slopped lemon juice through it to lighten it, added multi-coloured dyes, avocado, egg whites, marigold paste and chamomile tea. Until recently though, I had never poured beer into my mop.

 

 

When my dad was a young whipper-snapper, in the 70’s, he had a mane of glossy brown hair that was his pride and joy. He told me that, once a week, he would pour a glass of flat beer into his hair and rinse it out, because he swore that it made his hair shiny and full of body. I thought it was just an excuse for him to take a glass of beer into the shower. Then I found a product from Lush that would allow me to test Dad’s theory.

 

 

Cynthia Sylvia Stout is a shampoo made from stout beer. It also contains lemon and cognac oil. It claims to give your hair dazzling shine and loads of body. I decided to take it for a test spin.

I found that the Cynthia was pretty true to it’s word. It made my hair beautifully glossy and soft. It was excellent for removing product build up as well. The shampoo worked up a nice lather and rinsed out easily.

 

 

I found a couple of down sides to the Cynthia shampoo though. The first was the smell. It doesn’t smell bad at all, but rather has a fresh, gingery smell. However, the smell is rather strong and the first time I used it, I actually found myself feeling quite nauseous throughout the day. I would nearly gag every time the wind blew through my hair and I caught a whiff of the scent. I think that it may be because the smell reminds me of these motion sickness pills I used to take, and I had some sort of adversive reinforcement thing going on. The shampoo really doesn’t smell bad at all, I think it may just have been me.

 

 

The other thing I didn’t like about the Cynthia Sylvia Stout was the volume it gave to my hair. I don’t mind a little bit of volume, in fact, I like quite a lot of volume in my hair. However, I noticed that after washing with this shampoo, my hair had enough body to be able to bounce a kitten off it. While body isn’t a bad thing, my hair was so boofy it took on a life of it’s own, and became rather difficult to tame. I often wound up wearing my hair in a plait the day after washing because I just couldn’t coax it into any other presentable style. I did find that my hair settled down about a day after the shampooing, and the shine totally made up for one day of beastly hair.

 

 

I would recommend the Cynthia for anyone with dull or fine hair. It would also be an ideal shampoo for anyone with short hair that likes to use a lot of styling products, as it will remove any product build-up, while giving your hair a dramatic shine.