Native Shampoo is a natural shampoo sold by the popular personal care brand Native. The brand claims that their shampoo contains “clean and effective ingredients” and is free of harmful additive ingredients.
But are these claims actually true or are they just marketing claims? What’s actually in Native Shampoo and is it proven effective for increasing hair quality? Are there any questionable additive ingredients? And do real users report improvements in hair when using this product?
In this article we’ll answer all of these questions and more as we review every ingredient in both Native Shampoo and Native Conditioner and share real, unsponsored user reviews of both products. We’ll give our take on whether we recommend both products.
Native Shampoo Ingredient Review
Native Shampoo has a simple ingredient list which is generally a good thing.
Lauramidopropyl betaine is a natural and non-toxic cleansing ingredient derived from coconut.
Sodium cocoyl isethionate is another cleansing agent derived from coconut that was proven safe and effective in a medical review published in the International Journal of Toxicology.
Native Shampoo contains several ingredients we recommend avoiding from a health perspective.
Fragrance is an ingredient we always recommend consumers avoid. A 2016 medical review described the potential for “serious risks” to human health from fragranced consumer products.
Sodium benzoate is a preservative that may cause skin irritation based on medical research that we cited in our recent Nexxus Shampoo reviews article. Native Shampoo contains another preservative ingredient called sodium salicylate that we consider to be a better option than sodium benzoate, but in our opinion it’s logical to avoid shampoos with preservatives entirely, given that there are natural shampoos on the market free of preservatives.
Overall we consider this to be an unimpressive shampoo formulation, especially for the high price of $10 per bottle, and we recommend that consumers avoid it given the inclusion of fragrance and preservatives.
One of the most popular reviews of Native Shampoo is published by a YouTube creator named “Brittaneee” who reviews the brand’s shampoo and conditioner in an unsponsored video:
Native Conditioner Ingredient Review
Native Conditioner has a very similar formulation to Native Shampoo. It only contains one preservative so it’s superior in that regard.
Glutamic acid is an interesting ingredient for a conditioner, and a good choice in our opinion, because an animal study found that it promoted hair growth.
1,2 hexanediol is a skin conditioning agent that we recommend avoiding. A medical review published in the Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety journal described this ingredient as potentially damaging to the environment, and the study authors published the following statement: “it is highly likely that 1,2-hexanediol is toxic to humans.”
Like Native Shampoo, Native Conditioner also contains fragrance which we recommend avoiding.
Overall we consider this to be a worse formulation than Native Shampoo due to the inclusion of 1,2 hexanediol and we recommend avoiding it.
Doctor Discusses Toxins in Shampoo
One of the most popular YouTube videos on toxins in shampoo is published by a channel called “Dr. Wendy Myers” run by a Naturopathic Doctor (ND). We typically don’t recommend medical advice from NDs but this video is informative in our opinion:
Does Native Shampoo Cause Hair Loss?
There are a number of TikTok videos suggesting that Native Shampoo and Conditioner cause hair loss, so consumers are often concerned about this potential risk when considering the products.
While we don’t recommend Native Shampoo or Native Conditioner, we don’t believe that either product is likely to cause hair loss. Even the questionable ingredients like fragrance and preservative that we recommend avoiding are not shown in medical studies to cause hair loss.
People often blame a product for a health condition that may have occurred while using the product, but that is correlation rather than causation. There are millions of users of Native hair care products, which means that many are likely to experience hair loss while using Native products, but that does not mean that Native products caused the hair loss.
We do not consider this to be a legitimate risk, and the risk of side effects can only be determined from medical research and not from anecdotal user reports.
Our Non-Toxic Shampoo Recommendation
We recommend a shampoo brand called Acure due to its clean and effective formulation.
Acure shampoo has natural botanical ingredients like aloe vera and argan oil that can condition skin and hair.
Most importantly, it’s entirely free of questionable additive ingredients like fragrance, parabens and synthetic preservatives. This shampoo has the healthiest formulation of any shampoo we’ve reviewed.
Interested consumers can check out Acure Shampoo at this link to their Amazon page.
Acure also sells a conditioner with a similarly clean and non-toxic formulation. Here is a link to Acure’s conditioner on Amazon.
