From bond repair treatments to nourishing conditioners, the best products for dry, frizzy aging hair (IMO)

In my 50s I’ve become all-too aware of how our hair changes with age.

The once-manageable strands become drier, more prone to frizz, and lose their shine.

And while no single product offers a magic fix, certain ingredients stand out when it comes to effectively treating dry, frizzy, aging hair.

How hair changes as it ages

Hair strands become thinner and narrower causing reduced hair density and volume. This thinning is often accompanied by a loss of pigment, leading to graying. 

The hair shaft can also become more brittle and fragile because of lost moisture and weakened internal bonds which some bond repair products now target.

Effective ingredients for mature hair

The most effective solutions focus on intense hydration, cuticle smoothing, and strengthening the hair from within.

Look for ingredients like hyaluronic acid, nourishing oils – argan, coconut, jojoba – shea butter, and ceramides, all known for their moisture-retaining and barrier-restoring properties.

Proteins and peptides, especially keratin hydrolysates, are also thought to be useful for protecting the hair shaft, reducing breakage and enhancing resilience.

Bond repair products

In recent years we’ve seen a surge in popularity of bond repair products which go beyond surface-level conditioning, working to repair the hair’s internal structure.

Our hair is primarily made of keratin, a protein held together by different types of chemical bonds: disulfide bonds, hydrogen bonds, and ionic (or salt) bonds.

Disulfide bonds are the strongest, giving hair its structure and strength, while hydrogen and ionic bonds contribute to elasticity and shape.

Heat styling, chemical treatments (like coloring and perms), and everyday wear and tear can break these bonds, leading to damage, dryness, frizz, and breakage.

This new crop of bond repair products are designed to address this internal damage. While traditional conditioners coat the hair shaft to smooth it, bond builders are created to penetrate deeper to help mend these broken links.

I have recently been putting two different bond repair products to the test by the brands Epres and Naughty to see what difference they make to my dry, heat-damaged tresses which are very much prone to frizz.

Epres is known for its “Biodiffusion™ technology” incorporating just four ingredients; diethylhexyl maleate, oleyl alcohol, alcohol denat., and stearamidopropyl dimethylamine.

Epres

The idea is that these liquid molecules work to repair disulfide bonds even after the hair is dry.

Epres claims to be a one-step system that restores the hair’s structure from chemical, thermal, and mechanical damage, leading to softer, stronger hair from the first use.

I tried the 3-step starter kit, which includes a treatment spray (the star player on the team), shampoo and conditioner.

My Epres review

While these products wouldn’t be awarded any points for fragrance (the treatment spray and conditioner have an unusual, musty smell to them) they do indeed have an immediate effect.

You can leave the spray on overnight or for a minimum of 10 minutes, ideally using it twice a week before washing and conditioning.

The spray itself is enough to smooth hair – you can feel that as you rinse it out, with mine becoming instantly tangle free.

The 3-step system leaves hair feeling noticeably smoother and more manageable without being weighed down.

If, like me, you have naturally wavy hair, it’s better suited to days where you want to straighten it because styled curls don’t tend to hold as well after using it.

The shampoo is extremely runny and quite hard to work with. Together with the conditioner, they do have a lovely smoothing effect on hair which feels silky after use, but the runny consistency was off-putting.

To me, the spray treatment is the main event and something I will buy again. Used with alternative shampoos and conditioners I felt I still got the benefits. At £108 for the set of 3 products, for me it’s too pricey to keep using the shampoo and conditioner.

Noughty Let’s Bond products

Noughty’s Let’s Bond range is described as a dual-action molecular repair amino complex.

Its trio set is significantly less expensive than the Epres kit at around £40 and smells nicer too.

While specific patented molecules aren’t always explicitly named, the ingredient lists is largely made up of more natural plant-based ingredients (very much the focus of the brand) along with amino acids.

Their Leave-In Treatment contains ingredients like Hydroxypropylgluconamide and Hydroxypropylammonium Gluconate, thought to work by strengthening the hair’s internal structure, reducing breakage and increasing shine.

Like Epres, the Let’s Bond range is highly rated by consumers and I felt also delivered good results on my hair. Again, you could use the Leave-in Treatment alone (which you apply after washing and conditioning) to get results, but at the cheaper price, the full set is a good investment and works well together.

The downside is, though well conditioned, I felt my hair was a little flat after use and not as bouncy and shiny as after using Epres which emerged the overall winner for me.

That said I love the Noughty range of hair products in general and I think both brands deliver.

Is there much evidence these treatments actually repair hair?

The effectiveness of bond repair products is largely supported by consumer testimonials.

Many users on Amazon and Reddit report significant improvements in hair strength, reduced breakage, increased shine, and less frizz.

While independent, peer-reviewed scientific studies on specific proprietary formulations are lacking, the general consensus among hair experts is that these products can improve the condition of damaged hair and help prevent further harm.

A knock-out conditioner!

Finally, for a traditional approach to smoothing dry, frizzy hair, I absolutely LOVE the Like a Virgin Hair Mask from Coco & Eve – so much so that I use it as a regular conditioner.

It contains all the good, nourishing stuff like coconut, fig, linseed, argan oil and shea butter, and it does such a great job of lightly coating and smoothing hair so that it becomes instantly more manageable but still bouncy and shiny after use.

It also smells heavenly. It’s £30 for 212ml, but a little goes a long way. As a treatment mask you can leave it for 5 to 10 minutes before rinsing or overnight.

To prevent stripping hair of its natural moisture with foaming shampoos in the first place, most days I use a conditioning co-wash, with Naughty’s 1-Hit-Wonder top of my favorites list.

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