The best hair care buys from South African sellers right now

It is the cheapest thing on this shelf by a wide margin and the only shampoo, which matters because shampoo is the product you get through fastest. Everything else here is a conditioner or a treatment that rides on top of it.

The listing leads with scalp balance and names what it is working with: plant-derived cleansing agents, olive leaf extract for its polyphenols, moisture-supporting ingredients and an essential oil blend. That is more specific than most of the field manages, and it is pitched at gentle cleansing rather than squeaky stripping, which suits hard water and sun-dried hair.

Shoppers rate it 4.7 across a couple of hundred ratings. Not a huge sample, but a local one, and consistent.

The catch. The listing runs out mid-sentence, so you do not get a full ingredient list or a stated bottle size. Worth checking before you commit to a repeat buy.

At roughly a third of what the 250ml Moroccanoil conditioners cost, this is the sensible everyday partner to a shampoo. Shoppers rate it 4.8, though off a few hundred ratings rather than thousands.

The listing is short and makes no grand claims: lightweight, daily, nourishes, detangles, restores moisture. For fine or easily weighed-down hair, that restraint is a point in its favour.

The catch. A one-line listing. No ingredient detail at all, so if you are avoiding specific ingredients you are buying blind.

Of the two Moroccanoil masks on this shelf, this is the cheaper one and the better rated at scale: 4.8 from more than ten thousand ratings, against 4.7 from around five thousand for the Restorative version. Same size tub.

The pitch is straightforward hydration with argan oil and protein, aimed at dry and damaged hair. If your problem is moisture rather than structural damage, this is the one. The Restorative mask is a protein treatment and the listing itself tells you to follow it with a conditioner, which is an extra step and an extra purchase.

The catch. Expensive for 250ml, and the marketing language is doing a lot of work. Treat it as a weekly treatment, not a replacement for conditioner.

Per millilitre this is far better value than the 250ml Moroccanoil conditioners, which cost roughly half as much for a quarter of the volume. If you are committed to the brand, buying small is the expensive mistake.

It is the best rated of the litre bottles on offer at 4.8 from over thirty thousand ratings, and the listing states it is free of sulfates, phosphates and parabens, and safe for colour-treated hair. The Moisture Repair litre sits slightly lower at 4.6, and the Extra Volume litre is a narrower product for fine, limp hair only.

The catch. The single most expensive item here, and a litre of anything is a long commitment to one formula.

Buy the shampoo carefully and the conditioner practically. Shampoo touches your scalp and gets used most often, so that is where a gentler, better-described formula is worth paying for. Conditioner sits on the lengths and is easier to swap out, so a cheap, lightweight one often does the job.

Watch the size, not the sticker. On this shelf a litre of conditioner costs a little more than double the 250ml bottle of the same range, which means the small bottle is the worse buy by some distance. Work out what you actually get before you compare prices.

Separate moisture from repair. Hydrating masks and conditioners put water and oils back into dry hair. Protein and peptide treatments target hair that has been bleached, relaxed or heat-damaged, and they are usually meant to be followed by a conditioner. Using the wrong one will leave you either limp or brittle.

Discount the superlatives. Clinically proven, revolutionary, breakthrough: these words appear in listings because they sell, not because they tell you anything. Read for the specifics instead, like what is in it, how much you get, and whether it is colour-safe. A listing that will not tell you the size is a listing to question.