53-Year-Old Shoppers Say This $9 Hair Treatment Brings Aging Strands “Back to Life”

If you have dehydrated hair, $9 to spend, and eight seconds to spare, consider applying the L’Oréal Paris Elvive Hyaluron and Plump Wonder Water treatment. The product, a spinoff of the wildly popular original version, rehydrates dry, damaged hair, and more than 31,000 shoppers swear the formula delivers on its wondrous claims. 

Shop now: $9, amazon.com

The in-shower treatment not only hydrates damaged, moisture-sapped strands, but in turn, it imparts softness and shine via hyaluronic acid (HA). A departure from rich, heavy hair masks, the lightweight formula is a watery consistency, and works at breakneck speed — within eight seconds, per the brand — to deliver shinier strands after a single single shower.

Perhaps you associate hyaluronic acid with face-care products, being pervasive across myriad moisturizers and serums thanks to its quenching, skin-plumping properties. Interestingly, HA is similarly beneficial as a haircare ingredient: by restoring moisture to dehydrated hair, HA can “improve frizzy, dry strands,” dermatologist Dr. Rachel Nazarian previously told InStyle. Moreover, unlike many hydrating ingredients, HA moisturizes “without weighing down hair," Dr. Nazarian adds. For this reason, Hyaluron and Plump Wonder Water is ideal for limp, thin, strands, and anyone who finds conventional hair masks and other hydrators overly heavy. 

The water-to-froth formulation is unlike anything else, both in application and mechanism. Balanda Atis, L’Oréal Paris AVP of Scientific Communications dubs it “a biologic bath of moisture for hair.” After a single use, it delivers “soft-, supple-, radiant-” and “plump-” looking hair, she adds. The product can be used two to three times per week, per the brand, though Atis notes that when used over time, “hair quality [continues to] improve significantly.” 

Like its predecessor, the original Wonder Water, Hyaluron and Plump features L’Oréal’s lamellar technology — essentially a “smart” delivery system that seeks out the thirstiest, most damaged hair fibers and deposits the active ingredients, including HA, to the areas most in need of TLC. The formula delivers a customized quench that works on all hair types and textures.

One 53-year-old shopper with “thirsty, wavy, curly hair” explains that menopause, hair dye, and winter weather made their strands “super dry and frizzy.” The product, they say, has “definitely helped bring my hair back to life.” Another shopper who has “thinning hair” swears the product is “fine hair-friendly,” noting that it made their hair “extremely shiny without looking oily.” 

Shop the L’Oréal Paris Elvive Hyaluron and Plump Wonder Water at Amazon for smoother, shinier, hydrated hair with zero weigh-down, per shoppers who swear by the $9 formula.