Why You Should Buy Salon Brands From a Salon

    Have you ever wondered why your favorite hair products have "sold only in professional salons" on their labels even though you can find most of them and drugstores now-a-days? The answer: diversion. Basically people get hired to go into salons and buy obscene amounts of one product while it is on sale. Then, they get sent to wherever they're going only to be sold to drugstores and supermarkets. These products can be old and expired, or not even what is marked on the packaging. When I got the diversion talk at work my manager told me about someone he knew who had run out of his favorite Paul Mitchell hair spray. Being a stylist, he was hesitant to pick up the spray at the corner store, but since he desperately needed he went against his better judgement. And he woke up to a horrible rash all over his scalp, although he had never had a problem before. The contents of the bottle, whatever they were, were not the spray he needed and he was now out $10. When I'm out shopping myself I check out the prices of products we carry at the salon I work at, and the drugstore "everyday low prices" are consistently $2-$4 more expensive than ours.
    I'm not trying to say that everything in the drugstore is dangerous, but check the labels. If it's something simple like Suave or the drugstore brand you'll be perfectly fine; if the label says something like "only available at professional salons" trust your instincts. One-stop shopping isn't always as convenient as it likes to make you think, and with one or more salon in nearly every mall, there is no reason to take a little detour and pick it up where you can be sure it's what you're looking for in that bottle.