Buying Hair Straightening Products comes down to a few checks you can do from the product page. Everything else is preference. Anything with heavy silicones needs a clarifying wash every few weeks. Match the weight to your hair, not the marketing on the front. The groups below run from the decision that matters most to the ones you make afterwards.

What decides this is hair type, formula weight and build-up. Everything else is preference. Two from the first group show the range: Peter Thomas Roth's Mega-Rich Conditioner|8.0 fl oz at $18, and Peter Thomas Roth's Mega-Rich Shampoo|8.0 fl oz at $18. The first is the easy entry point; the second is where the money goes. Match the weight to your hair, not the marketing on the front. Anything with heavy silicones needs a clarifying wash every few weeks. A higher price mostly buys materials and finishing, and occasionally it buys nothing at all.

Less product, applied lower down, almost always looks better. From the second group, Oribe's Run-Through Detangling Shampoo ($49) is the one that earns its place, because it works in more than one context without being restyled. The third group is smaller and deliberately narrower, hair products, for the decisions you make after the main one. None of this needs the whole group. One piece from each is usually enough.

There are 20 hair products here from 8 brands, $9 to $55, all in stock when this was written. We would not buy all of them, and neither should you. E.l.f. Cosmetics's Never Thirsty Moisturizing Shampoo at $9 is the low-risk way in, and Oribe's Serene Scalp Densifying Conditioner at $55 only makes sense if this is a category you already use constantly. On hair straightening products specifically: the difference between the top and the bottom of this list is real but smaller than the price gap suggests. Nothing here is included because it is famous, and price is not used as a proxy for quality anywhere on this page. If you take one thing away: one considered purchase beats three hedged ones.