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I’m not usually one to endorse multitasking grooming products. There are exceptions: the occasional beard oil can be great as a pre-shave oil, and some SPF-packed moisturizers make for gentle and effective full-body sunscreens. But the thing I’m most skeptical about is a multitasking shampoo-body-wash-conditioner. Don’t get me started on the fact that it has made (mostly male) consumers far lazier about their grooming regimens, particularly at the cost of hair health and nourishment. But London-based Saunders & Long, the industry’s newest prestige brand, has broken me. I’m enamored with its 5-in-1 (!) multi-tasker, The Long Weekender—though I’m only using it as a 2-in-1.
The Long Weekender is billed as a shampoo, conditioner, body wash, shaving cream and grooming cream in one bottle. It’s positioned as the one-stop-shop for all your core hair-shower-shave needs, particularly while you travel (hence its name). And it meets that mark: I have tested it as all of those things, with no true negative feedback. That’s because this stuff is so lavish and creamy, so essentially any way you use it, it feels like a spa treatment. I was most surprised at its hair-taming powers as a styler; it’s been keeping my overgrown quarantine hair perfectly buoyant while also tame.
Saunders & Long
However, this stuff really shines—and soars over every other product in its field—when used as a shampoo. I speak with no embellishment when I say that it feels so positively satisfying as I massage the creamy shampoo with my fingers through my hair. It does more than lather, and instead turns into a dense, whipped cream of sorts. Even my hands feel like they’re getting top-shelf nourishment. And, while most multitasking shampoo-conditioners skimp on the latter half of their promise—to leave hair feeling conditioned, as opposed to parched by the shampoo’s drying effects—Saunders & Long’s product very clearly prioritizes the replenishing half of the hair-care process. For once, I’ve felt no need to follow a wash with a dedicated conditioner, which is not something I’ve ever admitted in my seven years on the grooming beat.
The Long Weekender is no less rapturous as a body wash, but here’s why I reserve it for my hair: I don’t want it run out so quickly. It lathers so nicely that even a pump or two could give a loofah enough product for a satisfying scrub down, but I’m fairly church-and-state about my products, and I’ve already yielded to Saunders & Long on to the shampoo-conditioner combination. My ego can’t take much more change, no matter the quality of the goods, and no matter how consistently the product delivers a good hair day.
The Long Weekender is one of many excellent products from Saunders & Long’s early 2020 launch. Its full assortment is available on their site, and they ship internationally to the US and across Europe. And if, like me, you wonder why they came out of the gate so strong, it’s because they tapped big-wigs from Kiehl’s and Bumble and bumble to make it so. This is a brand to keep your eyes on.
