Opal One Minute Treatment (hair masque/ conditioner) pink tube review/ hair swatch

This was a massive hit on a lot of Asian blogs maybe in last 18 months or so. Out of curiosity I also ordered a tube, it retails for like 5-8 USD sort of price for a large 225ml tube. Most of the reviews were saying how amazing this was- comparable to the super expensive Kerastase masques etc, which made me really wanted to try this masque.

Ingredient list as follows- you can see it looks really basic and pretty cheap.  It says apply some to damp hair after shampooing and massage in, leave for 1 minute then rinse off.

It looks like this- like any other hair conditioner, a bit thinner and less emollient than Kerastase hair masques. It has a generic floral scent, like a typical drugstore conditioner scent and texture.

Here are a few before and afters. I used Kiehls Amino Acid shampoo before using this, as I find it's very mild and basic shampoo. I shampooed and left this on for 3 minutes. (personally I don't think there's a dramatic difference between leaving it on for 3 minutes vs like 20 minutes. 1 minute for me is a bit short and less smoothing).

My hair was really "dry" to the touch and tangly before, as the night before I purposely only used Kiehls amino acid shampoo as I was trying to do a deep cleansing. 

Honestly I do not think it makes a visible 'difference' in hair appearance, other than slightly more shine. The general manageability of hair is better, because hair feels softer to touch and more 'smoothed' down, but doesn't translate to photos or in real life, it's more a texture thing when you touch your hair.

Another before and after focusing on end of hair, which is where i get a bit more messy looking bits.
I don't think it leaves much residue but I haven't been religiously using this as I have many other masques to go through, and I also use a scalp cleansing treatment like Loccitane's one on a weekly basis. Immediately after rinsing off the Opal one minute treatment it certainly doesn't feel like it weighs down my hair.

Overall, yes I agree it is better than most generic hair conditioners in the price range (under 8USD), however I think the effect is temporary and doesn't really affect condition of hair in the long run. (I mean of course I'm comparing it to using a drugstore conditioner on a daily basis vs using this).

However I do not think it replaces Kerastase hair masques which have a lot more treatment properties and seems to improve condition of my hair over time. (although Kerastase would cost 3 times as much as this).

p.s. the current hair color is from a hairdresser, faded after about 4-6 weeks. I should do another bubble foam dye shortly and post some reviews.

Overall I don't think I would repurchase this- yes it's nice, but I had such a pain with the tube as my flip top cap opening cracked after I dropped it in the shower just once. Then it wouldn't stop oozing out and mess up my whole shower stand.

Rating 4.5/5 for a drugstore priced conditioner, but disregarding the price I think it's a 3.5 to a 4.