Is Olaplex Actually Worth The Hype?

The £400 Hair Routine

If you've stood in a Boots beauty aisle in the last five years, you've seen them. The white bottles. The professional, almost pharmaceutical typeface. The numbers running up to nine like a chemist's filing cabinet. Olaplex.

Then you've probably done what most people do, which is pick up the No.3, look at the £28 price tag, and quietly put it back down.

The thing is, plenty of people don't put it back. Olaplex sells a No.3 somewhere in the world every few seconds. Their full UK range now stretches across 29 products and a price ladder running from £13 travel sizes to £84 gift kits. A "complete" Olaplex routine, if you bought every numbered step from shampoo to styling cream, costs the better part of £200.

That is a lot of hair budget for a brand most British shoppers had never heard of ten years ago. So here's the honest question: is it actually worth it, or have we all just been very effectively marketed at?

What Olaplex Actually Is

Olaplex was founded in California in 2014 by a chemistry team led by Dr Eric Pressly. The pitch was, and still is, the kind of thing that sounds like it should come with a lab coat. They claim to have invented a single molecule, bis-aminopropyl diglycol dimaleate, that rebuilds the broken disulphide bonds inside a strand of hair. They patented it, called it "bond-builder technology", and sold it.

Translated out of the brand's clinical language, the science is meant to do this: when you bleach, colour, heat-style or chemically treat hair, you snap the internal bonds that hold each strand together. Most conditioners coat the outside of the strand to make it feel smoother. Olaplex says theirs goes inside and physically reconnects the broken bits.

Whether that's exactly what's happening at a molecular level is something cosmetic chemists have argued about for years. What isn't really up for debate is that for most people with damaged hair, Olaplex No.3 used once a week makes their hair feel noticeably better. That shows up in tens of thousands of reviews, not just on Olaplex's own site but on Sephora, Boots and Cult Beauty.

So credit where it's due. The product works for a lot of people. The question is whether it works £28-a-bottle better than everything else.

The TikTok Moment

Olaplex was already a salon staple by 2018. But the brand exploded across 2020 and 2021 thanks to one product on one platform: the No.3 Hair Perfector, on TikTok.

It was the perfect storm. Lockdown. Everyone bleaching their own hair at home. Influencers showing dramatic before-and-afters. The brand's clean clinical design photographed brilliantly in a bathroom selfie. Olaplex floated on the Nasdaq in September 2021 at a valuation of around $14 billion.

Then the wheels came off.

The 2023 Lawsuit

In February 2023, 28 women filed a class-action lawsuit against Olaplex in a Californian district court. They claimed the products had caused hair loss, blisters, scaling skin, bald patches, and a long list of other symptoms ranging from breakage to scalp infections. Several plaintiffs submitted photographs showing bald spots. Some described their hair being left "dry, brittle, frizzy and dull". Others said it had snapped off "as if it had been cut with a weedwhacker".

The case named two ingredients. Lilial (butylphenyl methylpropional), a synthetic fragrance compound the EU banned from cosmetics in March 2022 over fertility concerns. And panthenol, a common conditioning agent. The plaintiffs argued the combination could cause inflammation, scalp damage and hair shedding. Olaplex said it had removed lilial from its global formulas "out of an abundance of caution" months before the lawsuit landed. The lawsuit alleged the brand was still selling older stock that contained it.

Olaplex strongly denied the allegations. In a statement on Instagram, the brand said it was prepared to "vigorously defend our company, our brand, and our products against these baseless accusations". CEO JuE Wong called it a "painful and emotional topic" but insisted the products were not to blame, pointing to independent third-party lab tests showing the formulas were safe.

The 28 plaintiffs collectively sought $75,000 (£62,200) in damages, a relatively modest sum that says something about the lawsuit's real aim. The reputational case was a different story. It went viral on the same platform that had made Olaplex famous, dragged in the brand's celebrity endorsers (Kim Kardashian, Drew Barrymore) by association, and the stock price dropped over 70% across 2022 and 2023. JuE Wong stepped down as CEO later that year.

So, Worth It?

Here's where we land in 2026. Olaplex still works. The science is reasonably sound. No.3, No.6 and No.7 are still genuinely good products, and the cult following isn't entirely manufactured. The brand has reformulated, rebuilt, and even launched a "No.3 Plus" trying to draw a line under the past.

But two things are also true.

First, Olaplex prices have crept upward. The 525ml shampoo and conditioner now cost £49 each. A salon-level kit is £84. For a brand that talks constantly about being inspired by professional stylists, the prices are no longer professional, they are designer.

Second, the bond-repair category Olaplex invented is no longer theirs alone. Patents expired. Imitators arrived. Among them, a wave of independent UK brands now make formulas that are honestly very, very close to the original, often with cleaner ingredient lists, lower prices, and the kind of founder stories Olaplex left behind when it went public.

Which is where this article was always going to end up.

The UK Brands Worth Your Money Instead

If your reason for buying Olaplex is damage repair after bleach or heat, look for British indie brands building bond-repair systems with plant-based actives instead of patented synthetics. The category is exploding, and several small UK labels now sell shampoo-conditioner-treatment trios for less than what a single Olaplex bottle costs.

If your reason is frizz control, shine or all-round smoothness, the indie British scene around hair oils and leave-ins is some of the strongest in the world. Look for brands run by stylists, formulating in small UK batches, selling direct.

If your reason is scalp health and longevity, this is the newest front in hair care and the place established brands haven't quite caught up. Several UK indies are making serums and treatments with ingredients Olaplex hasn't put in a bottle yet.

We'll be featuring all three on Dripscan as our hair section grows. Follow the magazine for the next piece in the series, where we name names, list price comparisons, and tell you which UK indie brand to put in your bathroom in place of which Olaplex bottle.

The Honest Take

Olaplex isn't a scam. It also isn't the only good answer to the problem it solves. It's a brand that did one thing brilliantly, scaled fast, got rich, made some mistakes, and is now charging premium prices for a category it no longer controls.

Buy the No.3 if you've already used it and love it. There's no shame in that. But if you've never bought into Olaplex and you're standing in front of those numbered white bottles wondering whether to start, the honest answer in 2026 is: no, you don't have to. There are better places for your £28.