Cantu vs Shea Moisture: Which Skincare Brand Is Best For You?

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There are quite a number of people searching for guides to help them compare hairstyling creams; with Cantu vs Shea Moisture being one of them.

However, there are only a few good sources/guides providing information on these products. That’s why I’ve decided to come in and write a few detailed comparison articles on them.

I want the guide to be informative, useful, and actually beneficial to anyone that comes across it. Therefore, you might find them quite a bit longer (like this one) than similar guides on this site or elsewhere.

However, I’ve divided it into several sections to help you skim it – if that’s your thing.

In this article, you’ll learn a lot about Cantu and Shea Moisture as well as some of their popular skincare products. This guide will go into great detail about their hair styling cream for anyone who wants to choose one.

At the end of this article, you should be armed with enough information to make an informed buying decision.

If that’s clear, let’s start the comparison.

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Cantu vs Shea Moisture – A Brief History

The beauty and skincare niche has a lot of products and lots of brands behind them. If you’re a woman, you’re lucky to have so many brands with many products.

Everyone is spoilt for choice. If you’re eyeing a particular beauty or skincare product, there is a chance that there are a lot of products similar to it. Some might even be better in terms of price, quality, and effectiveness.

Of all these brands, we have both Cantu and Shea Moisture. They’re good brands with lots of hair treatment and skincare products in the market.

They’re equally popular for their moisturizing cream that can work wonders for your hair. While this might be enough for some, you may want to know a little more about them. If that’s the case, you’ll find this useful.

About Cantu

Cantu is a haircare brand in the U.S that was founded in 2003. They serve the beauty and cosmetics industries. One of the distinguishing qualities of this brand is the high-performance formulas they make available at great prices.

According to the company, you should look your best everywhere you find yourself. Whether it’s outdoors or indoors, the right beauty products can do wonders for your outlook.

The company wants to help you make that happen. That’s why they make products like the Cantu Coconut Curling Cream and the likes. Cantu, like other hair care brands, focuses on helping women develop natural hair.

You’ll find shampoos, conditioners, shea butter, coconut oil formulas, masque, detangler, pomade, activator, and lots of other products in their catalog.

This guide is going to touch one of them and compare it to what Shea Moisture has to offer.

About Shea Moisture

This company has been around longer than Cantu. Therefore, you can expect better products or at least some experience and expertise you wouldn’t find with Cantu.

That does not necessarily put them ahead of Cantu. But looking at what those accumulated experiences can bring, I’d wager they should be able to play the game better. Having been around LONGER.

Shea Moisture was founded in 1991 by Richelieu Dennis and Nyema Tubman, both Liberians. Unlike Cantu, which is a haircare brand, Shea Moisture is actually a personal care brand.

However, you’ll find that they have similar products at some points. Shea Moisture focuses on conditioner, shampoo, and body wash.

Just like any other brand that focuses on personal care, you’ll find they have a list of products like conditioners, curl enhancers, shampoos, body wash, moisturizers, shea butter, body lotion, and a lot more products.

If you’re looking to take better care of your skin and hair, you’ll find a lot of products from this brand.

Cantu vs Shea Moisture – Product Review

Cantu Coconut Curling Cream vs Shea Moisture Curl Enhancing Smoothie

There are obviously a lot of styling cream on the market. But just as there are good ones, bad ones exist too. For that reason, you may find it hard to choose what will suit your hair. Not only that. There are tons of them too.

So, sifting through may be cumbersome; probably a few days work, especially if you’re busy. However, you don’t have to worry about spending that time.

There are only a few you should concern yourself with. And if you’re reading this, you already know that both Cantu and Shea Moisture make good creams you can try.

Therefore, I’ll be putting both Cantu Curling Cream and Shea Moisture Moisture together. You’ll be able to see what makes the products thick, how they differ, and most importantly, the pros and cons of both products.

What to Expect in this Section

After reviewing a lot of personal care and beauty products and comparing dozens of them, I’ve found this. No matter how similar two products are, they will have some distinguishing features.

So also is the similarities. Therefore, looking at two products from this perspective will reveal a lot of things for you.

You’ll see which one is superior in terms of packaging, price, ingredient, texture, and effectiveness.

Cantu vs Shea Moisture – A Quick Comparison

The general difference between Cantu and Shea Moisture is that Shea Moisture is cruelty-free while Can isn’t. The Shea Moisture cream is more expensive than Cantu Cream.

While Cantu may feel lighter and offer a defined curl, Shea Moisture may feel heavier without visible definition on curls.

Finally, Shea Moisture actually includes a lot of information on the product packaging which is lacking in the Cantu Cream.

Cantu vs Shea Moisture – Packaging

Both Cantu Coconut Curling Cream and Shea Moisture Curl Enhancing Smoothie come in similar packaging. They’re available in 12oz sized containers/jar.

If the two were put together without the label, you probably will not be able to differentiate them because of how similar they are.

Fortunately, they are labeled well but the Shea Moisture one gives you more information on the pack. You’ll not only be able to read the ingredients but also what it doesn’t contain.

That takes a lot of effort and I love Shea Moisture for that. This might explain why the Shea Moisture cream is more expensive. It costs twice the price of Cantu.

Since it’s more expensive, you want to put that at the back of your mind when choosing. Also, there is another way you can differentiate the two.

Cantu cream is made with shea butter and promises to make your hair manageable, soft, and fuller. Shea Butter, on the other hand, promises defined curls that are silky and free from frizz.

Cantu vs Shea Moisture – Ingredients

I know some of our readers will not want to buy a skincare product without first seeing the ingredients.

If you’re not concerned about this, then you need to change that. Knowing what materials is inside the product you use on your skin is very important.

A lot of companies still use harmful substances in their products that you don’t want on your skin. Just reading the ingredients before buying any beauty product can save your skin a lot of troubles.

That’s the definition of caring for your skin (Isn’t that the reason we buy skincare products in the first place?).

Cantu Cream

So, let’s start with Cantu cream. The cream is made with shea butter, which has been proven from research to be a good agent for moisturizing the skin.

There are a lot of things this ingredient can do for your skin. It can moisturize the skin as well as the hair and scalp. Also, if you have curly or coarse hair, shea butter can help seal moisture in your hair such that your hair becomes softer.

Shea butter is equally used for general hair care, anti-aging, and anti-inflammatory purposes. As you can see, there are a lot of benefits to using shea butter and that’s what the Cantu Curling Cream brings to you.

Shea Moisture Cream

Now, what about the Shea Moisture Curl Enhancer. This product is enhanced with coconut and neem oil in addition to shea butter. First, neem oil has properties that help hair follicles grow and function properly.

It also reduces hair thinning, leading to thicker, fuller, and luxurious hair. Coconut oil helps moisturizes the hair, which means more softness and longer hair. This is what you enjoy when using the Shea Moisture Cream.

Before closing this section I want to talk about another thing. Both products have a lot more ingredients that I didn’t mention here.

And I suspect that the Shea Moisture Curl Enhancer Cream has more quality substance in it than the Cantu Cream. After all, it’s more expensive.

Cantu vs Shea Moisture – Price

I’ve made references to this before. But it deserves it’s own section since it forms a major part of many people’s decision making.

First of all, if you’re buying on price alone, you’re wrong. That’s why I didn’t put it up first. Sometimes, you have to spend more to get the results you want. While at other times, the extra cost may not be worth it.

In this case, though, I’m thinking that the extra cost may be worth it. And I mean that when I mentioned that one of these creams is a lot more expensive than the other.

At the time of this writing, you could buy 3x Cantu Cream for the price of one Shea Moisture Cream.

That’s a big difference there. You need to evaluate your criteria, what the two products promise and decide on which one might be worth your investment.

That takes us to the next point.

Cantu vs Shea Moisture – Benefits

Cantu Coconut Curling Cream

The Cantu Cream promises soft, longer, and defined curls when you use it. The cream contains coconut oil, which might help in strengthening your hair strands too.

Also, it’s light and shouldn’t weigh down your hair too much. Quite a number of users have found this cream to perform just as advertised. Some of the things users praise it for is as follows:

• Can be helpful in bringing dead, damaged, and dry hair back to life, all without spending a fortune
• Helps to increase hair bounce and definition
• Can cause reduction of frizz in hair curls
• Makes hair curly and manageable

Now let’s look at some of the benefits you can gain from using the Shea Moisture Cream

Shea Moisture Curl Enhancing Smoothie

Among the many benefits, you can gain from this product is detangling your curls.

Once that happens, you can expect your hair to become more manageable. Among the benefits is lowering frizz and adding volume to hair.

Another important benefit you need to not is that this product is actually cruelty-free and vegan. Mind you, this often determines or affects a lot of people’s buying decisions.

If you’re looking for that product that’s vegan, this might be your choice. It may also explain why the product may be more expensive than Cantu, which isn’t vegan.

Aside from that, the product free from the following:

• Sulfates
• Parabens
• Phthalates
• Paraffin
• Gluten
• Mineral Oil
• Synthetic Color

Cantu vs Shea Moisture – Final Thought

Now that you’ve been presented with (interesting?) facts about both brands, it’s yours to make a decision between the two now. I do like Shea Moisture better than Cantu because it’s vegan and cruelty-free.

It’s also free from all of the bad ingredients like paraben, etc. However, the price is higher than Cantu so I’ll recommend you go with Cantu if you cannot afford Shea Moisture.

At the end of the day, choosing Cantu or Shea Moisture is about what you want. Go with the one that’s likely to offer you the most benefits.

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