The obscure and hard to pronounce DAENG GI MEO RI Gold shampoo has been sold at Costco for the past several years. Now I know why.
Even the best wellness and beauty products seem to take a lot of time and hard work to see results. Allow me to introduce some instant gratification into your hair care repertoire. Shampoo is usually not the first thing that comes to mind when we think about a game-changing K Beauty product but Daeng Gi Meo Ri is an exception.
Costco famously has a very limited number of SKUs and is therefore super selective about the products they carry. Although I was not in the market for a new shampoo, I became curious about this product when I spotted it last year on Costco’s shortlist of K-Beauty products.
For me, an expensive haircut from a trusted stylist is well worth the money, but an expensive shampoo somehow feels frivolous. My hair was not in terrible condition, but it didn’t have that shiny lustrous look some people seem to have naturally. Over the years, I’ve tried hundreds of shampoos, never seeing any real differences in my hair. Despite all the promises on the labels, both drugstore and high end products always fell flat.
When my regular shampoo started running low, I ordered the Daeng Gi Meo Ri Gold Shampoo and Conditioner Ki Gold Premium set online. I tried it without much expectation and was nothing short of amazed at the immediate difference I saw in my hair.
Shine and bounce
There were no unusual steps to follow. I shampooed my hair making sure to massage the product into my scalp, rinsed, and then left the conditioner in for a few minutes before rinsing out. After blow drying my hair, the transformation was immediately noticeable. My hair was shinier than I could ever remember and had a voluminous bounce that felt very unfamiliar. Dare I say my hair looked a bit like those Pantene ads that I was always convinced were fake!
The shampoo has a distinct herbal scent that reminded me of the Korean herbal medicine called hanyak that my grandmother tried to make me drink as a child. Though I hated it then, I now love the natural scents of ginseng and other medicinal herbs and roots that are incorporated in many K-Beauty products.
The ingredients list indeed shows a high concentration of Korean ginseng, a root that truly has amazing anti-aging and healing powers recognized even in the US. “As a general outcome of antiaging effects, ginseng extract and ginsenosides maintain skin structural integrity and regulate hair-growth promotion. For instance, incubation of cultured human dermal fibroblasts with Panax ginseng for three days significantly increased cell proliferation and collagen synthesis.” -Young Choi, “Hair-Growth Potential of Ginseng and Its Major Metabolites”, US National Library of Medicine
Reduced hair loss
The Daeng Gi Meo Ri shampoo also claims to reduce hair loss and promote new hair growth. Constant hair loss has been a concern of mine for a long time and my husband can tell you that I shed an alarming amount of hair. I even have a Roomba in my bathroom just to pick up the hair that ends up on the floor every morning. Since using this shampoo, I see less than half the amount of hair I used to see both in my shower drain and on my bathroom floor.
Reduced hair loss and increased hair growth is great but the main difference that I can see so far is in the look and feel of my hair. And that’s more than enough for me.
What does Daeng Gi Meo Ri mean and what’s on the ingredient list?
Daeng gi is the ribbon that Koreans traditionally used to tie braided hair in the old days. Meo ri means hair. Perhaps referring to the old days when Korean women valued healthy shiny hair over any kind of fancy hairstyle.
Unique herbal blending technology
Daeng Gi Meo Ri carefully selects herbal medicinal plants that are effective for scalp and hair care, and state on their website that the herbal extracts that have undergone a powerful aging process.
With many years of know-how, they proudly claim that they found the optimal blending ratio of each medicinal herb and that it is this herbal blending technology that produces the unmatched results of their products.
Main ingredients and benefits
The colors of Daeng Gi Meo Ri products reflect the medicinal herbal extracts themselves without artificial colors. The shampoo is a natural shade of brown, and the conditioner is a lighter white color.
Here are the specific ingredients and the roles they play according to the manufacturer:
- Siberian Chrysanthemum : Keeps scalp clean.
- Cnidium Officinale : Promotes blood circulation, increases the strength and elasticity of hair.
- Steamed Rehmannia Glutinosa : Blackens hair, strengthening effect.
- Ginseng : Promotes blood circulation, accelerates metabolism, prevents gray hair.
- Green Tea : Provides nutrition to hair roots, astringent effect, dandruff removal.
- Eclipta Prostrata : Strengthens immunity, promotes hair growth.
- Licorice Root : Sebum control, anti-inflammation effect, hair loss prevention effect.
- Angelica Gigas : Anti-oxidative effect, prevents skin aging.
- Iris : Provides elasticity and nutrition to hair.
- Sophora Flavescens : Bacterial control effect, uterus contraction effect.
- Menthol : Refreshing feel.
- Panthenol Content : Hair moisturizing, cornification improvement.
Final thoughts
Costco is sometimes out of stock on Daeng Gi Meo Ri products but you can usually purchase them from Amazon or your local H Mart.
I am over the moon with the Daeng Gi Meo Ri Gold shampoo and treatment set. If you want to try just one, the shampoo will help improve the health of your scalp, therefore reducing hair loss and promote hair growth. The treatment/conditioner will promote shine and help with volume and manageability. I highly recommend that you try it while it’s available and reap the rewards of thousands of years of Eastern medicine conveniently packaged in a pump bottle.
