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“I don't test on animals, ever," celebrity hairstylist Adir Abergel shares over Zoom. “Only celebrities.” And while he's joking—of course—for the product we're here today to discuss, that's exactly how it came to be.

Virtue's Damage Reverse Serum is out now. But you've actually seen it on the red carpet countless times over the past six months—Vanessa Kirby wore it while promoting Napoleon, Charlize Theron did too on the press circuit for FastX, as well as recently micro-banged Kristin Stewart.

“This is not a styler,” says Abergel, who is also Virtue's creative director. Noted. So what is it? “A leave-in treatment meant to heal and be your first line of defense when it comes to repair.”

The Damage Reverse Serum was formulated with the skincare rules we faithfully follow in mind: cleanse, then layer smallest molecule to largest. It's a serum, not leave in, because that's traditionally the most important and active step in your skincare routine—same when it comes to hair. (“Your skincare regime really should be all about the serums,” esthetician Georgia Louise recently told me mid-facial. “That’s where the actives are.”) It's also the most concentrated dose of the brand's patented Alpha Keratin 60Ku molecule in a single product, ever. “The molecule size is the same molecule size as [human keratin],” Abergel says. “So the product doesn't sit on top of hair, weighing it down. It's actually going into the cortex and actually filling any breakage.” 

“When we received confirmation that, in just five uses, we were able to repair a truly broken or damaged hair strand, reverse damage, and prevent it from ever accumulating again, we knew this product was transformative,” says Debby Vellozzi, vice president of product development at Virtue Labs. The super-lightweight formula makes it “texture agnostic” according to Abergel—the lightness of the formula means that it's able to work on all hair types. 

Unlike the brand's Virtue Split End Serum, this product is meant to be applied all over the hair, from root to ends. “People have damage all over their hair,” Abergel says. “If you are using heat, washing your hair with hard water, or even just going in the sun, you're creating damage all over your head.” 

And celebrities are just like us when it comes to having damage on their hair, too. “Florence [Pugh] and Vanessa both have highly bleached hair. After I started using the samples, my blow dries were just completely different. The elasticity of the hair returned and it didn't feel stiff anymore. Everything that you want hair to feel when it's healthy.”