Reluxe vs Refresh: Should You Use Mane & Tail Shampoo or Cream?

Reluxe Mane & Tail Shampoo and Refresh Mane & Tail Cream aren't rivals. They're two halves of one routine. Reluxe is the everyday wash that keeps mane and tail clean, while Refresh is the richer, once-weekly deep treatment for hair that's dry, coarse, or breaking. Here's how to use each one, and why the best results come from running both together.

The short answer

You don't actually have to choose. Reluxe Main&Tail Shampoo is the everyday wash — the one you reach for most weeks to keep mane and tail genuinely clean. Refresh Main&Tail Cream is a richer, once-a-week (or less) deep-conditioning treatment for hair that's dry, coarse, or starting to snap. Used together in one simple rhythm — wash with Reluxe, treat with Refresh — they cover both jobs a healthy mane and tail actually need: cleanliness and condition. Neither replaces the other. They're built for different points in the same routine.

What each product actually does

Reluxe Mane & Tail Shampoo – the everyday wash

Reluxe is formulated with castor and jojoba oils, built to be the shampoo you can use often without a second thought. Castor oil is thick and emollient; jojoba sits close in structure to the horse's own natural oils, so together they clean without the harsh, squeaky-stripped feeling that comes from a shampoo built for shine alone. This is the product for the standard Sunday wash, the pre-show rinse, the after-a-muddy-hack clean-up. It lifts dust, sweat salt, shavings and general grime out of the hair shaft while leaving a manageable, combable finish behind. Think of Reluxe as maintenance — it keeps mane and tail from ever reaching the point where they need rescuing.

Refresh Mane & Tail Cream – the deep weekly treatment

Refresh is an entirely different kind of product. It's built around avocado and olive oils — genuinely rich, fatty, penetrating oils, not the lighter cleansing oils found in Reluxe. This isn't a shampoo, and it isn't meant for every wash. It's a deep-conditioning treatment designed to sit on the hair, work into dry or damaged strands, and rebuild flexibility in hair that's turned brittle. If Reluxe is the everyday clean, Refresh is the once-weekly repair session — the product for a tail that feels rough to the touch, ends that are fraying, or a mane worn out by sun, wind, and constant rugging until it's lost its softness. It's heavier by design, and that's exactly the point: hair that's coarse or breaking needs more oil sitting in it for longer, not another light wash.

Why you need both, not either/or

It's tempting to treat these as competing options and pick one, but that misreads what each is for. Washing every single week with something as rich as Refresh would leave a build-up that attracts dust and makes hair feel heavy rather than healthy. Relying on Reluxe alone, meanwhile, keeps things clean but does very little for hair that's already dry, weathered, or prone to snapping — a light everyday shampoo just isn't formulated to sit and repair the way a deep treatment is. The two products are meant to be layered: Reluxe handles the frequent, light lifting; Refresh handles the occasional, intensive conditioning. Most stables get the best results treating them as a pair, not a choice between them.

Building a routine around them

A sensible rhythm — one that suits most yards without over-complicating grooming day — looks something like this:

• Wash mane and tail with Reluxe as often as your normal routine calls for — weekly is typical, more in muddy or sweaty seasons.
• Once a week, or once a fortnight for a tail already in reasonable condition, work Refresh through from mid-length to ends after washing, concentrating on the driest sections.
• Let Refresh sit for a few minutes if you can before rinsing lightly, or work it through and leave it in, depending on how dry the hair is.
• Watch the ends. A tail that's breaking or a mane that feels papery needs Refresh more often for a few weeks until condition recovers, then you can drop back to weekly.
• Keep brushing to a minimum between treatments — condition comes from the products and from patience, not from repeated brushing through knots.

Reading what the hair is telling you

The two products solve different visible problems, so it helps to know which symptom points where. If the mane or tail just looks dull, dusty, or a bit flat, that's a cleanliness issue, and Reluxe on its normal schedule will sort it. If the hair feels rough between your fingers, if broken strands keep turning up in the brush, or the ends look frizzy and split, that's a condition issue calling for Refresh. This pattern of dryness and breakage is common enough to be worth reading up on — our guide to dry, brittle mane and tail walks through the usual causes, from weather exposure to over-washing with the wrong product, and how a treatment-led routine turns it around over a few weeks.

Detangling and softening without doing more damage

One thing worth flagging clearly: a coarse or matted tail should never be brushed dry and forced straight through. That's exactly how a rough tail turns into a thin one. Refresh's deep-conditioning oils make hair more pliable and easier to work through gently, but technique still matters — always detangle from the bottom up, in small sections, easing knots apart rather than dragging a brush from root to tip. Our guide on how to detangle a horse's tail without breakage covers the sectioning method in full, and it pairs naturally with a Refresh treatment since hair is at its most workable right after conditioning. If the goal is specifically softening a naturally coarse or wiry tail type rather than fixing damage, how to soften a coarse or dry tail has more on building that up over time through consistent, patient treatment rather than one heavy dose.

A note on skin underneath

Both products are grooming aids for the hair itself, not the skin at the tail head or along the crest. Persistent scurf, scabbing, hair loss in patches, or a tail rubbed raw from itching are signs of something happening at skin level — conditions like sweet itch, mites, or a skin infection — and no shampoo or cream is designed to resolve those. Broken skin, weeping, swelling, or a horse rubbing itself raw is a vet call, not a grooming fix. Once any underlying skin issue is under control, Reluxe and Refresh are exactly the right pair to bring the hair itself back to condition.

Which should I choose – the summary

If you're only ever buying one product, and your horse's mane and tail are already in reasonable shape, start with Reluxe — it's the everyday workhorse that keeps things clean and manageable. If the hair is already dry, coarse, or breaking, add Refresh as a weekly treatment rather than swapping it in as a replacement shampoo. In practice, most stables end up running both: Reluxe on the regular wash day, Refresh layered in once a week as the deeper conditioning step. Used this way, they're not rivals on a shelf — they're the two halves of one proper mane and tail routine.