I swim a lot, and to prevent my lovely long hair resembling lovely long straw, I have to give it some care and attention. It was to this end that I purchased this: part of the Boots Sun, Swim and Gym range.

The leave-in conditioner is similarly packaged to the other items in this range: for one thing, the product itself is blue. This is something I find a little off-putting as it looks very chemical. However, I did want my hair to survive the abuse to which I subject it, so I pressed ahead with the purchase.

The whole range is only available from Boots, being their own brand. The leave-in conditioning spray costs £3.49, but they are currently on offer at 2 for £4, so works out quite a bit cheaper if you want two anyway.

Using this is dead easy. The bottle has a spray-pump thing, whereby you press down and a convenient amount of misty conditioner comes out. The bottle holds 200ml, but getting the last of it out is something of a challenge due to the spray-pump.

It is meant to be used before sun or chlorine exposure to protect, and then again after washing hair. It claims to detangle and leave hair soft, similarly to any conditioner really.

It does this really very well: my hair feels lovely and detangled after using this, and although it's hard to know for sure, I think it does do a decent job of protecting my hair while I'm swimming. I also took this on holiday and it did a great job there, too.

My major problem with this is its smell. It just smells undeniably of 'man' to me. While I can understand the appeal of a product like this being unisex, I am a girl and as such like to smell like girl! Whilst with the shampoo you can just use a conditioner afterwards to mask the smell, with this, you leave it in and the smell does stick around.

This is not a deal-breaker for me, but it is very very annoying. If I had an alternative option specifically for protection from chlorine, I'd take it, but there doesn't seem to be anything purse-friendly and similar out there.

For these reasons, this is awarded 3/5 stars: one removed for the smell and one for the colour and packaging. That said, for the price this is great because it works! No straw hair for me.