I have long thick hair that I'd describe as being wavy. If I want it to be especially curly though all I need to do is scrunch it up with a bit of product and I end up with strong ringlets. As my hair is also bleached and very long though, my curls tend to go frizzy and tatty unless I manage them well. Using mousse to define the curls, serum to smooth the flyaway frizz and hair spray to set them means my hair is overloaded with gunk and it ends up heavy and feeling dirty very quickly. When I saw this Frizz Ease Spiral Style Spray Gel I hoped it would mean that I had found an all-in-one product that both sets and smoothes hair. It sounded like a product that could make my life a little bit easier!

The product is part of the John Frieda Frizz-Ease Collection and is especially for curly hair with medium to unruly frizz. It comes in a transparent recyclable bottle which is sized at 150ml. It is a medium sized bottle whose contents will be best used within twelve months of opening. There is some information about the gel spray on the bottle. The brand claim this will give you "bouncy curls" and "highly defined spirals without the crunch" that is normally associated with using other curl defining products like mousse or hair spray.

Directions for use are also printed on the label. This is a product that should be used after washing and towel drying your hair, so your hair should be damp but not totally wet. You should spray all over the hair including the roots and then scrunch or twist your hair around your fingers to create a tight spiral effect. You can then either air dry, use a hair dryer or diffuser to dry your hair.

The bottle has a pump action style button with a fitted top over the button which makes it quite secure if you want to travel with this. The pump action is easy to use but the actual jet spray of gel is ridiculously thin - it shoots out like a water gun. I expected it to come out as a fine mist but instead you get this awkward squirt that is very fast and has a long reach. It means that spraying it on selected pieces of hair is a bit difficult - I actually find that all the gel spray hits the same spot on the piece of hair then drips down the shaft. It's best to aim at the roots in this case as the spray will run down the hair. It also leaves what looks like a gob of spit on the place where the jet spray has hit so you need to make sure you comb your hair well. You can't control how much gel spray comes out either, so you just have to work with it.

The gel spray has a nice fragrance that reminds me of apple juice and cut grass. It's a mild scent though, which is unnoticable unless you sniff your hair. When you are drying your hair the fragrance is warm and fruity and on totally dry hair the scent is noticable for about half a day afterwards.

The gel spray has no stickiness that I'd normally associate with gel products although the liquid looks and feels quite thick it feels more like a runny serum than a gel. You have to use your hands a lot to style when using this product and the fact that it's not sticky is excellent for me as it makes the process much easier and nicer. I find that once my hair is coated with the product it's very easy to mold the hair into the shape you want it. I don't need to do much except scrunch up the hair for the natural curl to take but on more damaged parts of my hair, such as the pieces around my face, I find twirling a section around my finger really helps define more shape.

My hair doesn't take any longer to dry when using this product and it doesn't feel tacky or as if the heat of my hair dryer is frizzing it up out of shape. The gel spray seems to protect the hair and it's shape although as far as I know this product has no particular heat-defence ingredient in it.

When my hair is dry it looks curly in a very natural way - as though I have hair like this all of the time and haven't had to work at it much. My hair looks big and swings and the curls have a bounce effect that I find very cute - something that makes my hair look and feel healthy. It's a totally different effect to how it ended up using the products I had before. There is no hardness to the style or to the spirals, no white dustiness caused by product overload. Although this product claims to eradicate frizz I do find that if I blow dry my hair rather than air dry it a little bit of Frizz Ease Serum can help to pull in the ends of my hair that the heat has caused to be a little bit dry. Finger drying or letting hair dry naturally is better if you have really dry and damaged hair. So whilst this product does help control frizz it's not 100% controlled.

I really like the result the product gives me though and find it's a product that makes styling curls an easy job. It leaves my hair feeling smooth, light and clean and looking shiny with curls that move and flow. What I don't like about the product is the way the spray is dispensed as I feel it makes it difficult to aim around the head of hair. Otherwise though, a great product from John Frieda that I'd recommend to those who want shaped, soft and virtually frizz-free curls.

Visit the website for more information about this product:

www.johnfrieda.co.uk