Pamela Anderson can eat my shorts (If I wore them that is) (John Frieda Sheer Blonde Healthy Attitude Spray)

Member Name: michaird

Product:	John Frieda Sheer Blonde Healthy Attitude Spray
Date:	14/08/02 (3190 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good for blonde hair

Disadvantages: Over priced, hairspray's rubbish, Shampoo is over-drying

As a child my hair was so blonde it was transparent and so thin most people thought I was bald until I was three. Still, I grew darker as I grew older, but instead of developing the mahogany brown with natural blond high-lights the rest of my family have I inherited the lank, greasy chip pan blonde from my Dad.

I rely on foreign holidays to sun bleach my hair and to stop me looking like an extra from East-Enders, but this year I'm too poor to go away (ahhhhhh). With growing despair on the darkening of my hair I find myself in boots one Saturday looking at bottles of Sun-in. I quickly regained my senses you'll be glad to hear and went off in search of something more suitable.

It just so happened that on special offer was the John Frieda Sheer Blonde range. I had always been put off this product by the awful mock pop video used to advertise it, but a three for two offer is not to be sneezed at and I bought myself some shampoo, conditioner and hair spay.

There are two varieties, one for Platinum blonde and one for Honey to caramel blonde. I think that my mop falls into the caramel blonde category.

The sheer blonde range is supposedly formulated to rid blond hair of the chemical and mineral build up of water, products and the environment which gives it that dull, brassy and sometimes ever-so slightly green look. It promises to transform straw like hair to shimmering silk.

I am more than a little sceptical, my hair is in quite good condition and has never been colour treated (expect for a few colour mousses). I was under the impression that this product was aimed more at bottle blondes with brittle damaged hair, but the bottle says it is for natural blondes too. I'll try nearly anything once and decided to give it a go.

The Shampoo
***********

It comes in a soft plastic bottle, a bit like a gel tube, and it's not the easiest of products to dispense. You don't need very much to get the

desired effect, yet it's hard to stop the stuff coming out when you're in the shower with slippery hands. Style seems to have won over substance as far as the bottle is concerned.

It is the colour of runny honey but doesn't smell anywhere near as nice. Smell is an all-important factor in most hair products now days, hair has to smell nice as well as look nice. This product smells like the cheap nasty shampoo my mum use to buy for us in Kwik Save when I was little. You know the stuff that was about 50p for two litres and doubled as bubble bath and washing up liquid.

I massaged it into my hair and it worked into a nice lather, when I washed it out my hair felt squeaky clean which while sounding good, actually means it has stripped my hair of its natural oils. I usually use the conditioner afterwards but in the interests of research I decided to try it without the conditioner and found that by hair was left very dry, straw like yet weirdly shinny.

It's a good shampoo but the over-drying effects are not welcome, a conditioner is needed after every wash and this for someone who usually only conditions around three times per week.

The conditioner
***************

It looks like baileys (which I love) unfortunately it doesn't smell like Baileys, it smells just as bad as the shampoo. It also comes in the same crap bottle.

I smoothed it through my hair after shampooing, it doesn't tell you to leave it in but I did anyway while I got on with washing my bits, and then I rinsed it out. I felt as if it took ages to rinse out because it could hardly feel the difference between the slippery feeling of hair with conditioner in it and the silky feeling of my hair afterwards. I eventually got neck ache and just stopped rinsing.

I left my hair to dry naturally, as I always do, and popped into the bathroom to inspect the results afterwards, and what can I say: John Frieda is a genius. My ha
ir gl
owed. Maybe it was the sun streaming through the bathroom window but there were actually strands of gold thread running through my hair. It was still at dark as it always was but with all the natural highlights brought out. As the day passed the highlights subsided and the effect was less impressive but still my hair was nicely conditioned and not weighted down the way it is when I use other conditioners.

The Hairspray
*************

In a standard 250ml hairspray container this also reminds me of the cheap rubbish my mum used to buy from the chemist.

However this hairspray has the saving grace of not stinking like the 50p, metre long cans I used to see on our bathroom cabinet. It has quite a light scent, definitely a hairspray smell but lightly perfumed which doesn't linger in your hair too much.

The hairspray is supposed to have a unique "non yellowing" formula and dries crystal clear. The container also tells me it's firm hold with all day staying power. Yeah, right.

I don't ask much of a hairspray, a light spray just to keep the body in my hair after I've blow dried (a rare occurrence) I don't want any stiff, gravity defying locks here, and it's a good job too. The hold in the spray is practically non-existent, it isn't good enough even for my very limited needs. Maybe it would work better if I sprayed it more liberally but I don't think, for that price, I should have to.

To give it its due though it doesn't yellow my hair and doesn't weigh it down, I don't wake up with hair you could fry eggs in and that has never happened with any styling product I've used before.

The shampoos and conditioners are around £4.99, the hairspray around £3.50, which is incredibly expensive and I would never buy it unless it was on some sort of special offer, no matter how good it is. I have never seen it in any discount shops either.

The bo
ttle doesn
't say if the product is tested on animals. As with most products, if you tend to be sensitive to beauty products to a patch test first.

So in conclusion:

The shampoo did the job but I was disappointed with its drying effect.
I was very impressed with the conditioner, which I think is the best of the lot.
The hairspray its just a waste of space.

Summary: