I regularly have frequent trips to a local hairdressers' salon to have a colouring treatment and a cut. I usually do this around every four to six weeks or so, and so I feel I spend a fair few pounds on my hair and want the after-effects to stay looking good for as long as possible. For this reason, I tend to invest quite a lot of money into products which claim to help prolong the life of my colouring treatment or hair dye. Personally, I don't see the point in spending a fair bit of cash on getting my hair coloured and then using a cheap shampoo and conditioner product on my hair, as I find the results usually end up being highly disappointing and have even had several incidents of shampoos 'stripping' down the colour in my hair... Highly annoying!

One product that I have bought time and time again is the 'Elvive Caring Colour Protect Shampoo' from the L'Oreal Paris range of hair care products. I usually pay around £2 for the 250ml bottle of the shampoo from a local pharmacy store, but it is widely available in supermarkets such as Tesco, and drugstores such as Boots. The bottle is made of bright red plastic which I believe is widely recycled. I think that the shampoo offers great value for money and is not nearly as expensive as some of the other colour protection products that I buy on a regular basis.

The smell of the L'Oreal Elvive Colour Protect shampoo is ok, but that's probably about as good as it gets for me personally. I am not the type of person to buy products such as shampoos based on how they smell, so the scent of the product is pretty irrelevant to me. For the benefit of other consumers however, I would describe the smell as quite chemical and soapy whilst being quite a feminine fragrance.

The shampoo itself is a white colour and it is quite thick. I find that I don't need to use a lot of the shampoo product to achieve a rich foamy lather on my wet hair and a little seems to go quite a long way with this particular shampoo. This is not a negative point, as I think it makes the shampoo quite economical and I find that the bottle lasts me quite a long time, even though I have very thick hair and wash it every second or third day in an average week.

I find that this particular shampoo is not overly difficult to rinse from my hair, nor does it leave any sort of 'heavy' feeling on my hair. Neither does it leave any greasy, soapy residue behind after I have rinsed it from my hair and I am truly left with squeaky-clean tresses once this product has been rinsed off.

To be quite fair and honest however, I feel that most other shampoo products that I would normally buy would achieve pretty much all of the same results that I have reported in this review thus far; for me, the difference with the L'Oreal Elvive shampoo is the after-results.

What I have noticed in terms of the 'Colour Protect' element of this product is that it really protects my colouring treatment as efficiently as any other such product I have ever used. I have never had any issue with the Elvive shampoo stripping colour from my hair, nor have I found it is overly harsh to use on my newly-dyed tresses which is a significant problem I have experienced from other products I have used in the past. Some 'colour protecting' type shampoos can be quite harsh to use on delicate, treated hair and seem to dry it out, making it brittle and unmanageable. I have had no such ill-effects from using the Elvive shampoo however, and my hair is usually left in good condition, without looking limp and dull.

Quite the opposite is true in fact. My hair is often full of shine and it is certainly full of body, but that is probably down to the thickness and good condition of my hair overall, rather than being as a direct result of this shampoo. I'm sure it helps, but my hair has always had a healthy-looking shine to it if I'm being honest.

However, the overall effects from using this shampoo on my hair are really good and I'm pleased with all aspects of the shampoo. I think though that the winning point for me will always be how it protects my colour and stops it from fading too quickly and this is the reason that I have recommended this shampoo to friends.

I will continue to buy the shampoo as I don't feel the need to find an alternative at the moment; this product lives up to its claims and I feel it is reasonable value and easy to use.... What more could I ask for?

There is a whole range of hair care products available from the "L'Oreal Paris" range which includes this shampoo (available in two sizes). The range - or parts of it - can be found in all good supermarkets and drugstores as the products are very widely available. I am not aware of the L'Oreal brand's policy when it comes to testing on animals and there is nothing on the product's packaging to inform me about this.