Garnier Fructis Intense Anti-Frizz Serum : Read reviews and compare prices at Ciao.co.uk

Author's product rating:

Value for Money
Long Lasting?
Smoothing?
Conditioning?

Advantages:	Good on long tangly hair, soft result
Disadvantages:	Slightly oily but disappears off hands within minutes

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

My hair is very thick and naturally curly (see profile photo). As a child, I had to lean for what seemed like hours over the bath whilst my mother combed conditioner through with a force that would now cause her to be nicked for GBH. In my youth, I hated it, and tended to keep it short.

But in the last 20 years, I have come to appreciate it more, and have kept it long. The difficulty in this comes from the fact that I ride motorcycles these days, and I love the feeling of having it flying behind me out from under the helmet. Obviously this causes it to tangle somewhat more disastrously than most hair.

I came across the Fructis range about 18 months ago, when my daughter - who also has very long hair, but very fine and straight - bought some to see if it made her hair glossy.

I was more concerned with the "anti-frizz" aspect, as despite mine having length and thickness, it is also prone to frizzing out.

As it is SO prone to frizz, I rarely brush my hair on a daily basis. If I try to brush it daily, my friends end up calling me "Crystal Tips" ... so I often leave it for up to a week without brushing. But by then, the wind, the bike/s and the London pollution have taken their toll - and I end up putting off trying to drag a brush through it at all.

The worst I have ever left it is 3 weeks without combing any conditioner through it, being terrified at the thought of trying to get through the mat of semi-dreadlock that it becomes.

When I tried the Fructis Anti-Frizz serum, my initial reaction was to complain of the greasiness of the serum in my palms. I wiped it all onto my hair, to little avail. But my daughter reassured me that most serums have this tendency, and not to use too much. So erring on the side of caution, I used five squirts.

You have to really SEE my hair to appreciate just how much there really is of it and how bad it gets tangled. Five squirts might seem a lot to some people, but trust me ... on my hair, it is not.

And yet ... once I had wiped the residue on my hair, a towel, a nearby tea-towel, the sofa, the dog (see also below) ... and began to work my way through a 3-week knotted mess of hair, it took remarkably less time than anything I had ever used before. Averagely, without serum, it will take me over an hour to brush the knots/matting out of my hair. With the Fructis Anti-Frizz, it is less than half an hour.

Fructis Anti-Frizz just seems to "loosen" matted hair so that it detangles itself under the bristles of the brush. And if I am not mistaken, it causes the hair to be less tangly in general, as - although my hair still tangles - it seems to curl around itself and tangle these days, rather than just knot itself up into a frizzy mess.

The end result was that my hair feels like the "soft falling curtain" I had always hoped for. For days afterwards it floats about my face making me feel angelic and beautiful (!) and - the best part - men love to run their fingers through it.

Result!

Fructis Anti-Frizz Serum is only around £4 a bottle, and even on my hair, five squirts is sufficient. It lasts for ages, and is completely the best value for money I have seen.

And it smells wonderful.

NB. It also works on beards and dogs.

Whilst he was asleep, I once inflicted some Fructis Serum on the beard of a rather ruffty-tuffty friend of mine, who had the temerity to borrow my (bog standard) conditioner for his short spikey goatee (heh heh) - and I was delighted to discover that the Fructis serum made it soft and non-prickly when snogging.

My 10 year old border collie has a LOT of fur as well - a couple of squirts of Fructis serum and a brush through after a doggy bath makes his fur so soft and fluffy for WEEKS, that people actually stop to stroke him in the street.