I've always had the kind of naturally golden blonde hair that prompts even complete strangers to comment on it, and my hairdresser to coo, 'ooh, isn't it a lovely colour! Don't ever dye it will you?' every time she blow-dries it for me. However, over the last couple of years, probably mainly due to me working nights and my hair rarely seeing the sun, I've noticed it has started to look darker and a little dull. So, although I've never been particularly fond of blonde in general, I decided this new mucky blonde just had to go, and started looking around for something to bring the life back into my blonde.

The packaging is quite distinctive and easy to spot amongst all the other hair products out there. The outer packaging consists of a fairly flimsy plastic tube, with a pull off lid in a more sturdy plastic. The bottle itself is cylindrical, the bottom having 4 indentations which if you turn it upside-down, make it look kind of like a castle tower with turrets (that was the only way I could think of to describe it!). It also has a screw-on lid which seals tightly to prevent any leakage.

The back of the bottle tells us that this 'Easy-to-use salon inspired treatment refreshes dull blonde hair with glistening shine and a touch of shimmering blonde colour'. It also tells us that the honey to caramel shade is for 'darker shades of natural, colour-treated or highlighted blonde hair', so there's no need to worry about using it on already chemically processed hair.

Right, well first of all, I'm not using Sheer Blonde shampoo and conditioner, I mean, don't all hair products recommend that they should be used with other products in their range? I'm not convinced it will make any difference, so I just use my normal shampoo and conditioner. The rest of the directions seem pretty simple. I assume you need to wash your hands thoroughly so that the product doesn't colour your hands as well as your hair, but I'm not willing to test this theory by not washing them.

When it comes to rinsing it out after waiting for the obligatory 3 minutes, this stuff seems to coat the hair and never feels as though it's rinsed out properly. I spent almost 10 minutes trying to rinse it out the first time I used it, only to realise later that that's just how it feels. You know the term squeaky clean? Well drop the clean part and that's how my hair feels after rinsing this out! It's smooth enough to the touch that it squeaks when I squeeze the water out of it, but doesn't feel particularly clean. After towel-drying however, it loses that coated feeling and doesn't feel so bad.

After about 4 hours I began to feel disappointed with the results. My hair looked more dull, flat and lifeless than usual, and had begun to look greasy and dirty, as though I hadn't washed it in 2 days. It had also become extremely static.

My hair felt exactly the same through rinsing and drying as it had done the first time round, so I was just hoping the results would be a bit better this time. Once my hair had dried, it felt soft and smooth and I could see a slight difference in the colour of my hair. It didn't look any blonder, but certainly looked brighter and less dull than it had done before. After a few hours, my hair had once again started to look dirty and greasy, though not to the same extent as last time.

So, from my experience, I wasn't very impressed by this product. Yes, it did slightly change the colour of my hair to a brighter, less dull blonde, but where's the point in that if your hair constantly looks mucky? I am assuming however, that the fact that my hair has a tendency to get greasy quite quickly anyway played some part in this, so perhaps those with normal to dry hair would not encounter the same problems. Even taking this into consideration, I would not recommend this product, and I certainly won't be using it again. All I can say is I'm glad it only cost £6.99!