“_John Frieda Radiant Red Luminous Colour Glaze is an easy to use salon inspired treatment that recharges faded red hair with blazing shine and a hint of deep red colour._”

The glaze comes in some rather swish-looking packaging. The product itself is housed within a tube, which stands upright on its base. The tube is a slightly metallic cream colour, with a screw off lid, which is topped with a nice shiny metallic red colour (a colour swatch of what is inside). The tube comes housed in a snazzy bit of clear plastic casing, with a big swathe of red plastered across it. It’s excessive packaging, if you ask me, but I can understand what John Frieda is trying to do: make the product look exciting & expensive. Personally I think he could have achieved this using a damn-sight less plastic in the process, but of how much importance is the environment really, in the face of John Frieda’s product sales? Indeed. Anyway, moving on…

Basically, the instructions insist that you use the John Frieda shampoo and conditioner, which is made especially for red hair – I am guessing that this is more of a suggestion than an order, and one which I personally chose to ignore.

• Shampoo and condition as normal
• Remove excess moisture from hair
• Smooth enough of the product through the hair to evenly coat it
• Take care to wash your hands thoroughly to avoid staining them
• Leave it on the hair for a minimum of three minutes and finally rinse well

So, following these instructions myself was relatively straightforward, as I said, I didn’t use the special shampoo and conditioner, because I rather like my current shampoo and conditioner. I didn’t want to hurt their feelings by swapping them for some glossy fly-by-night characters; it didn’t seem fair, when they’re doing a perfectly lovely job themselves.

I rinsed the product out after about 5 minutes. It seemed to rinse out easily at first, but then I noticed that my hair seemed a little plasticy to the touch. So I continued to rinse for a good few minutes longer than I felt should be absolutely necessary. The plasticy feeling however, didn’t give up, so I did (I gave up) and got out of the shower.

This stuff is rubbish!

You may be thinking that I was obviously expecting too much. However, in the past I used to use a wonderful red-hair product by L’Oreal, with much the same claims as this John Frieda monstrosity, and let me tell you – it gave fabulous and instant colour results, so I know it is possible. Sadly I can’t find this L’Oreal product anywhere, so I am resigned to trying to find something else that comes close to its fabulousness. Sadly, this most recent courting with John Frieda has certainly not come close and has left me terribly disappointed.

So… how much did it cost?

I don’t think there is a massive amount of point in going over why I wouldn’t buy it, as the evidence is liberally scattered throughout my review for all to see, so I will aim to be as succinct as possible.