People buy new shampoos for all kinds of different reasons – price, change in condition of their hair, they like the smell or they just fancy trying a new product.
My reason for buying my latest shampoo is somewhat more sad and pathetic than that… It was the same colour that I’ve just painted my bathroom and I thought it would look nice!! Yep, I’m really that sad.

I’ve used celebrity hairdresser John Frieda’s ‘Sheer Blonde’ range of shampoos on and off for several years now. It seems OK but I’ve never been that impressed with it, I just use it because I have blonde hair and my hairdresser recommended it.
So I would never have bought the ‘Beach Blonde’ range were it not for the colour.
It’s green. The paint chart I used to pick the colour for my bathroom called it ‘Watermelon’ but it is a pale green.

The shampoo is called ‘Cool Dip’ (another thing I liked about this range is the names of the products – long gone are the days when a bottle of shampoo was just called shampoo)

But looks aren’t everything…does it work.
Yes, it does!
The idea is that it washes away chlorine and ‘summertime grime’ from your hair and leaves sun frazzled hair looking better.
Having not been on holiday this year I can’t say if it works or not on beach battered hair (although if anyone wishes to pay for me to go on a beach holiday to test it out for them I would be more than happy to!)
After using it, my hair felt really silky and clean. I only needed to wash with it once – normally I need to shampoo my hair twice.
It felt really well moisturised which is a first. My hair is in such bad condition that normally I need to slap on the conditioner but after using this my hair felt very sleek. (Not that I’m advocating not using a conditioner of course, before all the hairdresser out there lynch me!)

You will be pleased to learn after my waxing lyrical about the shampoo that I have less to say about the conditioner. It works very well indeed, smells the same as the shampoo and is the same colour as my bathroom.
It is called ‘Smooth Sailing’ and apparently ‘unsnarls surfside snags.’
So if you are a sufferer of those pesky ‘surfside snags’ this ones for you…
(I would have thought a ‘surfside snag’ would have been getting down to the beach to discover you have forgotten your surfboard/wetsuit/fins/snorkelling gear (delete as appropriate) and I don’t think that the conditioner will go and fetch them for you, so you would still have a surfside snag…but who am I to argue with the mighty advertising men?!)

The best thing about this product, for me was the name – Kelp Help. Any product with a rhyming name has to be a winner in my book!
This product comes in a round tub rather than a bottle and is a ‘deep conditioning masque.’
You apply it after shampoo instead of conditioner is your hair is particularly unhappy and its ‘protein rich sea kelp formula’ works its magic.

You simply apply a thick layer of the ‘masque’ which looks rather like green rice pudding, then leave it to work for 10 minutes – for best results sit in the sun wearing it (or under a hair dryer if you don’t happen to be lucky enough to be on a beach somewhere exotic!)

Despite the name, Beach Blonde isn’t just for blondes – any hair colour or type can use it. It isn’t just for the summertime either although obviously the ad men are picking up on the summer mood to sell more units at the moment. It can be used by men or women because it doesn’t smell girly – it’s just a fresh clean smell.
Its available at most supermarkets and drugstores – in Boots it retails at £4.29 for the shampoo and conditioner and £4.99 for the masque, but you don’t need to use as much as with some shampoo ranges so it lasts well and often Boots have it on 3 for 2 promotions.
Other products in the range are mainly aimed at blonde hair or lightening hair. They include Lemon Lights, Gold Rush and Sun Streaks.