As regular readers may recall, ever since John Freida’s ‘Radiant Red’ Color Glaze was discontinued (pah!), I’ve been on what feels like a never-ending hunt for a colour-depositing conditioner for redheads.

Now, these aren’t easy to find, even if you’re blonde or brunette (although if you are, you’ll have a very slightly easier time of it). The makers of hair products, however, as I’ve noted before, generally like to pretend redheads just don’t exist at all, so it’s been a fruitless search. I thought it was over when I discovered Wella Lifetex Color Reflex Mask last year, but then… it was discontinued, too.

(Aside: I’m really starting to think it must be me: as soon as I find a product I love, it’s almost instantly discontinued. Hmmmmm.)

The loss of both of these products was a huge blow to me, because, for those of us who want to enhance our colour without resorting to chemical dyes (or even henna, which can be time-consuming and unpredictable), these conditioners are perfect: you use them in the shower, they don’t add a huge amount of time to your daily routine, and while they won’t cover greys or radically change your colour, they will give it a vibrant, more intense shade: or so I found, anyway.

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I’d more or less given-up on finding a replacement for these two products, though. Anything I DID find seemed to be expensive, and not available in the UK, so other than a cursory glance at the shelves any time I happened to be in Boots or Superdrug, hoping against hope that the John Freida Color Glaze would have magically re-appeared, I’d almost forgotten about it. Then, a couple of weekends ago, I was in Superdrug, and I came across their Colour Effects Conditioning Colour.

This bills itself as a “wash-in, wash-out” conditioning colour. It comes in a small bottle, containing just enough for three applications, and is just 99p: score! It works in much the same was as the other products I’ve mentioned here: you apply it to wet hair, as you would any other conditioner, leave it to soak in for around five minutes, then rinse it out. The resulting colour effect isn’t permanent: it will last for around 2 -3 washes, but as the product is cheap, and can be used in the shower as part of your normal routine, it’s easy enough to keep it going by just using it every few days. It’s NOT a dye: it won’t cover greys and it won’t change your colour by more than a shade or so, but it will revitalise dull hair, deepen your existing colour, and generally leave your hair looking a little more vibrant.

Well, so far, so good. There were about three different colour options available in the store: a blonde, a black (I think: I’m working from memory here because the product isn’t available online) and this “Warm Copper Gold”, which was the one I chose, because it looked more or less the same as my natural colour.

It actually took me a couple of days to get round to trying this, because, to be completely honest, I didn’t have very high hopes of it, purely because the colour described itself as “copper” rather than “red”. When I did, however, I was instantly converted: and instantly terrified that Superdrug would surely discontinue it at any second. I used the conditioner in the shower, and the first surprise came with the consistency of it: while this looks and feels exactly like any other conditioner (albeit a coppery brown one), it lathers up like a shampoo, which I wasn’t expecting.

This does make it easy to distribute it evenly throughout the hair, though, so I left it for the recommended five minutes then rinsed until the water ran clear and headed off to dry my hair.As soon as I removed my towel turban, I could see a difference in the colour: my hair was much more vibrant, and looked much “redder” to me, although in a natural kind of way: it’s basically my natural colour, just a little deeper. (Although I can see a big difference, no one else noticed!)

There’s only one downside to this that I’ve found: it’s not great as a conditioner. While the other colour-depositing conditioners I’ve tried have left my hair very soft and shiny as well as subtly changing the colour, after using this, I didn’t really feel like I’d conditioned my hair at all, and the second time I used it, I used some of my regular conditioner afterwards, just to stop my hair from tangling up horribly. So while I love the colour effect, it’s definitely not a replacement for a regular conditioner: or not for me, anyway.

Edited to add:

Unfortunately for the redheads of the world, it seems that this product has now been discontinued. I’m afraid I don’t currently have any alternatives to suggest to you, but you can can find all of the posts I’ve written on red hair here, and I’ll be sure to update if I do try something else I like. In the meantime, I’ve added some more useful links to the bottom of this post, and, of course, if you’ve tried something yourself that you’d like to recommend, please feel free to drop me a comment!