Garnier Fructis Pure Volume shampoo and conditioner

Oh, the woes of buying shampoo and conditioner. I've had some good ones, some average ones and some bad ones, but somehow all the good ones seem to be extremely expensive, so I end up sticking to cheap and (hopefully) average. The thing with this combo in particular is that I had a sample of the two to play around with before purchasing the full size and I quite liked it. For the small price tag, it would have been rude to not buy the full size!

Garnier Pure Volume shampoo and conditioner (or Heisses Volumen as it is known in Germany where I bought these two bottles) claims to contain heat activated particles that lift and strengthen your hair whenever you use heated appliances on it. It's currently available in Germany, Australia and a handful of other countries, but I couldn't find it in any UK shops yet.

This offering from Fructis does not differ an awful lot from its other ranges. Both have a fruity but fairly artificial scent. The shampoo lathers and rinses well whereas the conditioner provides a good amount of slip, but does tend to drip if you want to leave it to sink in a little longer. If you're trying to avoid sulphates, parabens and silicones then stay away because these two are bursting with those ingredients.

As for the volumising claims my little sachet sample really seemed to work. I used the shampoo followed by the conditioner, towel dried my hair, then used a hair dryer, went to bed and straightened it in the morning. And my hair really did seem to have more lift and volume than usual, with the effect lasting pretty much all day.
However, that seemed to have been a lucky one-off. As I repeated the same procedure with the full sized products they did nothing special whatsoever. I tried using them in the morning instead, drying on different temperatures, but nothing. That initial hit of volume seemed to have gone forever and once again I was left with "average". Not to mention that the 48 hour claim was completely unsubstantiated.

I don't want to give this too bad of a review, because it's not a bad product. It's just as average as most of your other drugstore brands like Pantene or Herbal Essences. However, I feel a bit let down by the fact that the sample performed so well while the full sizes just did not do what they claimed.

I paid 2,25€ each for the shampoo and the conditioner.