Big hair, you are beautiful: Road testing John Frieda's Luxurious Volume range

Following the madly successful Frizz Ease, Total Repair and Brilliant Brunette ranges, John Frieda is turning his hand to volume.

I know what you're thinking - volume? Pat Butcher bouffants? Cindy Crawford-style 90s blowouts?

Nope! The new range wants to give us natural, healthy-looking volume without the crunchy, heavy feeling that often accompanies using a lot of product. Brigitte Bardot is a personal hair icon of mine, so anything that might give me her voluminous, artfully tousled bouffant is immediately covetable.

The Luxurious Volume range was launched at a swanky do in the Morrison hotel, where top hairstylist Jake Davis showed us how to use the new Fine to Full Blow-Out Spray and Root-Boosting Blow Dry Lotion. (All products cost around €6.31, BTW.)

I really appreciated this, as I'm so useless with hair. I have bought so many hair products only to abandon them when I can't figure them out, so watching Jake work his magic on a model was essential to me before trying them out myself.

Here was the finished result, as modelled by the beautiful Joanne.

Styled by Jake, the products do exactly what they say on the tin - give lush, natural volume without stickiness, or even copious amounts of hairspray. Imagine. But how would they fare when used by ME, about as unqualified a hairdresser as you can get?

I was also interested to see how it would work on my thick hair - the products are formulated for fine tresses, but Jake said they SHOULD work on any type of hair. Still, I was worried that paired with my already quite voluminous (in all the wrong ways) hair, I would end up with a barnet straight from the Dolly Parton School of Big Hair. Not to say Dolly doesn't radiate fabulousness, but I like my own hair to be a little more...subtle.

I started by washing my hair with the Touchably Full Shampoo and Conditioner, then before blow-drying sprayed the Blow Dry Lotion Root Booster all over my roots. I then blow-dried my hair as Jake directed: Throw all your hair over to the left side. Go mad with the hair dryer. Throw all your hair over to the right side. Go mad with the hair dryer. It really is that simple!

My finished result - natural, luxurious volume. A little less polished than Jake's effort, but like I said, I'm no hairdresser. I found it a little too big'n'bouncy for a daytime look, but I definitely would rock that volume on a night out.

What do you think of my voluminous do? Are you a fan of the big and bouncy look?