Philip Kingsley Body Building shampoo and conditioner

I was recently given the opportunity to try out this shampoo and conditioner from Philip Kingsley, renowned trichologist and proprietor of a rather sleek range of premium haircare products. The range is geared towards specific hair and scalp health concerns and conditions - it's a cosmeceutical positioning, essentially, but for hair rather than skin. Perhaps the best known product from the range is Elasticizer, about which I have nothing but good things to say.

I chose the Body Building shampoo and conditioner because although I'm happy with my hair's condition, I sometimes wish it had a bit more oomph, particularly as it grows longer and the hair near the roots is weighed down. So my main hope or expectation of this pairing was thicker-looking, bouncier hair.

 The products come in round, white bottles with an unusual flip-top lid design - easy to manipulate one-handed in the shower. The bottles are printed with different coloured text, so while they retain the uniform, minimalist appearance common to the rest of the range, they're still easy to distinguish one from the other at a glance. Each bottle is 250ml - a pretty standard measure of product.

The shampoo is clear and has a pleasant, cheerful smell of Parma Violets. It lathers copiously and leaves hair feeling phenomenally clean. I was impressed by how little of this I needed to leave my hair and scalp feeling utterly cleansed. I think the lightweight feeling the shampoo creates is part of the volumising action - it removes any hint of build-up or residue. It also contains keratin and cellulose to bulk out the hair, but I haven't noticed much of a feeling of increased volume from this - just incredible lightness and a lovely clean sensation.

The conditioner is a white, opaque cream texture and has a slight, ceramic, brick-dust sort of smell. It's unusual but not unpleasant, and in fact is a nice change from the floral sweetness of many hair products. It's entirely serviceable as a high-end conditioner, leaving hair sleek and shiny and again, very little is needed to create this result. However, I didn't get any kind of bulking or volumising feeling from this, despite the wheat protein included in the formula for this purpose. It just conditions - very well, but not in an especially volumising way.

While I didn't get the volumising results I hoped for from these products, I have very much enjoyed using them over the past couple of weeks, and I'm encouraged to explore the range further.

Price-wise, these products are a bit of a leap from the standard high-street prices - the Body Building shampoo is £14.30 for 250ml, while the Body Building conditioner is £17.40 for 250ml at the Philip Kingsley website. The brand advised us that they're keen to reduce the outlets the products are sold from and particularly to limit the brand's presence on discount websites. However as a dutiful blogger I feel I should point out that you can currently find these products cheaper than the prices above by shopping around online.

Disclosure: PR samples