I bought a really fancy hair conditioner a few months ago. Like, super fancy - it was $50 for a 500ml bottle of conditioner!! This might be normal for some people, but for a bargain hunter like me it was quite the luxury purchase.

I'd just had my hair cut, coloured and styled on one of those thrifty Ouffer deals for $49, so I figured I was financially ahead of the game already. At the end of my appointment when the hairdresser recommended various Prive hair products, I plucked the conditioner and boldly declared, "I'll take it!" 

It was an organic foaming conditioner with no salt (apparently regular conditioners have sodium in them, which strips colour) and Elisa promised it would last twice as long as my regular conditioner.

At home a few days later, I saw my conditioner on the "special shelf" in my shower - that is, the shelf that David's not allowed to touch, lest he accidentally squander one of my obscenely expensive impulse beauty buys. I excitedly lathered up my new hair wonder cream, and it was awesome!

My hair dried curly, rather than frizzy. It was shiny and felt so smooth. I was sold, so much so that I thought, "I'm going to go back and buy the shampoo!"

Then, a mere 8 washes later, I realised I'd been using it wrong. You're meant to pump a small amount of foam and then lather it between your hands, at which point the product expands and you can wash your hair. I was pumping a LARGE AMOUNT into my hands – the equivalent of probably 5 or 6 hair washes – and slathering it all over.

So, after eight washes the bottle was near empty. I squeezed three more sessions out of it, and then the dream was over. The bottle lasted me a whopping five weeks. Moral of the story: I should stick with Herbel Essences.