Umberto Giannini Banana Coconut Detangler Review: 30 Days on Bleached Hair

Umberto Giannini Banana Coconut Detangler

A cheap detangler that genuinely works on bleached hair - just not for the reason you'd expect.

It does what a detangler should do, for around a tenner. Just know the softness is coming from a silicone doing its job well, not from the fruit on the front.

Buy it if your hair is bleached, dry and hard to brush. Skip it if you're following curly girl properly, or you react to fragrance.

If you're looking for an affordable detangler, the Umberto Giannini Banana Coconut Detangler - sold in some shops as the Banana Coconut Detangler Leave-In Conditioner, 250ml - might be a great choice. I tested it for 30 days - every single day, once a day, sprayed all over my hair, avoiding the scalp and eyes.

My hair is dyed blonde. After bleaching it became really dry, frizzy and hard to brush after washing, so I went looking for something that would moisturise and detangle. But I never buy on the front of a bottle. Decoding INCI lists is the thing I teach on this blog, so before I judged how this felt on my hair I read the back of the bottle properly. Spoiler: it works - just not for the reason you'd assume from the front.

Here's my honest review, the full ingredients decoded, and one warning that nearly sent me to the dentist.

Umberto Giannini Banana Coconut Detangler 250ml bottle, tested for 30 days on bleached blonde hair.

The method

How I tested it

No brand sent me this. I bought it myself and used it as my only detangler for a full month, so the results below are a month of real use rather than a first impression.

30 consecutive days, one application per day.

Sprayed all over the lengths, avoiding the scalp and eyes

Tried on both wet and dry hair to see which worked better.

My hair: dyed blonde, bleached, thick, dry and frizzy - and very hard to brush after washing

Bought at Boots with my own money. No gifted product, no brand involvement.

The feel

What it's like to use

First thing: the banana coconut fragrance is amazing, and it stays on your hair for a long time. If you like your hair to smell of something all day, this alone might sell it to you.

The formula itself is very light, and it detangled hair I'd normally describe as unmanageable. It doesn't feel like there's product sitting on top of my hair afterwards, which is the thing that usually puts me off leave-ins.

The thing nobody tells you

Wet or dry hair - which works better?

This is the bit nobody tells you, and it's the single most useful thing I learned in 30 days.

The bottle says to spray it on freshly washed, damp hair. I tried it both ways, and for me it worked noticeably better on dry hair. Detangling was simply easier that way. My best guess is that on soaking-wet hair the spray gets diluted and spread too thin to do much - but the practical point is just that dry worked better for me than damp did.

If you've tried this detangler and thought it did nothing, try it on dry hair before you give up on it.

 The results

My results after 30 days

After a month my hair was definitely easier to brush, softer to the touch, and less frizzy. It works well for everyday detangling and softening — my thick hair loved it.

One honest caveat, and this is where reading the ingredients matters: this is a smoothing product, not a repair treatment. It coats the hair so the brush glides through, which is exactly what you want day to day — but it isn't rebuilding bleached hair, and no £10 spray will.

The formula

What's actually in it: the ingredients, decoded.

This is the part most reviews skip, and it's the part that explains why the product behaves the way it does. Here's the full INCI list from the back of my bottle:

Water (Aqua), Amodimethicone, Polysorbate 20, Sodium Benzoate, Fragrance (Parfum), Cetrimonium Chloride, Trideceth-12, Polyquaternium-22, Citric Acid, Potassium Sorbate, Polyquaternium-11, Trisodium Ethylenediamine Disuccinate, Limonene, Glycerin, Phenoxyethanol, Carica Papaya (Papaya) Fruit Extract, Cocos Nucifera (Coconut) Fruit Extract, Ficus Carica (Fig) Fruit Extract, Garcinia Mangostana Fruit Extract, Mangifera Indica (Mango) Fruit Extract, Theobroma Cacao (Cocoa) Seed Extract, Coumarin, Musa Sapientum (Banana) Fruit Extract, Citral, Eugenol, Cinnamal, Ethylhexylglycerin.

Ingredients are listed in order of how much is in the bottle, so the first few are the ones doing the work. Four of them matter here:

Amodimethicone

2nd ingredient.

A silicone - and the reason this spray works. It's an amine-functionalised silicone, which means it's drawn to the damaged, porous parts of the hair shaft. On bleached hair, that's most of it. So it lands where you need it, smooths the cuticle down, and the brush slides through. It's a coating rather than a repair, and it's the single biggest thing in the bottle after water.

Cetrimonium Chloride

The classic conditioning agent. It gives that instant slip you feel the second you spray, and it cuts static and flyaways. Totally standard, does its job.

Polyquaternium-22 and Polyquaternium-11

Film-formers. They lay a very thin, flexible layer over the hair for smoothness and a bit of body. This is also why the mist is so light - it's mostly water plus these.

Glycerin

The only real humectant here - the ingredient that genuinely draws in moisture. It sits fourteenth on the list, so there isn't much of it. Worth knowing if you bought this specifically to moisturise rather than to detangle.

Amodimethicone: is it bad for your hair?

Silicones have a bad reputation they only half deserve, so let's answer it plainly: no, not inherently - but it depends what you wanted from it.

Amodimethicone is a modified silicone. Unlike plain dimethicone it carries a slight positive charge, which is why it's drawn to damaged, porous hair rather than coating everything evenly. That makes it efficient - less product, landing where the damage actually is - and it's easier to wash out than dimethicone, because it doesn't cling as stubbornly.

What it doesn't do is repair anything. It sits on the outside of the hair shaft. Your hair feels better because the surface is smoother, not because the inside has changed, and once you wash it out you're back where you started until you spray again.

That's completely fine - as long as you know it. It's only a problem if you're paying for it thinking it's a treatment, or if you cleanse very gently and never clear it off.

 Is there actually coconut oil in it?

Worth being precise, because this isn't a gotcha. The bottle says "Banana Coconut" — that's the flavour of the thing, not a promise of oil. Where the impression comes from is the product description that runs alongside it in shops, which talks about coconut oil nourishing the hair.

On the ingredients list, what's there is Cocos Nucifera Fruit Extract — coconut fruit extract, not oil - near the bottom, alongside papaya, fig, mangosteen, mango, cocoa and banana. Everything down at that end is present in small amounts.

So it's a fruit blend doing scent and story, while the conditioning is handled further up the list. Almost every drugstore formula works this way, and it doesn't make this a bad product. It's only worth knowing if you picked it up specifically wanting oil on your hair — in which case this isn't that.

Fragrance allergens worth knowing about

That gorgeous smell comes with five declared fragrance allergens: limonene, coumarin, citral, eugenol and cinnamal. Most people will be completely fine. But if you have a sensitive or reactive scalp, or you react to fragranced products, that's a longer list than average and worth a patch test first. It's also another reason to keep it off the scalp, as I did.

Is it curly girl friendly?

Strictly, no. Amodimethicone is a silicone, so this isn't curly-girl-approved. It's more easily washed out than heavier silicones like dimethicone, but you'll still want a proper cleanse now and then. If you're following CG properly, skip this one. If you're not, it's a non-issue.

Good news on the ethics: it's vegan and cruelty-free, with no sulfates, parabens or drying alcohols.

If you want to do this yourself with anything in your bathroom, it's exactly what I teach in my INCI Ingredient Guide for Beginners - the same method I've just used on this bottle, written out step by step.

The cheaper option

Looking for a dupe? Here's what to check on the back of the bottle

I'm not going to list five products I've never used. What I can do is teach you to spot your own dupe in any Boots, Savers or Home Bargains - which is more useful anyway, because stock changes and formulas don't.

This spray works because of two ingredients. Turn any detangling spray around and look for:

Amodimethicone - ideally in the top five. This is the smoothing silicone that clings to damaged hair.

Cetrimonium chloride - the conditioning agent behind the instant slip you feel as you spray.

If a cheaper spray has both near the top of the list, it will behave much like this one, whatever fruit is printed on the front. If it has neither - if it opens with water, glycerin and fragrance and nothing else - it will smell lovely and do very little.

The same trick works upwards. If you're eyeing a salon detangler at two or three times the price, turn it round first and check whether its list is meaningfully different from this one. Often it isn't.

What you'd give up going cheaper is the fragrance. That's the part Umberto Giannini genuinely earns its money on.

One warning

A quick warning: your floor will be slippery

Be careful where you spray this, because your floor might be very slippery afterwards. Mine was. I ended up spraying my hair in the garden because I didn't want to slip and end up at the dentist. 🙂

This isn't me being dramatic, either - it's the silicone and the emulsifiers doing exactly what they do on hair, except on tiles. Spray it over a towel, in the shower, or outside. Not on a bathroom floor in socks.

 Who should buy it - and who should skip it?

Buy it if:

Your hair is bleached or coloured and painful to brush after washing

You have thick, dry, frizzy hair that swallows heavier leave-ins

You want daily manageability for under a tenner, not a treatment

You want your hair to smell like something all day

Skip it if:

You're following the curly girl method properly - it's silicone-based

You react to fragrance, or your scalp is sensitive

You're after actual repair for bleach damage - this smooths, it doesn't rebuild

Your hair is fine and goes limp easily - use it on ends only, or not at all.

The routine

How I use it

Let hair dry, or at least get it to damp rather than dripping.

Spray all over the lengths and ends - not the scalp, and keep it away from your eyes.

Comb or brush straight through while it's still wet from the spray. This is when the slip is best.

Top up on the ends during the week if frizz comes back. A little goes a long way.

The value

Price and where to buy

You can get the 250ml bottle for around £10 at Boots, and it's also on Amazon. It's worth checking discounters like Savers, Home Bargains and B&M too, where Umberto Giannini often turns up cheaper, and Boots regularly runs the range in 3-for-2.

Price checked July 2026. Beauty prices move constantly, so always double-check before you buy.

The questions

Frequently asked questions

Does the Umberto Giannini detangler work on bleached hair?

Yes - it's arguably where it works best. The amodimethicone in it is attracted to damaged, porous hair, and bleached hair is exactly that. After 30 days of daily use my bleached blonde hair was easier to brush and noticeably less frizzy.

Should I use it on wet or dry hair?

The bottle says damp hair, but I found it worked better on dry hair. On soaking-wet hair it dilutes and you need much more product for less slip.

Does it make your hair greasy?

The formula is light, and across the 30 days I kept it off my scalp entirely - spraying the lengths only, which is the main thing protecting your roots with any leave-in. If your hair is fine or greases quickly, use less and keep it to the ends.

Does it contain silicones?

Yes. Amodimethicone is the second ingredient. It's a lighter, more easily removed silicone than dimethicone, but it's still a silicone - so this isn't curly girl friendly.

Is Umberto Giannini vegan and cruelty-free?

Yes - this detangler is vegan and cruelty-free, and it's free from sulfates, parabens and drying alcohols.

Can you use it every day?

I did, for 30 days straight. Because it's silicone-based it's worth using a clarifying or regular sulfate shampoo occasionally to reset, rather than layering it on forever.

How much is it and where can I buy it?

Around £10 for 250ml at Boots as of July 2026, also available on Amazon and often cheaper at discounters like Savers and Home Bargains.

Is the Banana Coconut Detangler a heat protectant?

No. There's nothing in the formula designed to protect hair from heat. The silicone smooths the surface, which is not the same thing. If you're straightening or blow-drying, use a proper heat protectant as well as this.

 What's the difference between a detangler and a leave-in conditioner?

Less than the labels suggest - this product is sold as both. Broadly, a detangler is a light sprayable formula built around slip so the comb moves, while a leave-in conditioner is usually a cream that leans on moisture. This one is a spray built around slip, so it detangles considerably better than it moisturises.

Will it cause build-up, and how do you get silicone out of hair?

Amodimethicone is one of the easier silicones to remove - it doesn't cling like dimethicone - but it isn't water-soluble either. If you use it daily and only ever co-wash or use very gentle shampoo, hair can start to feel coated after a few weeks. A normal shampoo once a week clears it; you don't need a special clarifying product.

Is it good for fine hair?

It's about the lightest leave-in you can buy, so it's a far better bet than a cream. Even so, use less than you think and keep it to the ends - film-formers will flatten fine hair if you soak it.

Can you use it on children's hair?

It isn't sold as a kids' product and it carries five declared fragrance allergens. Plenty of people do use detanglers like this on children, but if your child has sensitive skin or eczema I'd pick something fragrance-free instead.

Does it work on curly hair?

It gives slip, which curls need, but it's silicone-based — so it's a no if you're following the curly girl method, and if you cleanse gently you'll want a proper shampoo occasionally. On my hair, which is thick and bleached, it worked well.

Is Umberto Giannini a British brand?

Yes - it's a UK hair brand, widely stocked in Boots. This detangler is vegan and cruelty-free.

Final verdict

For around £10 this turned hair I dreaded brushing into hair I stopped thinking about, and it smells incredible doing it. I love this brand, and this is a solid product from it.

Just buy it for what it actually is: a light, well-made silicone detangling spray that makes damaged hair behave. Not a coconut oil treatment, and not a repair. Once you know that, it's easy to recommend.

If you're dealing with an itchy or flaky scalp alongside dry lengths, I've also reviewed the Umberto Giannini Scalp Restore shampoo, which I use in the same routine.

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