5 Best Purple Shampoo for Keeping Bleached Hair Pristine

The best purple shampoo can prolong the brightness of bleached hair for months after the fact. If you’ve ever professionally bleached your hair, then you know how hard it can be to preserve the hair’s blonde or platinum color. (I say “professionally bleached” because many of those at-home dye jobs are probably already yellowish from the start, so there isn’t much color preservation needed.)

Things like hard water, hair products, sun exposure, chlorinated water, and hot-tool styling (like blow dryers and straighteners) can significantly diminish your expensive dye job. They can turn hair a sad, dull, brassy yellowish color. The same goes for people with naturally blonde or gray hair, as well as silver-dyed hair; these tones can grow dull without some kind of brightening solution.

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The Best Purple Hair Shampoos, According to GQ

Because purple is opposite on the color wheel from yellow, the best shampoo for fighting brassiness is purple. These shampoos use a crushed violet pigment in order to get this brass-toning color. You can also get a purple conditioner, as well as some purple hair treatment masks. However, you don’t want to double-up on purple products—and that’s just one of the rules of using this stuff correctly.

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Best Purple Shampoo Overall: Clairol Professional Shimmer Lights Purple Shampoo

No matter if your hair is color-treated, naturally blonde, or gray, you’ll be happy with Clairol’s Professional Shimmer Lights. Sarah Conner, a celebrity hair color expert, calls it one of her favorites for its ability to keep brassiness at bay. It works quickly after one use, while simultaneously toning and conditioning your hair. Conner recommends that you don’t use this too often, only “when your icy blonde starts turning yellow.”

Best Purple Shampoo for Natural Blondes: Redken Blondage Purple Shampoo

Redken’s purple shampoo is beloved by natural blondes and those who’ve tipped their toes in living that blondes-do-it-better lifestyle. The shampoo has ultra violet pigment to help fight brassiness, leaving hair brighter with each wash. Because of its triple acid protein complex, Blondage also tones and strengthens your locks, which is atypical of the purple shampoos of yore that would dry out hair with prolonged use.

Best Purple Shampoo for Dyed Blondes: Paul Mitchell Platinum Blonde Purple Shampoo

People with color-treated hair will appreciate this Paul Mitchell purple shampoo for helping to keep them out of the salon chair for a couple extra weeks in between appointments. It immediately, and effectively combats brassiness, warming up your hair tone to what it’s supposed to look like. And while it’s supposedly gentle enough for daily use, we would still recommend you use this more infrequently just to give your strands a break from any over-drying.

Best Purple Shampoo for Silver Hair: Sachajuan Silver Shampoo

To avoid your hair from getting too yellow (or looking too much like a golden retriever), this Sachajuan purple shampoo will keep your hair looking brighter for those with blonde or silver. Plus, it acts like a regular shampoo, too, adding volume and sheen to hair. And with the added benefit of UV-protection, this shampoo will prevent any negative effects from spending too much time in the sun.

Best Purple Shampoo for Gray Hair: Pantene Silver Expressions Purple Shampoo

Pantene’s purple shampoo is designed for those who are specifically looking to become silver foxes by reducing dullness in gray hair, making more of a sleek silver. Gray hair can tend to yellow because of natural factors, and this shampoo helps to prevent and counteract that so that grays appear more vibrant.

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Tips for Using Purple Shampoos

Here are a few tips for using purple shampoos as effectively as possible:

• Purple shampoo does not replace your regular shampoo: Think of purple shampoo as a treatment, not a daily-use product. This is the easiest way to avoid overdosing on purple.
• Start with once a week, then switch to twice: The most you’d likely need to tone your hair is twice a week. Start with once a week, though, because it’s easier to correct it from a yellow under-toned base than from an orange and over-toned one. You can plan on using the product once weekly routinely, then deploying it ad hoc in-between washes whenever things look a little brassy.
• Different hair colors call for different purples: The intensity of purple will be determined by your hair’s own color. If you need the brightness of blonde to pop (natural or dyed), then keep the purple on the lighter, brighter side. If you need the powerful platinum or silver tones to shine through (same for gray), then you want a deeper shade of purple.
• Use it depending on your hair color: If you’re a natural blonde, then use the purple shampoo for two minutes, tops, and rinse it out. Platinum-dyed blondes can wear theirs up to 15 minutes (or as advised by the product label), while gray hair types can go longer yet. Afterwards, you can use your favorite (non-purple) conditioner. Ideally it’s one that calls itself blonde/gray/bleach friendly.
• Don’t pair purple products: Some people prefer to get their purple from a conditioner, and others from a hair treatment mask. No matter where you get it from, make sure it’s limited to once a week (twice tops, whatever your stylist or colorist advises). We prefer shampoos for natural blonde since they’re fast and easy to lather, and to rinse clean, whereas conditioners can take longer, rinse less easily, and can thus deposit unevenly. (And if you only have two minutes of wear time, every second is precious.)
• Don’t use purple shampoo in dark or color-dyed hair: This shampoo targets natural and dyed blondes, plus gray and silver-dyed tones. Anything else will experience some kind of color compromise due to the deposits in purple shampoo.
• Do a hair mask every couple weeks: Purple shampoo has a drying effect on hair, and as such, can take a toll on the overall quality of strands. This is one argument for using a purple conditioner or treatment mask in place of the shampoo, but it’s otherwise a reason as to why you should do a regular hair-reviving mask in order to fortify your hairs and prevent breakage and split ends (which are especially common for dyed and bleached hair) as well as rigidity and coarseness (which is especially common for gray hair).

Purple Shampoo FAQ