WE'VE decided that it’s not blondes who have more fun, it’s blondes who have the right hair products to keep their shade looking its glossiest and feeling its healthiest.
No matter your blonde hair colour – icy platinum, ash blonde, honeyed caramel – the right shampoo is essential for preserving your mane.
The first port of call for blondes when it comes to choosing a shampoo? Purple shampoo, which acts as an at-home toner of sorts to cancel out any yellow, brassy tones and to minimise discolouration.
Purple shampoos can be found everywhere these days, from supermarket budget buys through to expensive prestige brands.
Pros recommend using a purple or silver shampoo once a week to keep your blonde shade looking its best and brightest.
Just beware - with some purple shampoos, if you leave the product in for long enough, the shampoo can tinge your hair lavender, which is only handy if you’ve been thinking about pastel lilac-hued hair for summer festival season.
Blondes should also consider a sulphate-free shampoo for blonde hair, and should use a hydrating hair mask once a week to improve the condition of colour-treated hair, which is easily damaged from dyeing and over-processing.
We’ve rounded up the best shampoos for blonde hair, according to the top-rated shampoos online, to suit a range of budgets.
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We tested: Paul Mitchell Platinum Blonde Shampoo
- Paul Mitchell Platinum Blonde Shampoo, £12.40 from LookFantastic - buy here
Paul Mitchell's violet-tinted Platinum Blonde shampoo strives to hydrate your hair, leaving it a brighter, whiter blonde.
As soon as we smelt the melon scent and saw the vibrant purple shade, we were hoping for great results, mainly because we wanted to keep using it for our hair to smell fruity. For £15, we had high expectations.
And luckily, even after the first use we could tell that this is a really moisturising blonde shampoo that managed to bring out the whiter parts of our highlights, whilst keeping it fresh and shiny in the process.
We found that the best results came when we massaged it into our hair for longer (around five minutes) before rinsing, but once you dry your hair, the effects are visual from the get-go.
We tested: Fudge Professional Everyday Clean Blonde Damage Rewind Violet-Toning Shampoo
- Fudge Professional Everyday Clean Blonde Damage Rewind Violet-Toning Shampoo, £13.95 from Beauty Bay - buy here
Best for strengthening hair, Fudge Professional's Everyday Clean Blonde Damage Rewind Violet-Toning Shampoo aims to do everything it says on the tin.
You can definitely tell it incorporates OPTI-PLEX technology after using this shampoo as our hair was left in good condition, with the blonder notes peeking through from the first wash.
Although the results were less immediately dramatic like some purple shampoos, this is definitely ideal for someone with dry or brittle hair from over-colouring.
Not only did it brighten up our blonde, our hair was left looking cleaner and silkier for longer than usual so it's top marks for quality. We'd call this an every hair wash go-to.
We tested: Osmo Super Silver No Yellow Shampoo
- Osmo Super Silver No Yellow Shampoo, £7.50 from FeelUnique - buy here
One of the cheaper blonde shampoos on the market, Osmo's Super silver No Yellow Shampoo is just £7.50 and supposedly works well for grey and bleached hair.
The deep purple formula made us wary as to whether our hair would actually end up going purple (be careful not to stain your bathroom), but thankfully it didn't at all and we were really pleased with the outcome.
Our favourite feature is the smell which stays on your hair for about 24 hours afterwards (think berry, fruity lusciousness). As well as smelling great, our hair definitely felt smoother and well washed, looking generally lifted.
All in all, we don't think Osmo's Super Silver No Yellow Shampoo gets enough credit because it's actually just as good as some of the more expensive options for reducing any yellowing of bleached tones. Plus, it comes in a generous 300ml bottle.
We tested: Redken Color Extend Blondage Duo
- Redken Color Extend Blondage Duo, £32.80 from LookFantastic - buy here
Two salon-favourites for less than £33 is a good deal, which is why the Redken Color Extend Blondage Duo needs to be on your radar.
Just like other shampoos that the brand offers, Redken's Color Extend Blondage really cleanses your hair. Some purple toning shampoos leave your hair greasy after a couple of days but this makes your hair feel really fresh for a while after you've washed it.
As well as giving your hair a deep, nourishing clean, this shampoo also smells amazing. Think refreshing aftershave.
My blonde colour felt lifted after using this for four washes, and it definitely helped deal with the impact of over-dyeing my hair.
Best sulphate-free shampoo: Kevin Murphy Blonde.Angel.Wash
- Kevin Murphy Blonde.Angel.Wash, £24 from Cult Beauty - buy here
This lavender flower-infused shampoo is a sulphate-free formula that won't rid your hair of natural oils, but will remove dullness and yellow and brassy tones.
Fans love that it keeps "blonde colour fresh," and their hair feeling "luxurious" every time they use it.
This is thanks to the shampoo's hero ingredients like shea and mango seed butter but also vitamins as well as jojoba and sunflower seed oil, which work together to keep hair soft and hydrated.
Best for white-blonde hair: L'Oréal Professionnel Serie Expert Silver Shampoo
L'Oréal's silver shampoo neutralises those unwanted yellow tones (thanks to magnesium and other anti-yellowing agents), while leaving your locks looking bright, soft and shiny.
It's the perfect shampoo for keeping that icy platinum blonde or ashy mane looking just how you want it.
Best for your wallet: PRO:VOKE Touch of Silver Brightening Purple Shampoo
- PRO:VOKE Touch of Silver Brightening Purple Shampoo, £4.99 from Boots - buy here
A truly impressive budget buy, PRO:VOKE's Touch of Silver shampoo does a great job of neutralising brassy, yellow tones and leaving hair soft and shiny.
The general consensus among reviewers? It works a lot better than many of the more expensive brands.
Best silver shampoo: Bleach London Silver Shampoo
- Bleach London Silver Shampoo, £6.49 from Superdrug - buy here
Bleach is the cult London hair colouring salon, and they know blonde - in its many iterations and variations - like none other.
The brand's best-selling Silver Shampoo is a highly pigmented purple shampoo that gets rid of all brassy tones and keeps hair looking lovely thanks to moisturising wheat proteins and vitamin B5.
Fans use it as a home toner - just leave it on for 45 minutes to let the colour set.
"After bleaching my hair, I was left with a nasty yellow tinge. After just one wash with this shampoo, followed by the conditioner, the yellow was reduced. This product is an absolute life saver!" writes one fan.
Best softening shampoo: Kérastase Blond Absolu Bain Lumiere Shampoo
- Kérastase Blond Absolu Bain Lumiere Shampoo, £18.45 from All Beauty - buy here
Not only does this shampoo for blondes win points for its delicious smell, but it's also got a nourishing, antioxidant formula thanks to a combination of hyaluronic acid and edelweiss flower.
As one reviewer writes: "What makes this shampoo stand apart from others is that after you stop using this shampoo, you realise just how bad the other shampoos are out there."
Best gentle shampoo: Klorane Centaury Shampoo
- Klorane Centaury Shampoo, £9 from Boots - buy here
Klorane's gentle shampoo contains cornflower to prevent hair from yellowing, but it isn't a purple shampoo.
As one reviewer puts it: "I love how it cuts the brass in blonde hair and the shine it adds."
Grey-haired ladies also swear by it, especially the silvery-toned highlights it adds to their hair - and the compliments that go with them.
Best drugstore shampoo: L’Oréal Elvive Colour Protect Purple Shampoo
- L’Oréal Elvive Colour Protect Purple Shampoo, £5.50 from Superdrug - buy here
This purple shampoo comes highly recommended and many fans are surprised at how effective it is at neutralising yellow tones in blonde and grey hair, as well as working on highlighted brunettes.
One reviewer said: "This purple shampoo is amazing! I have previously used £30 salon-grade purple shampoo and it's rubbish compared to this.
"My hair hasn't been stained purple even on my damaged ends and it has taken all yellow tones out of my hair."
At under £6, devotees don't even complain about the occasional purple staining on their hands after use.
Best for bleached hair: TIGI Bed Head Dumb Blonde Toning Shampoo
- TIGI Bed Head Dumb Blonde Toning Shampoo, £10.25 from FeelUnique - buy here
If you're after that silvery blonde look, this purple toning shampoo is what you need.
It formula includes violet toners to banish brassiness and enhance the cool tones in your hair, while also controlling frizz.
Your hair will feel smoother and softer.
Does purple shampoo work on natural blonde hair?
The short answer is yes, absolutely. Purple shampoo helps lighten undertones in general, which can be caused by damage from the sun's UV rays, straightening or blow drying your hair or even from hard water.
Using purple shampoo as part of a once-a-week hair wash routine can brighten up natural blondes, reducing any unwanted brassy tones, although over-using it can leave you with dry hair.
However, as uncoloured blonde hair doesn't have as open a cuticle as bleached hair, purple shampoo can be less effective, especially as colouring your hair can cause brassy tones in the first place so it works to counteract those.
Why is purple shampoo good for blonde hair?
Ever found your hair turning slightly yellow from colouring it blonde? That's where purple shampoo swoops in to save you, neutralising any yellow hues and giving you a white blonde finish.
Thanks to good old science and the trusty colour wheel (yellow/orange is opposite purple), toning shampoo basically turns your hair from yellowing to blonde and gorgeous.
Blonde colour treatment can break down your hair fibre's natural melanin pigments, so sometimes it needs that little nudge to bring the best out of your colouring.
If you have brown hair that has lighter tones, you can use purple shampoo to brighten them, although you likely won't get as dramatic effects as you would when using with coloured hair.
What is the best silver shampoo for blonde hair?
As you will have gathered from this roundup, there are so many purple/silver shampoos on the market which ultimately do the same thing. All of the products on our list boast great reviews.
The most popular among the overflowing range available would probably be Bed Head's Dumb Blonde or Kerastase's Blonde Absolu.
However, the PRO:VOKE Touch of Silver Brightening Purple Shampoo is a best-seller for lightening yellow tones, and it's one of the cheapest on the market. Take with that what you will.
What does purple shampoo do for blonde hair?
Purple shampoos are infused with purple pigments that are intended to counteract brassy tones in blonde hair.
The theory is that purple is opposite orange on the colour wheel, which means they should cancel each other out.
They are great for prolonging the colour you already have although they won't turn your hair blonde as some might think.
How often should you use purple shampoo?
These shampoos or conditioners are not meant for daily use.
That's because your hair will eventually build up an immunity to the colour if you use it too frequently.
Some of the formulas are also very drying, so you might end up with a very dull colour.
As a general rule of thumb, if you’re washing your hair every day, you can use purple products once a week.
For those who wash their hair less regularly, using a purple product every other week will do the trick.
What takes the brassiness out of blonde hair?
Using a purple shampoo once in a while will help you neutralise unwanted warm tones but there are a few others things you can do.
If you want your hair colour to stay put, it’s best to stay away from the swimming pool (or reduce your visits).
That's because the chlorine commonly found in swimming pools can strip your hair dry, leaving your hair damage-prone, which in turn means your colour won't last as long as it should.
Prolonged sun exposure can also make brassiness more visible.
To keep your colour for longer you can also invest in a shower
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