What Is Purple Shampoo?

Purple shampoo has been the saviour of many blonde bombshells out there over the last few decades of its existence! It’s only ever had one job, there have been many variations of purple shampoo and there are an outstanding number of brands that make purple shampoo but many of you have been asking “What is purple shampoo?” We’re going to explain a little bit about what purple shampoo is, what it does, where it came from and the colour theory behind purple shampoo.

The Origin of Purple Shampoo

Purple shampoo was specifically formulated in the late 1990’s in the United Kingdom but there isn’t a specific year or date or even anybody to originally give recognition too for inventing purple shampoo, The late 1990’s is around the time it started gaining popularity and recognition though.

It was formulated for individuals with blonde, silver, or lightened hair with the aim of neutralizing unwanted yellow or brassy tones that can develop because of the lightening process and due to external factors, that can have an affect on the hair over time such as exposure to the environment, heat styling, smoking and various other factors.

Why Is Purple Shampoo Purple?

There is a very simple reason that purple shampoo is purple, well we say simple… There is science behind it, but the basic idea is that purple is the opposite to yellow on the colour wheel, therefore purple is the colour that we would naturally want to use to neutralize yellow. We’ve written an in-depth article about what colour theory is if you’d like more details on how it works.

It’s good to note, that we don’t just use colour theory when we want to neutralize yellow tones, another common scenario that we’ve personally found is when green was a popular colour, looking at the colour wheel, we’d want to use red to neutralize the green tones in the hair. This did lead to a lot of people putting tomato ketchup on their hair thinking it would neutralize the green tones… We’ve not personally tried it, but I can’t imagine it helping much.

Is Blue Shampoo The Same As Purple Shampoo?

Very similar and it neutralizes a similar spectrum of tones within the hair but the blue shampoos target more brassy looking hair. This may be more suitable for people who have bleached the hair from a darker colour to a lighter colour but have found that it’s gone rather brassy / orangey.

There are a various problems people can come into when using blue shampoo, It’s usually the comment “Blue shampoo doesn’t do anything to my hair” firstly, I’d mention, if you’re using the very inexpensive drugstore brand of blue shampoo, then it’s probably not going to do much. It isn’t highly pigmented in comparison to other more professional brands on the market such as Osmo, Fanola, Fudge, Affinage, Maria Nila and even Amika's Blue Shampoo Range.

What Is Green Shampoo And Will It Tone Blonde Hair?

Firstly, if you’ve got green shampoo, Keep it as far away from your hair as humanly possible! You don’t want to go down that road!

If you take a look at the colour wheel, you’ll see that green is directly opposite warmer tones such as reds. You’ll remember that above, we mentioned people using tomato ketchup on their hair to try and neutralize green tones in their hair. Exactly the same thing here but we’re using green to neutralize warm red tones in the hair. This would not be suitable for blondes / silvers or greys!

How Often Should You Use Purple  Shampoo?

There isn’t really a set rule in place for how often you should use purple shampoo, Obviously as hairdressers, we try to tell people not to over wash their hair, because you’ll just end up with dry hair, especially if it’s been bleached. It’s really down to an individual case scenario. Some peoples hair may be a little more resistant, others may grab the purple tones straight away. Freshly bleached hair will usually grab pretty fast and easy, especially if you’re using a reputable brand of purple shampoo.

I’d personally say, Don’t go over the top with it and use it every single day but maybe use it for the first few washes and leave it on for a little while if you feel your hair really needs it.

It’s important to note that some purple shampoo can really grab, It’s not anything that can’t be fixed, but it does lead to people asking questions like “Purple shampoo has turned my hair purple” It’s one of our most popular blog posts and our Wolverhampton Hair Salon has had a fair few calls about this over the years. It’s not anything to worry about and you can read all about that here should you need to know what to do.