The 9 best purple shampoos to beat brassy tones – reviewed by our beauty team

Our team have washed their blonde strands in a myriad of purple shampoos and these were the best of the bunch...

A selection of the best purple shampoos from Pureology, Kérastase and Redken/ featured in a pastel purple, three-picture template
(Image credit: (L to R) Pureology, Kérastase and Redken)

Finding the best purple shampoo is, on paper, pretty straightforward. All you need is something to wash your hair with that contains a toning purple pigment but with the sheer amount of formulas out there, choosing just one is no easy feat.

If you're looking for this kind of shampoo, it's very likely you have blonde, grey or perhaps balayage hair and want to cool down yellow, brassy tones. Much like the best shampoos for fine hair and best shampoos for curly hair though, the formulas do vary. While all violet shampoos aim to perform roughly the same function (toning for blonde hair), each has its own unique merits or lack thereof - so, it's always helpful to get expert insight before you buy.

Thus, with many a blonde (both faux and natural) on our beauty team who have experimented with a whole host of toning products in pursuit of icier strands, we can confidently say that these are the nine best purple shampoos on the market.

The best purple shampoos, tested and loved by our beauty team

As mentioned, there are many iterations of purple shampoo, much like any other cleansing or conditioning formula. So, we've rounded up the best of the best from brands like Kérastase and Pureology, all of which have been rigorously tested by our team. (We won't talk about the havoc wreaked upon our bathroom tiles in the process...)

How we tested the best purple shampoo

two bottles of purple shampoo included in woman&home's guide to the best purple shampoo

Two of the purple shampoos that we tested for this guide

(Image credit: Amelia Yeomans)

The woman&home beauty team includes members with various unnatural blonde hairstyles. This includes brunette with balayage, naturally mousy blonde packed with ultra-bright and fine highlights, and bleached, warmer-toned blonde that's prone to brassiness.

To see which purple shampoos really worked, we each tested a selection of products. We looked at factors like how our hair felt after washing and if it did a good job of cleaning as well as toning, paying attention to the kind of toning effect it had – silver, white or champagne, for example.

Generally, we find that most purple shampoos yield visible results after a single wash, but we tested these shampoos over multiple washes to be able to assess their true toning abilities. After seeing the results, these are the purple shampoos we would recommend to anyone to help grey or blonde hair look its best.

How to pick the best purple shampoo for you

Though it's primarily marketed at bleached blondes, purple shampoo also works well on grey hair, balayage hair and highlights (cool-toned brunettes should seek out blue shampoo for brown hair instead). Choosing the best purple shampoo requires considering your hair type. Have you got frizzy hair or a long hairstyle that requires extra nourishment to prevent split ends? Are you a regular swimmer and need something to help you nail how to get chlorine out of hair? Some purple shampoos include hydrating or repairing ingredients, while others focus purely on packing in as much pigment as possible.

They can also vary hugely in price, but does spending more really get you the best purple shampoo? The short answer is not necessarily – where your product sits on the price scale will most likely be reflected in the extra ingredients and luxurious packaging, but rarely in the strength of pigment. If all you want is to tone down warmth in the hair, affordable purple shampoos can be as effective as more luxury options in doing so.

What does purple shampoo do to hair?

According to Michael Shaun Corby, Global Creative Director at Living Proof, the premise is simple. "Purple is on the opposite side of the wheel from yellow, which means they are complementary colours," he explains. "You might remember from school that complimentary colours cancel each other out. This means that purple shampoo neutralises any yellow tones in your hair, leaving hair looking cleaner and brighter."

Does purple shampoo make your hair lighter?

A common misconception is that purple shampoo makes your hair lighter – but this just isn't possible without bleach. "Even the best purple shampoo isn’t a lightener," Corby confirms. "Instead, it neutralises brassiness in light-coloured hair. Purple shampoo pushes these yellow tones aside to reveal a cleaner, brighter hair colour, which may be why it appears lighter. Another benefit of purple toning shampoo is its ability to do away with dull hair. A hair toner can give hair back its lustre and natural sheen."

Fiona McKim
Beauty Editor, womanandhome.com

As woman&home's Beauty Channel Editor, Fiona Mckim loves to share her 15+ years of industry intel on womanandhome.com and Instagram (@fionamckim if you like hair experiments and cute shih-tzus). After interning at ELLE, Fiona joined woman&home as Assistant Beauty Editor in 2013 under industry legend Jo GB, who taught her to understand ingredients and take a cynical approach to marketing claims. She has since covered every corner of the industry, interviewing dermatologists and celebrities from Davina McCall to Dame Joan Collins, reporting backstage at London Fashion Week and judging the w&h Beauty Awards.

With contributions from