Our guide on how to use purple shampoo effectively

Purple Shampoo: The Ultimate Guide

There’s nothing quite like stepping out of the salon after a hair transformation, but switching up your hair hue comes at a price (and we’re not talking about the money you hand over once it’s done). Chemical coloring causes the hair’s protective outer layer to raise, leaving it more vulnerable to dehydration, breakage, and the loss of essential proteins. But we’re not going to tell you to quit the thing that makes you happy. Instead, we’re going to advise you on haircare that counteracts chemical damage and keeps color looking fresh, especially in bleach-blonde hair prone to breakage and brassy tones.

Purple shampoo can look a bit alarming to first-time users, but fear not, you won’t step out of the shower looking like a giant blueberry. The violet pigment is deposited onto the strands to cancel out warm tones, taking blonde hair from brassy to on-trend ash. How? Purple sits opposite yellow on the color wheel, therefore canceling it out (brunette hair will require a blue-toned product to cool unwanted warmth in more orange-toned discoloration.) Pigmented shampoos work in a similar way to the glosses and glazes used in salons, creating a more bespoke color but at a fraction of the price. Nexxus’s Blonde Assure Color Toning Purple Shampoo teams its anti-brass pigment with keratin protein (it’s what our hair is made of), to target damage while enhancing blonde, bleached, silver, or platinum hair.

THE PURPLE SHAMPOO Q&A

HOW DOES PURPLE SHAMPOO AFFECT DRY, DAMAGED HAIR?

Purple shampoo is designed to coat the outer layer of the hair and neutralize overly-warm tones, but as long as you follow the usage guidelines, you won’t need to worry about “build-up” dehydrating or damaging already vulnerable strands. Nexxus’s Blonde Assure Color Toning Purple Shampoo has hair health at the heart of its formula, designed to target and treat damage with like-for-like proteins. Nothing Nexxus does is for aesthetic benefits alone.

HOW CAN I MAKE MY PURPLE SHAMPOO WORK HARDER

Always use the Nexxus Blonde Assure Color Toning Purple Shampoo alongside the Blonde Assure Color Toning Purple Conditioner around two times a week or as much as your hair needs. Seal in your new color vibrancy by leaving the conditioner on for a couple of minutes to restore depleted strands and boost your shampoo’s color-brightening magic.

CAN I APPLY PURPLE SHAMPOO TO DRY (NOT WET) HAIR?

The craze for applying purple shampoo to bone-dry hair is certainly a talking point online. It’s thought that by applying pigment to dry strands (which are more absorbent), the end result will be more vivid. This might be the case for some people, but there’s also the risk of more porous, damaged sections of the hair (the ends) absorbing more pigment than the newer hair towards the root. So, to avoid a patchy purple effect, use the Blonde Assure Color Toning Purple Shampoo as advised: on wet hair.

HOW LONG SHOULD I LEAVE PURPLE SHAMPOO ON FOR?

This depends entirely on how porous your hair is. Take a strand from your brush and drop it into a glass of water. Does it float? If the answer is yes, then your hair has low porosity, so it doesn’t take on enough water to sink itself. If it drops to the bottom pretty quickly, then it’s highly absorbent (porous), meaning it will soak up lots of the violet pigment and potentially leave your hair looking gray and dull (not the intended result). Ease in by lathering up and rinsing immediately the first time you use your purple shampoo, extending the time you leave it on until the end result is perfectly bright, cool, and crisp.