Arlene Asks…I have been noticing lately that shampoos are made for different hair colors. Such as John Frieda and Pantene Pro-V Expressions. How are these shampoos any different from regular shampoos and do they really work?
The Right Brain’s Rapidly Written Response:
The trend toward different shampoo formulas for different hair colors appears to be entirely marketing driven. We have not seen any shampoo technology that is better for one color versus another.
Color confusion
The major manufacturers, Frieda and Pantene included, are taking their state of the art shampoo formulas and adding a bit of dye to them to correspond to the hair color they are marketing toward. If it’s a Bleach Blonde product, they add a little yellow dye. If it’s Pantene Expressions for Brunettes they add a brown or reddish brown.
Read the claims carefully – most of these products don’t claim to ADD any color to your hair. They just say things like “Helps enhance depth and richness for multi-dimensional shine.” And that much is true, these products will keep your hair color looking deep and rich by virtue of the fact that they are proving some conditioning to the hair which keeps the hair looking and feeling better. But these formulas do NOT make the color darker or last longer – if nothing else, your roots will still grow out at the same rate.
The Beauty Brains bottom line:
Both of these manufacturers make high quality products that can make your hair better but don’t buy them because you think they’ll make your hair color better.
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How about shampoos containing sulfates. Are they ‘bad’ for colored hair, or doesn’t it matter?
Found the answer in your blog. I should have used the search option before asking
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I don’t see why this shouldn’t work. I can’t imagine they don’t do anything to my hair — some of them certainly do a number on my towels. When I used to dye my hair pink, the best way to get it to last longer was to add some of the die to my conditioner. Similarly, my hair’s been bleached and died so many times that colours like red don’t last long at all without becoming seriously dull — I’ve used hair products containing red dye, and they did seem to help it last longer. At the moment, my hair is blonde. I’m using a shampoo and conditioner that contain a bluish purple dye, for the purpose of removing brassiness. I can see from photos that it really has made a big difference (my hair is now platinum instead of yellow despite the fact that I bleached my hair myself and did not use any toner or dye afterwards).
Candice, not all colorants will “stick” to your hair like a proper hair dye will. Otherwise, my pink Herbal Essences would make my hair pink (it’s purple). Perhaps the dyes in these shampoos are just for looks? I’ve used the John Frieda Brilliant Brunette shampoo and conditioner, and they’re cocoa-colored products. I’ve seen the blonde versions… they look sort of like unrefined honey. It sounds like your shampoo and conditioners have small amounts of real hair dye in them, not just cosmetic colorant.
I used to use the Frieda Color Glaze for red-hair and it left my hair feeling very brittle and dry. It was definitely glossier but it felt like straw and it took me 15 minutes to comb it.
I use the sulfate-free shampoos for my blonde-by-choice hair because they are the only ones that don’t make my hair feel like straw. The sulfates are variations on detergent that work OK for many people but not me. I assumed that sulfate products like Frieda shampoos for blonde hair would have more “protective” ingredients but they don’t. Besides, the main enemy of hair color is water, and “preserving” color is easy: don’t wash your hair every day unless your scalp and hair are really oily. Even then, use minimal amounts of shampoo and conditioner – if your hair is “squeaky clean” after you shampoo you’ve used too much of it.
As far as colored shampoo goes, I’ve never had any success with John Freida’s Blonde ones. However, I now use So Silver (Matrix) which contains purple to counteract the yellow in my bleach blonde. I did notice with the John Freida purple shampoo I didn’t get as good of results, AND even after using a quality conditioner it still felt strawlike. Even though the Matrix is probably more damaging –it says to WEAR GLOVES though I never do and suffer nothing for it. Either way, my hair seems better. Note, I only used different shampoos, not conditioners or anything else (I use a coconut oil post shower).
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