What is Purple Shampoo for grey hair?

Brassiness, or yellowing, is a problem for blondes and those with grey hair. Purple shampoo helps counter the yellowing effect for people with grey hair and blonde hair.

The reason is that blonde and grey hair is incredibly porous – especially if you are not a natural blonde – which means it soaks up everything from minerals to pollutants in the air.

Even everyday hair products we use contain ingredients that can alter our colour, especially sulfates, which is a recipe for yellow (or green) tinged hair colour.

What causes your hair to turn yellow or green?

Let’s dive right in – pun intended if you are reading this article because your hair is yellowing or even turning green from frequent use of your swimming pool.

Hair discolouration often starts with the most basic ingredient: water.

Natural unfiltered water often contains minerals such as iron, copper and magnesium. These same minerals are found in your swimming pool and all work hard at sabotaging your salon-quality blonde or silver hair.

Not just blondes, it’s just there it’s more noticeable, if you are a brunette or want to be a cooler shade of brown, this will apply to you as well. So whether you live on some tropical island in Southeast Asia with lots of volcanic minerals in the water, or you are in iron-rich soil in the United States, the good news is help is here and the solution is rather simple.

How does purple shampoo work?

Think of the colour wheel — the opposite of yellow is purple and the opposite of green is red. And the opposite of orange is blue. This is why colour-correcting hair products like purple shampoo were invented.

Colour-correcting shampoo

By using pigmented shampoos you can correct or enhance your hair colour. it’s that simple.

For example, purple shampoo acts as a toner, depositing purple pigment in the porous hair and counterbalancing the yellow tones, returning the hair to a “cooler shade” of blonde. 

It also works for colour maintenance should you want to keep purple hair purple longer.  Don’t worry about the fact that the purple colour is synthetic because a really small amount is all it takes, less than 0.25% by volume.

You may have read online that using ketchup can help correct chlorine green hair or maintain red hair. While this may work a little, the pigment in tomatoes is not quite strong enough, and a red-pigmented sulfate-free shampoo will get the job done better and faster.

It works the same way if you want to get rid of orange tones in your hair, try using a blue shampoo to cool it down. Butterfly Pea Flower is a naturally occurring ingredient in blue shampoo with the colour coming from the vibrant blue antioxidant-rich flower (anthocyanin) that helps cool down yellow and orange shades. 

While this method may not be as strong as a synthetic pigment it does work when used on a regular basis. Even your conditioner can help with these colour correcting or enhancing ingredients.

How often should I use purple shampoo or colour-correcting shampoo?

How often and for how long you need to leave the purple shampoo in your hair is something you will need to determine based on your hair’s porosity. Somewhere between 5 minutes and not more than twice a week is probably a good place to start.

If you are brunette, blonde or with balayage or ombré, when you finally get your routine down, say goodbye to brassiness and green hair.