I was meant to be a blonde. As a child I had perfect blonde ringlets, and as I’ve gotten older, I always come back to being blonde. As an artificial blonde these days, I am always on a quest to keep the tone of my hair in the white/neutral blonde category and away from the golden blonde category.

But first: science.

Why does blonde hair turn gold/yellow? It all has to do with your hairs underlying pigment. At a certain level (the 7-9 range) everyone’s hair has underlying pigments in the warm to pale yellow category. The way to counteract this is to neutralize the yellow tone, and if you look across from yellow on the color wheel…voila. Purple.

Your stylist manages this tone with a…. wait for it… toner. (or glaze if they like fancy terms like I do). But your hair is inevitably damaged after the lightening process, and overtime the corrective purple tone will slip off your hair.

The best way to keep this tone IN your hair, is to use a purple shampoo. It will help deposit a small amount of the purple pigment in your hair each time you use it.

So, what purple shampoo to use? Let me tell you about my favorites!

For any long time blondes out there, surely you’ve heard of my most trusted favorite- Shimmer Lights.

Shimmer Lights has been around FOREVER. I used to buy this in bulk at Sally. Shimmer Lights does a fantastic job of toning your hair, but it has one big draw back. It is SUPER drying. If you are going to use this I would recommend only using it 1-2x per week, and follow it up with a high quality conditioner.

The next purple shampoo I like to use is Biolage. It doesn’t have the drying effect of Shimmer Lights, and it is only just slightly more of an investment.

My absolute favorite purple shampoo of ALL TIME is Oribe’s Bright Blonde. No doubt, Oribe is an investment. But your hair is an accessory you wear every day. Oribe uses high quality ingredients, and their products are super concentrated so a little bit goes a long way. Their products are sulfate free, but this also means they don’t suds as much as you might expect, so it’s easy to inadvertently use too much. The Blonde Treatment does a superb job cutting yellow and golden tones. Bright Blonde Conditioner