Bright hair colors are the bright and bold blues, pinks, greens and oranges. They are not like traditional hair dyes. Bright hair color is often made from plants and is only semi-permanent. You are basically “staining” your hair that odd color. Like most stains, you can scrub them out with powerful cleaners. That is what happens when you wash your brightly colored hair with shampoos. To save those pretty locks, you need a shampoo made specifically for colored hair.
Here are three different brands of shampoo for colored hair, and how well they work with brightly colored hair. I took a sample of Pantene Pro-V Color Preserve Shine Shampoo and compared it to two competitive brands – one cheaper and one more expensive – that shall remain nameless.
Bright colors wash out with shampoos. No matter what shampoo you use, your pretty, bright color will come pouring out the first few times you wash your hair. It is inevitable. What’s important is to find a shampoo that washes out less of the color.
Cheaper brand. For such a cheap shampoo, the least expensive shampoo I tried actually does really well in this category. Color does wash out the first few washes, but not as much as other brands. Of course, this could be because it’s not washing your hair very well, since it’s so cheap. When it comes to not washing out color, it is the best.
Pantene Pro-v Color Preserve Shine Shampoo. This shampoo washes out tons of the Manic Panic color the first few washes. Of course, it also washes your hair thoroughly. After a few washes, a lot less color washes out, and then none will.
More expensive shampoo. This shampoo is somewhere in-between the cheap brand and Pantene. A lot of color will wash out, but less than with Pantene. Again, after a few washes, no color will run.
Your best choice? Either of the non-Pantene brands.
Shine and smoothness with bright hair color. With such bright colors in your hair, you want them to stand out and be noticed. Shampoos for colored hair are supposed to give your hair shine and make your locks smooth.
Cheap shampoo. This shampoo promises to add shine and smoothness, but it does lack in this category. Most shampoos have an ingredient called panthenol that coats the hair and makes it shiny and smooth. With this shampoo, the coating can make the hair greasy. After a few weeks, your bright color will get duller in color, but the shampoo won’t really make it appear shiny.
Pantene Pro-V Color Preserve Shine Shampoo. Like the cheap shampoo, this shampoo has panthenol in it to make the hair shiny and smooth. While it does bring out the shine, especially with bright colors, the shampoo does weigh down the hair. The hair will not be greasy, but seem heavy and not light. If your hair is normally always frizzy and poofy, then weighing down the hair may be a plus.
More expensive shampoo. Surprisingly, this shampoo does not have panthenol in it like many shampoos. It also leaves your hair very shiny, as shiny as Pantene, but without the grease or the weigh down. Hair is light and bright. Could be because of the lack of panthenol?
Your best choice? The more expensive brand. Hands down.
Making bright color last with shampoo. This is the most important thing with bright hair color. It is semi-permanent, so you want to do whatever you can to make it last for months, not a couple weeks. Shampoos for colored hair are supposed to make the color last. Do they?
Cheap shampoo. This shampoo is made to be safe on color-treated hair, to provide shine and to strengthen. It doesn’t really help keep the color in. It will not wash out the color, so color will gradually fade over time. Basically, the shampoo washes your hair, but doesn’t help or hurt the color.
The fewer times you wash your brightly colored hair, the longer it will last. With the cheapest shampoo your hair stops feeling clean within two days, making you have to wash it more often.
Pantene Pro-V Color Preserve Shine Shampoo. This shampoo promises to make the color last, but really all it does is make the slowly fading color shine and “appear” to last. The color is still fading, and the shampoo is not holding the color in.
Hair does feel clean for at least a day longer than with the cheap shampoo, allowing for less washing for longer lasting color.
More expensive shampoo. This shampoo promises to repair your hair, as well as add the shine. Instead of just coating the hair, the shampoo enters the hair and repairs damage from the dyeing process. Healthy hair holds color longer. In this way, washing your hair can be beneficial to your brightly colored hair.
Hair feels clean for a few days, like Pantene, allowing for less washing.
Your best choice? The more expensive shampoo, and then Pantene.
The cost of shampoos for Manic Panic colored hair. For most people, cost is just as important as what the shampoo will do for your hair.
Cheap shampoo. At $1-$2 for 15oz, this is the cheapest shampoo. For those with tight purse strings, you can’t go wrong with this shampoo when you have Manic Panic colored hair. It doesn’t wash out much of the color, and adds some shine. While it is far from a satisfying shampoo, you cannot beat the price.
Pantene Pro-V Color Preserve Shine Shampoo. At about $3.50 for a 12oz bottle, this shampoo is your second best choice based solely on price. However, it does little more than the cheap shampoo. Your hair will be shinier, and that’s about it. More color washes out with the shampoo, too.
Most expensive shampoo. Here’s the most expensive shampoo, at $4.50 for a 12oz bottle. This is where you ask yourself if it is worth the extra money for a better product. With this shampoo, you get shine, smoothness and long-lasting color. Of course, it also washes out a bunch of the color at the beginning, just like Pantene.
Your best choice? All depends on your spending allowance and what is most important to you in a bright-color-saving shampoo.
