Using the wrong shampoo for your hair, or relying on one filled with low-quality ingredients can leave your hair lifeless, limp, and oily. Start a search today to find affordable, salon-quality shampoo options.
Washing your hair is a simple yet important step in your beauty routine, and many people achieve gorgeous hair using cheap shampoo. With a little research, you can determine your hair type and choose a shampoo that’s engineered to work perfectly.
1. OUAI Repair Shampoo
If your hair is dry to normal, OUAI’s Repair Shampoo is super moisturizing and contains a number of ingredients like glycerin and panthenol that help hydrate hair. These ingredients are common in many different shampoos, but the OUAI shampoo also contains valuable additions like sunflower seed extract and hydrolyzed linseed extract, which help ensure hair is hydrated long-term.
Hydrated hair is manageable hair. As such, one of the main benefits that comes from using this shampoo is how sleek and defined it made even the curlier hair. The only downside is that for people with oily hair, while it gets oil out, it wasn’t able to keep hair oil-free longer than a day or two. The shampoo itself is rich and lathers well, which makes it easy to rub into hair and rinse out thoroughly. It costs $30 per bottle.
2. Living Proof Full Shampoo
If you’ve been dealing with limp, oily hair, reach for Living Proof’s Full Shampoo, which is formulated to help get rid of oily build up. It’s great for cleaning hair of oil and grease, leaving it clean enough to feel great but not so stripped of oil that hair becomes damaged.
It works well enough to keep hair that’s usually greasy on day two or three clean for several days following a wash, so you’re not forced to wash your hair every single day. Their formula coats your hair, working to repel dirt and grime.
Reviewers loved it for its ability to make even limp, fine hair feel full and luscious. It’s a bit on the pricier side — $59 for a 24oz bottle — but people who love it stick by it, despite the price point.
3. Cantu Shea Butter for Natural Hair Cleansing Cream Shampoo
Although there are tons of different types of shampoo that are great for natural hair, the Shea Butter for Natural Hair Cleansing Cream shampoo from Cantu is recommended by experts. It contains shea butter to hydrate strands and is specifically formulated without sulfates, silicones, or parabens, all of which cause long-term damage to hair.
Cantu understands the importance of keeping a moderate amount of natural oil in the hair to retain length, which is why their shampoo helps wash hair without completely stripping it of these essential oils. It works up into a rich lather, which really helps gently distribute product throughout your hair, and will wash out easily without leaving residue behind. It’s great for hair that’s natural or colored.
This shampoo can be found at most big-box retailers for less than $5 and has a matching conditioner with a similar ingredient profile.
4. Aveeno Pure Renewal
Another great drug store shampoo that’s considered one of the best deals on the market is Aveeno’s Pure Renewal Shampoo, which is cheap and made without harsh or damaging ingredients. Many drug store brands use harsh chemical surfactants (like sodium lauryl sulfate) in their shampoos because they work but at the expense of the long-term health of your hair.
This shampoo avoids these harsh ingredients, sticking to a gentler formula made without surfactants or sulfates. Instead, they use what they refer to as “naturally derived” cleansers like seaweed extract to help strip hair of buildup and excess oil. It produces a nice lather and keeps most hair clean for at least two days after washing.
Reviewers with dry hair didn’t feel that this shampoo was moisturizing enough without conditioner, but at only $5.97, springing for the matching conditioner still won’t set you back too much money.
5. Virtue Recovery Shampoo
If you want a shampoo that works and willing to splurge a bit to get a great product, the Recovery Shampoo from Virtue Labs is an award-winning product that helps repair damaged hair. It’s great for color-treated hair or hair that’s regularly styled with heat. It’s formulated with Virtue Labs’ trademarked Alpha Keratin 60ku, which is real human keratin made from regenerative medicine.
Along with unique ingredients like hydrolyzed quinoa, baobab seed oil, and grapefruit extract, it helps add vitamins and antioxidants back into hair strands, keeping them hydrated and improving our hair’s capacity for moisture retention long-term. These ingredients work to fill in damaged areas, smoothing out strands which in turn improves shine, luminosity, and vibrancy of color.
Reviewers loved the formula, and the scent, which they describe as “a rich, nurturing blend of fresh woods and clean citrus formulated with coconut and yuzu extracts.” You can buy it for $42 per bottle from their site.