Are you looking for the best sulfate-free shampoo for colored hair? We've got you covered! This guide reviews the top 13 sulfate-free shampoos to keep your color vibrant and your hair healthy.
Whether you're a blonde, brunette, or redhead, these shampoos are perfect for maintaining your gorgeous hue without the harsh chemicals. Let's dive in and find the ideal match for your hair!
Table of content
The best shampoo for color-treated hair: Our top picks
- Best overall sulfate-free shampoo for colored hair: Scandinavian Biolabs Hair Strength Shampoo
- Best budget: OGX Fade-Defying + Orchid Oil Shampoo
- Best for dry hair: Pureology Hydrate Moisturizing Shampoo
- Best for damaged hair: Olaplex No. 4 Bond Maintenance Shampoo
- Best for frizzy hair: Living Proof No Frizz Shampoo
- Best for fine hair: Redken Color Extend Magnetics Shampoo
- Best for curly hair: SheaMoisture Curl & Shine Coconut Shampoo
- Best natural option: Avalon Organics Nourishing Lavender Shampoo
- Best vegan formula: Love Beauty and Planet Blooming Color Shampoo
- Best for sensitive scalps: Vanicream Free & Clear Hair Shampoo
- Best luxury option: Oribe Shampoo for Beautiful Color
- Best drugstore option: L'Oréal Paris EverPure Sulfate-Free Moisture Shampoo
- Best volumizing shampoo: Briogeo Blossom & Bloom Ginseng + Biotin Volumizing Shampoo
1. Best overall sulfate-free shampoo for colored hair: Scandinavian Biolabs Hair Strength Shampoo
Scandinavian Biolabs Hair Strength Shampoo stands out as our top pick for the best sulfate-free shampoo for color-treated hair. Expertly formulated with nature-inspired ingredients, this shampoo offers a gentle yet effective cleansing experience that’s perfect for maintaining vibrant hair color.
One of its key benefits is targeting excessive sebum production, which promotes a balanced scalp environment essential for overall hair health.
This shampoo doesn’t just cleanse; it strengthens and revitalizes your hair, leaving it feeling fresh and full of life.
The delightful eucalyptus aroma adds a refreshing touch to your hair care routine, making every wash a rejuvenating experience.
Its thoughtful formulation ensures that while it preserves your hair color, it also nurtures your scalp, preventing the common issues associated with color-treated hair, such as dryness and damage.
The combination of effective cleansing, strengthening properties, and a refreshing scent makes Scandinavian Biolabs Hair Strength Shampoo a standout choice for anyone looking to keep their hair healthy, vibrant, and beautifully colored.
2. Best budget sulfate-free shampoo for colored hair: OGX Fade-Defying + Orchid Oil Shampoo
Your hair deserves the best, and our fade-defying conditioner is here to deliver. With a unique formula featuring orchid extract and grape seed oil, it protects your color-treated hair while UVA/UVB sun filters enhance fade protection.
No matter your hair type—coarse, dry, curly, thin, or thick—this sulfate-free conditioner works wonders, leaving your hair smooth, soft, and easy to style.
OGX celebrates originality with exotic ingredients, uniquely shaped bottles, and a commitment to sustainability. Whether you need moisture for curly hair, protection for color-treated hair, or a hydrating hair mask, it has got you covered.
Their products aim to make your hair look fuller, smoother, curlier, or bouncier, all while smelling fantastic. So go ahead, rock what you've got with confidence and style!
3. Best for dry hair: Pureology Hydrate Moisturizing Shampoo
When it comes to hydrating and moisturizing your hair, Pureology Hydrate Vegan Shampoo has got you covered.
This shampoo profoundly hydrates and moisturizes hair of all types and textures, making it ideal for normal to thick, dry, color-treated, and natural hair. You'll love how thoroughly hydrated your hair feels after every wash.
The moisturizing formula transforms into a luxurious lather that feels creamy and rich. Emollient jojoba hydrates hair, green tea supports scalp health, and sage stimulates hair follicles. These ingredients work together to give hair the care it needs.
With Pureology Hydrate Vegan Shampoo, you get multiple vital benefits. It moisturizes dry, damaged hair, protects hair color, hydrates all hair textures, and cleanses hair and scalp, leaving hair soft and touchable.
For best results, apply a dime-sized amount to wet hair, emulsify it into a lather, and work it down to the ends. Repeat for extra cleansing, and follow up with the Hydrate Conditioner..
4. Best for damaged hair: Olaplex No. 4 Bond Maintenance Shampoo
Olaplex No. 4 Bond Maintenance Shampoo is your go-to for highly moisturizing and reparative hair care. With each use, you'll notice improved manageability, shine, and overall hair health. This cruelty-free formula is specifically designed to nourish and strengthen your hair, making it a staple in your hair care routine.
Using this shampoo offers a multitude of benefits. You'll enjoy added shine, anti-frizz properties, strengthened and softened hair, effective damage control, and treatment for split ends. Your hair will not only look better but also feel healthier and more resilient.
For the best results, apply a generous amount of Olaplex No. 4 Bond Maintenance Shampoo to wet hair.
Massage it thoroughly from roots to ends, ensuring even coverage, and then rinse well. Make it a regular part of your hair care regimen and experience healthier, more manageable hair with every wash.
5. Best for frizzy hair: Living Proof No Frizz Shampoo
Living Proof No Frizz Shampoo is the perfect solution for tackling frizz and achieving smoother, healthier-looking hair. This nourishing shampoo is designed to eliminate frizz, lock out humidity, and add shine, resulting in hair that looks and feels fantastic.
With each wash, you'll notice how effectively it manages frizz and enhances your hair's overall appearance.
Using this shampoo brings a host of benefits. It conditions and nourishes your hair while blocking humidity, leaving you with smoother hair after just one wash. Your hair will look and feel healthier, shinier, and more manageable.
To use, start with No Frizz Shampoo to cleanse your hair thoroughly. Then, follow up with No Frizz Conditioner, apply it evenly through your hair, and rinse thoroughly. For optimal results, incorporate this routine regularly and enjoy the benefits of frizz-free, shiny hair.
6. Best for fine hair: Redken Color Extend Magnetics Shampoo
Redken Color Extend Magnetics Shampoo is your go-to sulfate-free and paraben-free professional shampoo for color-treated hair.
You'll love how it leaves your hair feeling softer and smoother while helping to prevent color fade. This shampoo is designed to gently cleanse and nourish your hair from root to tip, enhancing its shine and vibrancy.
The formula is enriched with soy protein, arginine, and amino-ions, which work together to seal color, balance pH levels, and maintain your professional color between salon visits.
It effectively restores damaged hair, providing a non-stripping, lightweight, and strengthening effect that leaves your hair healthier.
Beyond its primary benefits, this shampoo conditions and eases detangling, nourishing your hair from root to tip. It fortifies and hydrates dry, damaged hair, adding volume, shine, smoothness, silkiness, and increased manageability.
Regular use makes your hair look and feel healthier, fuller, and more vibrant.
7. Best for curly hair: SheaMoisture Curl & Shine Coconut Shampoo
SheaMoisture Coconut Hibiscus Curl & Shine Shampoo is the perfect solution for gently cleansing your hair without stripping it of essential moisture.
This shampoo will be transformative if you have wavy, curly, or oily hair. It turns dry, brittle curls into bouncy, vibrant waves and curls with its non-stripping formula that includes coconut oil and silk proteins.
This shampoo provides the hydration needed to enhance your hair's elasticity, allowing you to define your natural curl pattern without weighing it down.
Ideal for those with wavy, curly, and oily hair, this shampoo delivers instant hydration and curl definition, leaving your hair feeling healthier after just one use.
Additionally, the blend of neem oil helps repair your hair, adds shine, and leaves your curls looking and feeling healthy with a show-stopping shine.
8. Best natural option: Avalon Organics Nourishing Lavender Shampoo
Infused with wheat protein, aloe, vitamins, and rosemary essential oil, this product is designed to transform thin, limp, and lifeless hair. The powerful blend of ingredients strengthens and thickens each strand, providing total volume and a healthy-looking shine.
Wheat protein enhances the hair's natural structure, while aloe and vitamins offer deep hydration and nourishment.
Rosemary essential oil stimulates the scalp, promoting healthier hair growth. This combination ensures your hair looks and feels revitalized, bouncy, and radiant, making it an ideal choice for anyone looking to improve their hair's overall health and appearance.
9. Best vegan formula: Love Beauty and Planet Blooming Color Shampoo
Life should be full of color, and Love Beauty and Planet Blooming Color Murumuru Butter & Rose Sulfate-Free Shampoo is here to protect and enhance your color-treated hair, giving it a healthy shine.
This shampoo, designed specifically for color-treated hair, features the juicy freshness of handpicked Bulgarian rose petals and nourishing murumuru butter. It gently cleanses while preserving your hair color.
Infused with natural coconut oil, this plant-based shampoo helps maintain vibrant hair color, providing a rich shine and moisturizing your hair for a healthy-looking gloss. Being sulfate-free, cruelty-free, and free from parabens, silicones, and dyes, it keeps your color vibrant.
10. Best for sensitive scalps: Vanicream Free & Clear Hair Shampoo
Vanicream is the dermatologist-recommended brand for sensitive skin. If you're looking for a mild shampoo, Vanicream's fragrance-free shampoo is pH-balanced for all hair types, providing a gentle yet effective cleanse for your hair and scalp. It helps remove flaking and scaling while controlling an oily scalp, making it perfect for sensitive skin.
This shampoo is formulated to avoid common chemical irritants and harsh cleansing agents, ensuring that it's betaine-free, gluten-free, sulfate-free, silicone-free, and protein-free.
Vanicream products are specifically made for sensitive skin, so that you won't find dyes, fragrances, masking fragrances, lanolin, parabens, or formaldehyde releasers in our shampoo.
Dermatologists have tested Vanicream Shampoo and formulated it with ingredients they consider desirable, non-irritating, and non-sensitizing to the skin.
If you need a gentle, effective, and dermatologist-approved shampoo, Vanicream is an excellent choice for maintaining healthy hair and scalp.
11. Best luxury option: Oribe Shampoo for Beautiful Color
This ultra-gentle cleansing shampoo is perfect for color-treated hair. It's specifically designed to provide intense moisture, helping to preserve your color, prevent breakage, and protect your hair from environmental damage.
It rejuvenates and gently cleanses while repairing damage and restoring moisture, giving you more youthful and healthy-looking hair.
This shampoo helps maintain the vibrancy of your color-treated hair, ensuring it stays strong and resilient.
12. Best drugstore option: L'Oréal Paris EverPure Sulfate-Free Moisture Shampoo
Experience the moisturizing benefits of the L'Oreal Paris EverPure Moisture Sulfate-Free Shampoo and Conditioner Set, designed to provide moisture without weighing down your hair.
This hair care system is perfect for color-treated and dry hair, offering gentle yet effective care to keep your hair looking its best.
Infused with rosemary botanicals, this shampoo and conditioner set profoundly replenish dry hair with moisture, softness, and luminous shine.
Compared to a non-conditioning shampoo, this set offers 2X more moisture, ensuring your hair stays hydrated and healthy.
EverPure products are vegan and free from sulfates, parabens, DMDM hydantoin, added phthalates, dyes, and gluten ingredients, making them a safe choice for your hair care routine.
13. Best volumizing shampoo: Briogeo Blossom & Bloom Ginseng + Biotin Volumizing Shampoo
Pump up the volume with Briogeo's Blossom & Bloom Ginseng + Biotin Volumizing Spray. This spray uses natural hair thickeners and clarifying agents to absorb oil, enhancing immediate hair fullness and promoting long-term thickness.
Ideal for fine, thin, or limp hair, it includes lemon and witch hazel to extend the time between blowouts, giving your hair a fresh and voluminous look.
The unique blend of nutrients in this spray provides immediate and lasting results. Maltodextrin coats each hair strand for a fuller appearance, while ginger and ginseng support scalp health. Biotin strengthens the hair shaft, ensuring your hair remains strong and resilient.
Additive and cruelty-free, this spray is 98% naturally derived and free from sulfates, silicones, phthalates, parabens, DEA, and artificial dyes. It's also certified gluten-free and cruelty-free, so you can feel good about using it.
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Is sulfate-free shampoo better for colored hair?
Yes, sulfate-free shampoo is generally better for colored hair. Sulfates can strip away natural oils and the color from your hair, leading to faster fading and dryness. A sulfate-free shampoo helps preserve your hair color and maintain its vibrancy for extended periods.
Why sulfate-free shampoos are beneficial for colored hair
Sulfate-free shampoos are typically safer for colored hair for the following reasons:
- Gentle on hair: Sulfate-free shampoos are gentler on the hair and scalp, preventing the harsh stripping of natural oils that can lead to dryness and damage.
- Maintains color: These shampoos help preserve the vibrancy of color-treated hair by minimizing the washing out of color molecules, which is crucial for those who want their hair color to last longer.
- Reduces damage: Avoiding sulfates reduces the risk of further damage to hair that the coloring process may already compromise. This helps keep the hair healthier and more manageable.
- Suitable for sensitive scalps: Sulfate-free shampoos are also beneficial for people with sensitive scalps or skin conditions, as they are less likely to irritate.
How to choose the best sulfate-free shampoo for colored hair
Choosing the right sulfate-free shampoo for your colored hair can make a big difference in keeping your color vibrant and healthy. Here's how to pick the best one:
- Check the ingredients: Look for nourishing ingredients like natural oils, proteins, and vitamins that can help protect and enhance your hair color.
- Avoid harsh chemicals: Ensure the shampoo is free from sulfates, parabens, and other harsh chemicals that can strip your hair of its natural oils and color.
- Consider your hair type: Choose a formula that suits your specific hair type, whether dry, oily, exemplary, or thick, to ensure it meets your hair's needs.
- Look for UV protection: Some shampoos offer UV protection, which can help prevent your color from fading due to sun exposure.
- Read reviews: Check out what other people with color-treated hair have to say about the shampoo. Personal experiences can give you insight into how well it works.
- Test it out: Sometimes, the best way to know if a shampoo works for you is to try it. Start with a smaller bottle to see how your hair responds.
Conclusion
Choosing the best sulfate-free shampoo for colored hair is essential to maintaining vibrant and healthy locks.
Focus on finding shampoos with nourishing ingredients, avoiding harsh chemicals, and considering your specific hair type. Look for products with UV protection and read reviews to make an informed decision.
Testing a small bottle can also help you determine if it fits your hair correctly.
Ready to keep your color vibrant and your hair healthy? Try our sulfate-free shampoo today!
FAQs
Why is sulfate-free shampoo better for colored hair?
Sulfate-free shampoos are gentler on the hair and scalp, preventing natural oils and color stripping. This helps maintain the vibrancy of color-treated hair and reduces damage.
How often should I use sulfate-free shampoo on color-treated hair?
It's generally recommended to wash color-treated hair 2-3 times a week with sulfate-free shampoo to avoid overwashing and preserve the color.
Can sulfate-free shampoos help with dry and damaged hair?
Yes, many sulfate-free shampoos contain nourishing ingredients that help hydrate and repair dry, damaged hair, making them an excellent choice for maintaining hair health.
Will sulfate-free shampoo work for all hair types?
Yes, sulfate-free shampoos suit all hair types, including fine, thick, curly, and straight hair. However, choosing a formula that matches your specific hair needs is essential for the best results.
Do sulfate-free shampoos lather well?
Sulfate-free shampoos may not lather as much as traditional shampoos, but they still effectively cleanse the hair without the harsh effects of sulfates.
Are there any downsides to using sulfate-free shampoo?
The main downside is the lower lathering effect, which some people may find less satisfying. However, the benefits of preserving hair color and maintaining overall hair health outweigh this minor drawback.
References:
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5582478/
- https://health.clevelandclinic.org/is-biotin-as-good-as-advertised-for-your-hair-loss
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3509882/
- https://ro.co/supplements/liquid-biotin/
- https://liquidhealth.us/blogs/article/biotin-and-collagen-for-hair-growth
