Here are the best shampoos to fix that
Whether you choose to have a full head, highlights or balayage (and even if you go to the best hairdressers in London to get it done), bleaching your hair damages it. While you could just forgo bleach in order to avoid said damage, the problem is this: bleaching hair is the only thing that will achieve a specifically light and bright blonde – a blonde blonde, in other words. However, despite the issues it causes, bleaching hair is not without its advantages. It makes your hair look thicker, for one. And it’s ‘a look’, especially in summer. So, what’s the solution? A shampoo for bleached damaged hair, obviously. Here are the best.
FEKKAI SUPER STRENGTH SHAMPOO, £20 AT SELFRIDGES
After a particularly bad day of breakage (hair and heart, knowing us), we asked the universe for strength and this FEKKAI shampoo answered. Enriched with Camargue – a region in southern France that we also had to google – rice water, it both repairs hair and strengthens it to prevent future damage. And it’s vegan.
NATURELAB TOKYO PERFECT REPAIR SHAMPOO, £15 AT CULT BEAUTY
The bottle for the NatureLab TOKYO Perfect Repair Shampoo is so mesmerising that we’d want it in our bathroom even if it was filled with lard. Fortunately, it’s not. A blend of smart keratin and bamboo stem cells (which both work to fortify existing hair strands and encourage growth) alongside argan oil (to fight frizz) and prickly pear oil (to protect hair from pollution) are what it actually contains. Refills are also available if sustainability is what chiefly concerns you.
BLEACH LONDON BEER SHAMPOO, £7.50 AT CULT BEAUTY
It’s only right that a brand responsible for bleaching hair to the extent that it’s eponymous should offer a shampoo that reverses its damage. Yet the fact BLEACH London’s offering is a Beer Shampoo makes you forget that there’s anything damning about having damaged hair at all. The beer element isn’t just a novelty to lure pubbers and clubbers into purchasing it, though. Because of their low molecular weight, the beer yeast proteins can actually penetrate individual hair shafts to strengthen each strand from within. It also contains not one, or two, or three, or four, but five B vitamins to nourish and protect hair even further. Cheers.
REDKEN EXTREME SHAMPOO, £16 AT LOOK FANTASTIC
Extreme problems need extreme solutions. Or at least an Extreme Shampoo, which is exactly what Redken offers. Featuring ceramides (molecules that act as conditioning agents when applied to the hair) and an exclusive protein complex, it’s a side-eye to split ends – and the general destruction bleaching brings – in a bottle.
OLAPLEX NO. 4 BOND MAINTENANCE SHAMPOO, £26 AT CULT BEAUTY
Bleaching your hair without using OLAPLEX – a patented technology that repairs broken bonds like a militant marriage counsellor – is a mistake. To maintain its magic we suggest also investing in the Bond Maintenance Shampoo. But be warned: healthy hair becomes somewhat of an addiction after a while.