Best Purple Shampoo in Australia (2026)

Purple shampoo is a category where the label tells you almost nothing useful. Every bottle says it neutralises yellow tones for blonde, silver and grey hair. What it will not tell you is how much violet pigment is in there, how big the bottle really is once you convert the ounces, or whether it is built for a weekly toning wash or for daily use. Those three things are the entire decision.

We pulled the Amazon Australia listings for the violet toning shampoos Australians actually buy, checked stock and buy box pricing on every one, took verified ratings from the Australian store, and cut the list to seven. One boundary first: this guide covers violet toning shampoo for blonde, lightened, silver and grey hair. If your hair is brunette and turning orange rather than yellow, that is a blue shampoo job and sits outside this page. Clarifying shampoo is a third thing again, since it strips build up rather than depositing pigment.

What is the best purple shampoo in Australia?

For most people the answer is Olaplex No. 4P Blonde Enhancer. It is a 250 ml sulphate free bottle rated 4.6 out of 5 from more than eleven thousand Amazon Australia ratings, the formula is vegan and unscented, and the listing is written for all blonde, lightened and grey hair rather than one narrow shade. It is also the dearest of our seven picks, so it is a genuine choice rather than an automatic one.

If you wash your hair several times a week and want something gentler in rotation, L'Oreal Paris EverPure Brass Toning Purple Shampoo is the mainstream pick: sulphate free, paraben free, and one of the most reviewed bottles here.

If you want to find out whether toning suits your hair before spending properly, John Frieda Violet Crush Intensive Purple Shampoo is the cheapest of our seven picks and comes in the same 250 ml bottle size as the Olaplex.

Purple shampoos compared at a glance

All seven were in stock on Amazon Australia at the time of writing. Bottle sizes come from the listings themselves, which matters because a travel bottle and a salon litre sit side by side in the same search results.

How we chose these purple shampoos

• Every pick was checked live for stock and buy box price, and every rating and review count here came from the Amazon Australia listing, not an overseas store.
• We kept only violet toning shampoos whose listing names blonde, lightened, silver or grey hair. Blue shampoos, colour depositing conditioners and bundles were left out.
• Bottle size was pulled from each listing and converted to millilitres, so a 10.1 ounce bottle and a 300 ml bottle compare without arithmetic in the aisle.
• NestPath does not run a salon. We research listings, specifications and Australian buyer feedback, then say which pick suits which situation rather than promising a result.

Best purple shampoo overall: Olaplex No. 4P Blonde Enhancer

The No. 4P is the pick we would give someone who does not want to think about this again for a year. It is a 250 ml bottle, sulphate free, vegan and listed as unscented, and Olaplex writes it for all blonde, lightened and grey hair rather than one shade family. That breadth matters more than it sounds, because several bottles in this pool are written specifically for pre lightened platinum or specifically for natural grey, and if you sit in between them you end up guessing.

On the numbers it sits in a three way tie for the highest star rating of our seven picks, at 4.6 out of 5, alongside the Fanola and the John Frieda. It reaches that score on more than eleven thousand Amazon Australia ratings.

The unscented formulation is the quiet reason we lead with it. Purple shampoos are usually heavily perfumed, and if you are sensitive to fragrance in the shower that rules out most of the category before you reach pigment strength at all.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

It is the priciest bottle in this guide, and at 250 ml there is no size discount to soften that. The unscented formula divides people, since some buyers want a salon smell and find this one flat. And the pigment is moderate rather than aggressive, so a fast brassing blonde may need it more often than a stronger formula.

Best purple shampoo for washing several times a week: L'Oreal Paris EverPure

The EverPure is the bottle for people whose hair gets washed whether or not it needs toning. It is sulphate free and paraben free, the listing gives it a violet and thyme scent, and it is written for blonde, bleached, silver and brown highlighted hair. That last detail is the useful one: it is the only pick here whose listing names highlighted brunette hair as a target, which makes it the safer choice for balayage rather than an all over blonde.

It carries the third largest review base of our seven picks, more than twenty five thousand Amazon Australia ratings at 4.4 out of 5. That score is slightly below the top of this list, and the pattern behind it is consistent across purple shampoos sold in supermarkets: a broad audience buys them, part of that audience wants a dramatic overnight change, and a gentle toner is not built for that. At 200 ml it is also the smallest bottle of the seven, which is awkward for something you are encouraged to use in rotation.

Sulphate free formulas lather less and people compensate by scrubbing, so pair it with a brush that survives wet hair. Our guide to the best hairbrushes in Australia covers that.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

It is the smallest bottle here at 200 ml, so it empties quickly. The violet and thyme fragrance is noticeable and not for everyone. And the toning is deliberately mild, so if you expected the shift a salon toner gives you, this is the wrong end of the category.

Best cheap purple shampoo: John Frieda Violet Crush Intensive

An inexpensive bottle is a reasonable first move here, because the main thing you are buying is information about your own hair: whether it takes violet pigment well, how fast it goes brassy, and how often you actually want to do this. The Violet Crush Intensive is the cheapest of our seven picks and it comes in a full 250 ml bottle, the same size as the Olaplex at the other end of the list.

It is one of three picks tied at the top star rating of this guide, 4.6 out of 5, though from a much smaller review base than the Olaplex or the Fanola. That is a listing that has not been on Amazon Australia long rather than one people dislike, and it is the figure on this page we would treat as provisional. John Frieda is not a new brand in Australian bathrooms, which is why we were comfortable at this review count.

The word Intensive is the version distinction worth knowing. John Frieda sells a standard Violet Crush purple shampoo alongside this one as a separate listing, so check you are comparing the same bottle.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

The review base is small, so the rating carries less weight than the big listings here. There is no salon range behind it, just a matching conditioner. And supermarket lines get reformulated, so the bottle you buy in a year may not be the bottle reviewed today.

Best purple shampoo for stubborn yellow tones: Fanola No Yellow

Fanola No Yellow is the bottle Australian hairdressers keep behind the basin, and it is the most reviewed product on this page by a wide margin: more than ninety six thousand Amazon Australia ratings at 4.6 out of 5, which also puts it in the three way tie for the top star rating of our picks.

The listing is blunt about who it is for. Fanola describes it as a neutralising violet pigment shampoo for blonde hair with brassy yellow tones, aimed at super lightened or decoloured hair, and intended for maintaining blonde between salon visits. That is a narrower brief than the Olaplex and deliberately so. This is the strongest violet in our line up and it behaves like it.

The other reason it is here is format. It is the only 1 L bottle among our seven picks, the salon size rather than the retail size, and that changes how you think about the category. A litre used weekly is a very long time between purchases, and it is the format that makes a strong pigment practical for a household with more than one blonde in it.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

The pigment is strong enough to stain hands, towels and light grout, so it is not a bottle to be casual with. There is no pump on the standard litre, which makes it clumsy in the shower. And it is written for lightened blonde, so for natural grey it would not be our first reach.

Best purple shampoo for grey and silver hair: Matrix Total Results So Silver

Natural grey and silver hair is a different toning problem to bleached blonde, and So Silver is one of the few bottles in this pool whose own comparison chart names blonde, silver and grey hair together rather than treating grey as an afterthought. The listing describes it as a colour depositing purple pigment shampoo built to neutralise yellow tones in blonde, platinum and grey hair.

It holds 4.5 out of 5 from more than thirty three thousand Amazon Australia ratings, the second largest review base of our seven picks. The bottle is listed at 10.1 ounces, which is 300 ml, so it sits at the larger end of the retail sizes without going to the salon litre.

If you are growing out colour into natural grey, this is the phase where a toning shampoo earns its place, because yellowing regrowth against coloured lengths is the contrast that reads as brassy in daylight. A moderate deposit bottle used routinely suits that transition better than a strong pigment used rarely.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

The imperial sizing on the listing is a nuisance and makes shelf comparison harder than it should be. It is a moderate deposit formula, so if your hair goes brassy fast you may want something stronger. And the packaging has changed more than once over the years, so the bottle in the photo is not always the bottle that arrives.

Best Australian purple shampoo: Eleven Australia Keep My Colour Blonde

Eleven Australia is a familiar Australian salon name on Amazon Australia. Keep My Colour Blonde is a 300 ml bottle rated 4.4 out of 5, and it is where we point buyers who want a salon brand sold and supported here rather than parallel imported.

That point is not a small one. Plenty of the cheaper listings in a search for purple shampoo are overseas stock with overseas packaging, inconsistent sizes and no local support. Buying an Australian brand sidesteps that. Eleven Australia, Evo, Kevin Murphy, NAK, Muk, De Lorenzo and Hi Lift all have toning shampoos in the same pool, which is unusual for a beauty category.

On the numbers this is one of the quieter listings among our picks, with a couple of hundred Amazon Australia ratings rather than tens of thousands. Eleven Australia has a much bigger footprint in salons than its Amazon review count suggests, so treat the small number as a reflection of where the brand sells rather than of how many people use it.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

The Amazon Australia review base is small next to the international listings here, so there is less crowd data to lean on. It sits mid table without the strongest pigment or the biggest bottle. And Amazon listings for Australian salon brands come and go more than they do on the global names.

Best purple shampoo for platinum blondes: Evo Fabuloso Platinum

Evo is an Australian brand with a genuinely different way of describing its toning range, and it is the only listing among our picks that publishes a clear strength ladder: the Fabuloso Platinum Toning Shampoo is marked as strongly toning for weekly use, while the matching toning mist is marked as light and intended for daily use. That is the sort of guidance the rest of this category leaves you to work out yourself.

It is a 250 ml bottle at 4.5 out of 5 from a few hundred Amazon Australia ratings, listed as vegan and cruelty free, with hair type given as blonde, grey and lightened. The listing describes the form as a cream rather than a runny liquid, which is the practical reason it suits platinum hair: a thicker product is easier to apply evenly and control on a short contact time.

It is the second dearest bottle in our line up and not the one for someone with mid blonde highlights, who is better served by the L'Oreal or the Matrix. For platinum or heavily pre lightened hair, it is the most clearly documented option here.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

It is expensive for 250 ml and it is designed to be used alongside other products in the range, which is a bigger commitment than one bottle. The fragrance is strong and floral. And a weekly bottle only makes sense if you have a second shampoo for the other days.

Which purple shampoo should you buy?

Match your situation to the pick rather than the price, because the strongest bottle here is not the right bottle for most heads of hair.

What should you look for in a purple shampoo?

Four things decide whether a bottle suits you, and only one of them is printed on the front.

Pigment strength. This is the real variable and almost nobody labels it. The signal to read is who the listing is written for. A shampoo aimed at super lightened or decoloured hair, like the Fanola, is carrying a lot of violet. One written for blonde, bleached, silver and highlighted hair, like the L'Oreal EverPure, is deliberately gentler because it has to be safe across all of those. Evo is the exception that publishes a strength ladder outright. If the listing does not say, the target audience tells you.

Bottle size, in millilitres. This category is a mess of units: 70 ml travel bottles, 200 ml retail bottles, 10.1 ounce bottles that are really 300 ml, and 1 L salon bottles, all in one search. Convert before you compare, because the price ranking and the cost per wash ranking are often not the same ranking.

Sulphate free or not. Sulphate free formulas lather less and are the usual recommendation for colour treated hair. Both the Olaplex and the L'Oreal EverPure are sulphate free. If you are used to a big lather the first wash feels like it is not working, and the temptation is to use twice as much. Use the normal amount.

Whether there is a matching conditioner. Toning shampoos are cleansers first and most run drier than a normal shampoo, so the ranges that sell a matching second step are generally the ones designed to be used as a pair. Matrix, L'Oreal, John Frieda, Eleven Australia and Evo all sell one.

How long does a bottle of purple shampoo actually last?

This is the question the category is worst at answering, so here is the arithmetic with the verified bottle sizes from our picks. Assume a palmful is about 15 ml, a fair average for mid length hair, and that you tone once a week rather than at every wash.

Read down that last column and the shape of the category becomes obvious. Most retail bottles are a season. The Fanola litre is more than a year of weekly toning for one person, which is why it turns up in so many Australian bathrooms despite being the bottle most likely to stain something. If you have long or thick hair, halve those numbers. Halve them again for two people. And because so much of this category is imported, take the millilitre figure from the listing specifications rather than the front of the bottle in the photo.

How do you use purple shampoo without going lilac?

Start with a short contact time. Almost every purple shampoo problem people describe online comes from leaving a strongly pigmented product on light hair for the length of a normal conditioning treatment. Work it through, watch the clock, rinse, and extend the time only on a later wash. Porous, over processed and very fine hair grabs pigment fastest.

Do not use it at every wash unless the bottle says to. Mild formulas like the L'Oreal EverPure are built for rotation. Strong ones like the Fanola and the Evo are weekly bottles, and using them daily is how you end up with an even violet cast rather than a neutralised one.

Wear gloves with the heavily pigmented bottles and rinse the shower down straight after, because violet pigment on light grout is much harder to remove once it dries. Keep a dark towel for toning days.

Follow with conditioner, and if you heat style afterwards use a protectant rather than skipping it. Hard water works against a fresh tone as well, and our guide to shower filters in Australia explains what it does. Finally, store the bottle out of direct sunlight, because Australian bathrooms with a west facing window get hot and pigment formulas are not improved by that.

You'll also want

• L'Oreal Paris EverPure Purple Conditioner if you went with the EverPure shampoo, so the pair matches.
• John Frieda Violet Crush Purple Conditioner as a cheaper matching second step.
• Redken Color Extend Blondage Mask for a deeper weekly treatment alongside a milder shampoo.
• Bondi Home SPA microfibre hair towel because a dedicated towel keeps pigment off your good ones.
• Wapodeai wide tooth shower comb for distributing product evenly before you rinse.
• ghd Bodyguard heat protection spray for the styling that follows the wash.
• Philips three stage shower filter if you are in a hard water suburb and notice colour shifting quickly.

The competition

A few well known bottles came out of the shortlist rather than into it, and the reasons are worth knowing because they will appear in your search results.

Joico Color Balance Purple Shampoo is a strong 300 ml option with a large following, but it was not available to buy on Amazon Australia when we checked, and a pick you cannot add to a cart is not a pick. Fudge Professional Purple Toning Shampoo in the 250 ml size had the same problem.

Moroccanoil Purple Shampoo is a well liked formula, but the widely stocked Amazon Australia listing is a 70 ml travel bottle, which is a trial size rather than a main bottle.

Kevin Murphy Blonde Angel Wash sits close to the Evo on positioning. We went with the Evo because its listing publishes a clear strength and frequency ladder. If you already use Kevin Murphy, there is no reason to switch.

Purple shampoo questions Australians ask

How often should you use purple shampoo?

It depends on the bottle, which is why the brief on the listing matters more than a general rule. Strongly pigmented bottles such as the Fanola and the Evo Fabuloso Platinum are positioned for weekly use with a normal shampoo on the other days. Milder ones such as the L'Oreal Paris EverPure are written for regular rotation. Start at the lower end of whatever the bottle says and increase only if you want more.

Is purple shampoo the same as blue shampoo?

No. Violet pigment is aimed at yellow tones in blonde, lightened, silver and grey hair. Blue pigment is aimed at orange tones in brunette and darker hair. Buying the wrong one is the most common mistake in this category, and none of the seven picks on this page is a blue shampoo.

Can purple shampoo leave a purple tint in your hair?

Yes, and it is the reason to start with a short contact time. Heavily pigmented formulas left on very light, fine or porous hair for a long stretch can deposit visible violet rather than neutralising yellow. Rinse earlier than you think you need to on the first few washes, then adjust once you know how your hair behaves.

Which purple shampoo has the most reviews on Amazon Australia?

Fanola No Yellow, by a long way. It carries more than ninety six thousand Amazon Australia ratings at 4.6 out of 5, which is nearly three times the review base of the next biggest listing in this guide. It is also the only 1 L bottle among our seven picks.

Do you need a purple conditioner as well?

Not strictly, but most toning shampoos run drier than a normal shampoo, so following with some conditioner is sensible. A matching purple conditioner adds a little more pigment and keeps the routine simple. If your hair is already dry, a plain conditioner or a weekly mask is the better second step.

What size purple shampoo bottle should you buy?

Work in millilitres and think in washes rather than bottles. A 250 ml bottle is roughly sixteen weekly washes for mid length hair, a 300 ml bottle is roughly twenty, and a 1 L salon bottle is more than a year of weekly toning for one person. Anything under 100 ml is a travel size, not a main bottle.

More NestPath buying guides

• Best dry shampoo in Australia for the days between washes.
• Best shampoo bars in Australia if you are trying to cut plastic bottles.
• Best hairbrushes in Australia for what survives wet, colour treated hair.
• Best hair dryers in Australia for the step straight after the wash.
• Best hair straighteners in Australia and what the heat settings actually mean.
• Best silk pillowcases in Australia for overnight friction on long hair.
• Best scalp massagers in Australia for working product through thick hair.

About the author

Anish Puri founded NestPath in 2026 after going through the Australian first-home-buyer process himself. NestPath focuses on Australian first-home buyers because the existing review sites are American, generic, or both. Anish handles editorial selection across the homeowner hub. Reach out: hello@nestpath.com.au