beauty

CULT BUY: The $12.95 purple shampoo every blonde needs in her life.

Like any good Thursday, I had no intention of coming to work and writing about my hair.

My hair is pretty, well, unremarkable. I dye it within an inch of its life with the kind of hair colour I most definitely wasn’t blessed with but will try – try being the operative word – to pull off nonetheless.

And the one thing they don’t tell you when you walk into a salon and demand to be bleached from the top down? Your future is looking very expensive. And maintenance? Ugh. Good luck!

But today as I walked in to work hit with a litany of questions about whether I had just been the hairdresser. Did I dye it again? Surely? It was so fresh!

Despite the fact ‘fresh’ doesn’t go close to describing my hair (or me, for that matter) my co-workers and I found ourselves in an impassioned discussion about purple shampoo.

Because like any good, dedicated and (very) fake blonde, I know purple shampoo is serious currency in the hair world.

Since I started dying my hair blonde about five or so years ago, I’ve tried and tested them all. Really. ALL of the shampoos.

Normal, very fake HAIR.

I've spent $50 on bottles, $40 on bottles, $30 on bottles and about $10 on bottles. From the minute bleach hit my stupid strands, I've been searching for the shampoo that will halt my brassy blonde from emerging right in its tracks.

This, my friends, is the answer:

It also happens to be the cheapest one I've yet come in contact with, at a cool $12.95.

Because here's the thing: it's been nearly five months since I last dyed my hair. By this point, the ashy blonde usually has orange tints — it's brassy and bronze and not at all the colour I asked for. Ordinarily, I'd be dragging myself to the hairdresser, emptying the contents of my wallet on the counter and thanking the universe for the existence of toner.

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After nearly five months, my hair needs help. This is where Provoke's Touch of Silver brightening shampoo comes in. I'm careful not to overdo it: I usually wash my hair with a normal shampoo, rinse it out, and then lather it in deep purple.

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The consistency of this one caught me by surprise the first time I used it - it wasn't like other shampoos. It was particularly thin, very liquid-like and very, very violet. Some reviewers struggle with the consistency, but I don't mind it. I find I'm churning through the bottle at a much slower pace than any other shampoo I've used because it's so different.

It can, beware, dry your hair a little, so I usually use some kind of anti-frizz serum or Argan Oil to follow it up.

It's not perfect but it's the quickest of fixes, a short-term solution to a long-term labour of blonde-love.

And about five months on, I'm not back at the salon yet. Because once it's all dried off? I get a little bit of my blonde back and am able to keep fooling my co-workers about my freshness.