It's a 10
- If you dye your hair blond like me, you know the struggle of maintaining fresh, non-brassy color.
- I've been using It's A 10 Miracle Brightening Blonde Shampoo ($24), a purple shampoo that promises 10 different benefits specifically for blonds - such as brightening highlights and toning down brassiness.
- It helps maintain my dyed hair so well that when I use it, multiple coworkers ask if I'd just gone to the salon, but it's really just how good this shampoo is.
There is no greater struggle than being blond in the summertime - the beach, BBQs, and just the overall sun exposure ultimately leads to brassiness, dullness, and gone-too-soon color.
Okay, so maybe there are worse problems to have, and there are definitely more reasons than just the sun that can turn my platinum hair into a brassy disaster, but just painting the picture here.
I started to dye my hair back when I was 21 years old and attending Arizona State (Go Devils!), and it was so difficult for me to keep up with the maintenance of being blond that I just stayed within the range of a dirty blond so I didn't have to really focus on making it look nice.
Hairstylists would always recommend using a purple shampoo once a week to brighten up the tone of my colors and remove some of the yellow tints that were making it brassy, but none of it worked. As someone who works out pretty consistently and is pretty active outdoors thanks to my Australian Shepard, I felt like I needed a boost every single day.
One day, years later during another attempt at going platinum, I happened upon the It's A 10 Miracle Brightening Blonde Shampoo.
The bottle promises 10 different benefits specific to dyed blond hair such as brightening highlights, toning down brassiness, protecting against UV rays, and more - all of which were things I was looking for. It's also a gentle formula that could be used every day too; it has shea butter to hydrate, as well as floral and fruit extracts to brighten my hair.
I thought it was too good to be true, but I went ahead and tried it one morning before heading off to work.
I kid you not - one of my male coworkers approached me while I was at work hours later said, "Wow, your hair looks especially blond today. Did you just get it done?" I was speechless because that was the exact kind of compliment I was going after.
Two days later, I washed my hair again in the morning, let it air dry, and headed to work. I was sitting at my desk when another male coworker made a comment on how good my my hair looked. I was floored. I used every ounce of that shampoo before quickly snagging another bottle and throwing out the other purple shampoos I still had in my shower.
It's A 10 has the formula down pat - it's one thing to make a purple shampoo for blond hair, but it's another to make it gentle for everyday use. I will say though that I take the "everyday use" part with a grain of salt, since I don't always wash my hair every day.
Read more: 5 blue shampoos that keep my lightened brown hair from looking brassy
When I do shampoo, I use a lot since I have long hair the bottles are reasonable enough for me at $24, so I might as well use what I need because I can just get another bottle easily. It's not cheap for shampoo, but I'm willing to pay if it means my hair looks great.
I've found that if I use it every day, or even every other day, the brightness of my blond is always consistent. It's never too bright, or even remotely silver. And that's what's what I ultimately like about like about this product - that my dyed hair constantly looks and stays true-to-color.
I've used and loved other hair-care products from It's A 10, but this purple shampoo really takes the cake for me, and I've yet to find anything that can compete.
Buy It's A 10 Miracle Brightening Blonde Shampoo from Ulta for $23
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