MatrixBrass Off Toning Blue Shampoo - Refreshes and Neutralizes Brassy Tones, For Color Treated Hair, Lightened Brunettes or Dark BlondesCradle to Cradle CertifiedCradle to Cradle CertifiedCradle to Cradle Certified

BLUE CONFIRMED: This is actually a blue shampoo. It's not a dark purple shampoo, which hardly does much to cancel out orange-yellow (or sometimes even yellow-orange) tones. There is a slight violet pigment mixed in, but the product is definitely way more blue than purple. It is the darkest blue shampoo I've been able to find, and it's strong. Without a doubt, it's meant to neutralize brassiness (orange or copper-like tones) in brunette hair colors. I found it *can* be used with some "dark blonde" hair color - with a few caveats:• When I say "dark blonde," I mean dark hair that has been lightened to a yellow-orange shade at most. If you were able to lighten your hair to a VERY PALE mostly yellow, but slightly muted pumpkin color (before applying any dye/toner), and a purple shampoo isn't helping you neutralize unwanted warmth... then you might want to try mixing this blue shampoo with a purple shampoo first. Otherwise, you'll risk building up a subtle green tone, which will be most noticeable under sunlight. (I'll explain more below if you feel like reading.)• I would not recommend this on someone who has naturally dark blonde hair (virgin hair) because I just don't know if you have the orange to red underlying pigments that brunettes have. Just the same, I'm not sure how this product would affect someone with natural light ginger hair color. I've only used it on my very dark brown hair after lightening (bleaching), then dying, then toning.• Different hair color brands may consider "dark blonde" to be a different level. What one brand considers "dark blonde," another may consider "very light brown." I found "dark blonde/very light brown" colors usually fall at or between a level 7 and 6 for most brands. (I personally favor Wella Professionals Koleston and Color Touch hair colors. However, I have used other brands and Wella products from a popular beauty supply store that doesn't always sell the best stuff.)• I'm hesitant to recommend this product to someone who has hair that has been lightened and dyed to a level 7 color that appears more dark blonde and that would unlikely be mistaken for a very light brown. (I'm more hesitant if your hair is damaged or very porous in any areas). I feel it's safe for someone with a level 6 color to use, even if the brand calls it a dark blonde color. (It's all about the annoying underlying pigment that keeps trying to fight its way thru!)• If you have light blonde highlights or a balayage, I would try to find a dark purple shampoo... or just be very careful with how you use this blue shampoo. (I had to figure out how to manage yellow & copper tones when I had balayage hair. I have some tips on that below.)OVERALL OPINION: This shampoo can be VERY drying, but it does temporarily help neutralize brassy hair (various ranges of warmth containing a fair amount of orange or copper tones) to a neutral or cool tone. This is supposed to help reduce damage to lightened/color-treated hair because it extends the time you can wait before undergoing another chemical process. It's strong and it works better than the 4-5 other "blue shampoos" I've tried (which were more "dark purple than blue") and the one failed blue food coloring + shampoo or conditioner hack. Depending on the condition and color of your hair, you may only need to use this once a week. Or you may find yourself using it every other time you wash your hair.I have used it on my hair when it was in various conditions, from mostly healthy to severely damaged. If you have porous hair, the pigment in this shampoo will grab quickly. It may not wash out completely either (if your hair is totally fried.) Sometimes it helps to leave this shampoo on a little longer than directed. But do so at your own risk. Because it can stain your skin. (I found this out the hard way. I stained my forehead, neck, and hands. But I left it on for a long time. Everything scrubbed away after 1-2 days.)PERSONAL EXPERIENCES FOR ADDITIONAL REFERENCE: I'm not a licensed professional. Nor have I ever been to any kind of beauty school. I basically decided to do my own hair out of boredom one day. I had very dark virgin hair (a tad darker than a level 3). I'm half Korean, so my hair can really take a beating. I had already paid 2 professionals. I wanted to be a "dirty blonde." (I think it might be every Asian girl/woman's dream to achieve natural looking blonde hair at least once in their life.) The 1st professional was too afraid to lighten my hair so she did "baby lights," which barely made a change. The 2nd totally botched my hair.Despite being half Korean and not being able to hold a curl more than a minute, I know my thick and stubborn hair will lighten rapidly. But no one seemed to listen. The 2nd professional ended up trying to correct the splotchy pale yellow and white mess she made of my hair by coloring over it. However, she somehow took my hair back to it's original color... except it was very flat looking.After wasting around $300 for nothing, I decided to just have fun and do things myself. I used Color Oops to strip the dye out. I was left with the same splotchy mess, except it was dark orange.I went thru multiple processes of lightening and bleach bathes until I got the consistent very pale yellow pumpkin shade I needed. I dyed my hair the dirty blonde I wanted. But I had no idea how to keep up with it. I kept touching up my roots every other week and toning. I eventually took my hair to the lightest blonde I could (level 9) and learned about the miracle of purple shampoo.I eventually grew tired of the light color and attempted to dye my hair light brown. I didn't know I needed to add some warmth back, so my hair turned out a muddy green gray color. I had to strip it and bleach it again.Long story short, I chemically processed the heck out of my hair for over a year before I got it right. I had to baby the lower thirds because it felt like moosh after one bleach disaster. I achieved a light ash brown that I wanted to maintain. My purple shampoo had no effect. I tried other "blue" shampoos and some at home hacks I found online. Then I began using this blue shampoo.It worked, but it was too drying for my damaged hair. Also, the bottom part of my hair was so fried and porous that it seemed to instantly soak up all the pigment from this shampoo and became stained. I had to carefully use a gentle bleach bath to get most of the blue out.(That part of my hair could hardly hold any dye so I ended up having an unintentional, but nice looking ombre color for several months.) I'd have to carefully comb this shampoo thru the upper part of my wet hair, then quickly scrub for cleaning - being careful not to let so much run thru the lower lengths of my hair - before rinsing off. It was tedious to do, but it was really all I could do unless I wanted to chop my hair really short. I sometimes soaked the bottom part of my hair in oils before washing, but that didn't seem to help much. I just had to be careful not to let this settle on the extremely porous lenths of my hair for more than 30 seconds to avoid staining that part.I ended up switching to the Matrix Brass Off hair mask, since I couldn't handle how brittle and dry my hair had become. I found I had to leave the mask on longer, but it allowed me to have more control over how much pigment soaked into the really damaged parts of my hair. It allowed me to wash my entire hair with a very gentle & moisturizing shampoo. Then I could condition my hair, wring it out, dry it even more with a towel, and comb the mask thru the parts that needed it. If it got on some of the lower ends I could wipe it off with my hands or rinse it off. It wasn't a big deal because it took longer for the mask to leave behind blue pigment than this shampoo. I would occassionally (rarely) go thru the hassle of using this shampoo when I felt the mask just wasn't doing enough.After cutting off all the very damaged parts a year later, I accidentally over lightened my hair again. This time it's healthy, just lighter than I wanted. It's a light-medium natural brown. However, I still experienced the problem of the dreaded orange town slowly peaking thru my dye no matter how gentle of a shampoo I used. Then I found this bottle of blue shampoo deep in my cabinet. I thought it might be too old to work, but nope! It still works. I do still find it drying, but I only have to use it 1-2 times a week at most since my hair is pretty healthy and can hold color evenly now. Once I get enough blue pigment on my hair, I can use the shampoo once in a week. (I currently wash my hair everyday to every other day, depending on how much styling products I've used.)*OH! When using either the blue shampoo or mask, you may want to have a dedicated towel that you don't mind getting stained. If you have dark towels, you should be fine. I'll write a review on the mask later. Personally, I prefer the mask because it's not drying. But if you have healthy hair and a great deep conditioner, this shampoo is superior as far as cutting out the brass.

This is the first time I’ve ever written a review for anything in my life, but this deserves it. Lengthy review but I’m excited, ha!I’m a naturally dark brunette who has gone blonde or had blonde highlights/bayalage on and off for years. Like most, I struggle with orange/brassiness. I’ve been doing the ombré-to-bayalage for awhile and this week decided to bring the lightness up higher. I knew I’d be facing the orange/brassiness during the initial phase(s) but forgot what a bummer it can be.I don’t know how I’ve never heard of or noticed blue shampoo before, and quite frankly I wonder why all stylists have only suggested purple shampoo?! Definite disservice! I’ve used several professional purple brands diligently, and while I always use 1-2x/week I never felt like it was even doing anything. I’m sure it was but just not what I hoped - as in if I stopped using I’m sure I’d notice that too. I’ve never been able to *truly* achieve the holy grail type of cool-toned blonde I’ve wanted. I was just resigned to it being good enough given how naturally dark my hair is. An “it is what it is” kind of thing.Enter this baby. I don’t have time to go back to my stylist before I head out of town this weekend so I took to the Internet. I should note that I first went with Fanola No Orange. It did absolutely nothing for me at all. I was so disappointed and thought this “blue shampoo thing” was just going to be something else that turned out to be a big ol’ bust. But this product was another that got raves and was on all the Best Blues lists I read, so I decided to give it one more go and ordered it. Needless to say I’m more than glad I took that leap.It’s my understanding this product is aimed at natural brunettes who lighten their hair. Lightening brings out the orange/brass for us; hence, we need blue - opposite of orange/brass on the color wheel - to work at those dreaded tones. Purple works to pull out yellows. I’m sure I’ll still need that too so I will continue to use that maybe once a week or even every other while mainly sticking with this product 1-2x/week in my maintenance regimen.I’ve read reviews where people complain it’s purple in color and not truly blue. This is true; however, it’s waaaaay more pigmented than any purple shampoo I’ve ever used. USE GLOVES. I was like meh, whatever, the first time I used this and yeah they were right so don’t do what I did...it WILL come off but you’ll literally be scrubbing at your hands/nails/cuticles for 2-3 days at least. I *never* ran into this before with purple shampoos ever. It doesn’t stain your scalp (or anywhere else on your body), your tub, your counter or other fixtures like some - and believe me the first time I used it looked like I squirted it all over my bathroom counter, sink, and mirror - but clean it up right away anyway.I used it conservatively the first time, concentrating most on upper part where we just brought the lightening up. It didn’t do anything to those affected problematic pieces the first time, but Oh. My. God. to everywhere else after just one conservative use. After all this time of “blonde-ing” I FINALLY started to see that desired shade of cool-toned blonde without all the warmth! Yellow, copper, orange, brass, whatever hints that were usually there to some degree were well on their way to hitting the road. I was literally shocked. I’m almost never blown away by any product. I can’t stress that enough!I’ve read it can be drying but I always drown my processed hair in conditioner for several minutes anytime I shower, and if anything, it was smoother and silkier. Smells really great, too! Bonus!After first checking with my stylist to see if I could continue to work at just my problem areas daily until I’m satisfied with the correction level - she said yes as long as I really moisturize each time - I’m noticing a big difference in those problem parts and will probably achieve desired results - without a trip to salon - in the next day or 2. Everyone’s different, so test out slowly and conservatively, but on Day 2 I’m leaving this on upwards of 30 mins (again on just on my problem areas) and then following up with an all-over wash again with it in the shower. I’m really slathering it on and I have a lot of hair so I’m using a lot of it each time. After this though I’ll use it for maintenance like usual.** I read mixed things about using it on dry hair, so if you choose that route really do a small conservative test first. I like to roll the dice while being smart about it, so I’d like to add I’m half the time using this first on dry hair and half the time just in the shower like I normally would. Either way whether I start dry or wet, I do a double shampoo with it each time - the second all over wash leaving on about 5 mins only. This is also during initial correction only and not what I’m going to do when I go back to normal maintenance use per usual. **If you can relate to any of this JUST BUY IT. Seriously. I won’t be without this EVER again. If it turns some other blonde pieces a weird purple/gray tone it will wash out in next wash - it happened to me. It doesn’t have actual dyes in it. It’s a toning shampoo.Get it, *really take your time with it to figure out what works for you and your situation* - AKA be smart and patient about it and experiment with it, WEAR GLOVES, and be prepared to be blown away. I really don’t know how people can say this stuff doesn’t work. The only thing I can conclude is they needed to be patient and experiment with it a bit more.I am literally telling everyone about it! It’s such a game changer and I can’t believe this is the first time I’m using this. I hope this helps at least someone. :)

I’ve purchased this shampoo multiple times because it truly delivers. It keeps my hair free of unwanted orange or brassy tones. I have color-treated, lightened brunette hair, and this product has been essential in helping me maintain a fresh, cool tone for longer. It’s my go-to and I wouldn’t switch it for anything. Highly recommend if you’re looking to neutralize warm tones and keep your color looking great!

Definitely works! I’m still playing around with my hair— understanding what tones and colors work best for me. I wanted to play around with toning and semi-permanent color to avoid harsh dyes. I used sun activated lightening sprays to get to the before (in the black sweater). My hair has very red undertones naturally so I purchased this just to experiment with the honey blonde I’ve had for several months. It may take some getting used to, but point is, this stuff worked after one wash!

Love this combo of the Shampoo and conditioner 🙌 I have spent soo much money on Purple shampoo that doesn’t work at all. So when I read the reviews on this I said let me give it a try and to my surprise it worked better than I expected. We have hard water where we live so when I get my hair done that color tends to turn fast and an orange, brassy color which is soo frustrating. I used this one time and my blonde color was back 🙌 i used the Shampoo and conditioner and it’s soft and smells great. Don’t hesitate on this!! iys definitely worth it.