One N’ Only is a brand I usually skip over at Sally’s due to the weird 80s/90s style branding of their product. C’mon, you can’t tell me this doesn’t look a little dated:

But I’ve been using quite a few of their products lately, and they’re pretty darn good. In another post, I am going to go into extreme detail about their ColorFix product. But for now, let’s focus on this purple shampoo.

While I had bayalage, I tried about six different blue/purple shampoos/conditioners, and Shiny Silver was the clear winner in the shampoo realm. For $10, you get 12.5 fl. oz of product, which is in the cheaper range for blue shampoos — and, considering that you won’t need to use it every day, it will certainly last awhile.

The consistency of this shampoo is just runny enough to easily get the product out of the bottle, but consistent enough to get a good lather out of it. It will make you feel as though you’ve sufficiently applied enough to your hair (which Joico and Pravana don’t do — those two always made me feel like I had to dump out half the bottle to get a good amount of product). After 2-3 minutes of letting this soak into your hair, you can wash your hair out and hop out of the shower without feeling much of a residue.

Now, unfortunately, that “no residue” feeling is likely due to the inclusion of sulfates, so if you’re looking for a sulfate-free shampoo, this ain’t it. Also, the dreaded isopropyl alcohol rears it’s ugly head in the 4th line down on the ingredient listing. For me, isopropyl alcohol usually ensures that dryness will eventually occur, so I try my best to avoid it in skincare and shampoos. But, hey — all in the name of experimentation, right?

Despite the aforementioned quasi-nefarious ingredients, I didn’t feel like my hair was SUPER dry, by any means. I mean, there was already bleach in it to begin with, so the damage had already been done. But this shampoo didn’t make it worse.

I loved this product because the color payout on the highlights was pretty significant. Even though the effects weren’t super long lasting (maybe two days, at most), they were pretty darn noticeable. All the red/copper/orange tones were temporarily cancelled out, and I was able to achieve a more white-silver blonde highlight look, as opposed to yellow-blonde. Which was exactly what I was going for.

Long-term, this shampoo isn’t going to either help or hinder your hair health. It does what it says it will, which is make your highlights brighter and cancel out the copper-tones. And while it’s not the most moisturizing of shampoos (particularly since it has sulfates, which strip out the natural oils), it’s also not going to damage it beyond repair even after a few weeks of sporadic use. All in all, not a bad buy! ~A

Perceived efficacy: 4/5

Longevity: 2/5

How much I actually like this product: 4/5