K18 is a brand that never does things by halves, and absolutely never launches 'that'll do' products to fill a gap in a marketing calendar. Wouldn't dream of it.
So after the original Molecular Repair Mask - a genuine "game changer" as my K18 Review breathlessly attests - and a dry shampoo that works unlike any other (spoiler: it's wet) as of this week, we get TripleBright Oxidation Defence, the brand's stab at making the best purple shampoo on the market.
Predictably, it's pretty different from the competition, and that goes for the formula, the feel, and the results it can achieve.
What you need to know about K18's high-tech purple shampoo
If you have grey, blonde or lightened-in-some-way hair, you've probably tried purple shampoo. These formulas are bright violet and do a great job of toning down yellow tones in hair, simply because purple is opposite yellow on the colour wheel, so they cancel each other out.
So far, so useful if your colour gets a bit brassy. The downside? They don't do much else besides knocking yellow down, can be drying and make an unholy mess of your hands, shower tiles, and anywhere else the splatters reach, which for me always seems to be the top of my ears.
So, here comes one of the most innovative haircare brands around, with a new approach:
The first thing you should know about TripleBright is... It's a foam! Which is good fun and essentially means it's pre-lathered, so there's no need to aggressively work it in, staining your fingers and grouting in the process. In more important news, the techy formula doesn't just load on violet pigment and call it a day. Instead, it contains chelating agents that actually rid your strands of the minerals and metals that build up and make grey and blonde hair go dull and/or yellow. This is a clever development, as it's not masking the issue, it's dissolving it (three months of brass gone with every shampoo, according to the brand)
After testing the product myself, I found that not only did all of my blonde take on a nice, creamy tone, but my (recently grey spotlighted) silver strands at the front were sparkling with shine, which is so tricky to achieve on greys. My whole head of hair felt soft, fresh, and clarified - not easy given the harder-than-Vinnie-Jones water of South-East London.
A few caveats: despite this being the most mess-free purple shampoo I've tried, TripleBright still contains pigment, so don't let it sit on your hands for ages and rinse away any drops from your shoulders to save your towels. You need to leave it in for a few minutes for it to work, so it's a longer process than most shampoos, and at just shy of £40, it's not cheap by any means.
With that said, you only need to use this once every couple of weeks for excellent, tangible changes to your hair colour - and it really does last for weeks, through other shampoos. So overall, as with everything K18 does, the trickier elements are more than offset by the benefits, and as someone who uses shower time to hide from a toddler, the slightly longer application time is no biggie.
