The Best Sulfate-Free Shampoos

We all know by now that sulfates aren’t the best, but it’s time to share our favorite sulfate-free shampoo brands.

Since sulfates are a surfactant (a.k.a. the stuff that makes your shampoo sudsy and makes you feel clean), it can be hard to find a sulfate-free shampoo that actually keeps you feeling clean too. While the hunt for a good sulfate-free shampoo isn’t always easy, it’s what’s best to keep your scalp and hair happy and balanced!

Claudia and I have tried plenty of sulfate-free shampoos…like too many (ugh). That said, we’ve found some that work better for us individually. Since budgets vary, we’re sharing our favorite sulfate-free shampoos in categories:

• Luxury
• Drugstore
• Customized
• (Mostly) Organic
• Cult-Favorite

You can hardly wait to find out, can you?

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Best Luxury Sulfate-Free Shampoo: Virtue Labs

About the Brand

Virtue Labs is the first line of hair products to ever use human-derived keratin! The company actually uses ethically sourced, untreated human hair to extract Alpha Keratin 60ku™. It’s all acquired from reputable suppliers and has been purchased at the will of the individual sellers; never donated. In addition, the hair is hand cut to assure the hair has never been dyed or chemically treated. Cool, right?!

Overall, we really love the Virtue Recovery Shampoo! It’s one of the brands that worked well for BOTH of us! We actually tried a bunch of their shampoos and conditioners a while back and Recovery was by far our favorite.

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Best (Mostly) Organic Sulfate-Free Shampoo: Rahua

About the Brand

If you’re looking for an ultra-clean, super responsible hair care brand, Rahua is for you. All of their ingredients are not only sustainably-sourced, but mostly organic too! Cool, right? The star ingredient in all of their products is rahua oil, which has been used by Amazonian women forever to nurture and strengthen their hair. This ingredient is really worth the hype!

At the end of the day, if ingredients are your main focus, Rahua is for you. At the very least, it’s worth a shot! You can even get a $9 trial-size from Sephora if you want!

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Best Drugstore Sulfate-Free Shampoo: Maui Moisture

About the Brand

Who doesn’t love a good drugstore find, am I right?! We have my mother-in-law to thank for this find! Maui Moisture is extremely affordable, but offers super clean formulas that actually work. The highlight of this brand is the aloe vera infused with coconut water as key ingredients in all formulas!

Honestly, this is one of the best drugstore finds ever! Maui Moisture is so effective, very clean, but so affordable, we can hardly believe it!

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Best Customized Sulfate-Free Shampoo: Prose

About the Brand

Prose is brand that makes clean, customized-to-you shampoos, conditioners, masks and oils. Each formula is based off of a quiz you take with specifics about your hair type, needs, goals, etc. It even factors in where you live and the type of tap water you have – cool! Another perk? You can pick your scent!

Overall, my (Sam) Prose experiment went really well, but it didn’t work for Claudia at all. It made my hair feel healthy, weightless and shiny! It did pretty much the opposite for Claudia….even after a reformulation by the Prose team. If you want to read the details on our full experiment, click here.

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Best Cult-Favorite Sulfate-Free Shampoo: OUAI

About the Brand

Founded by celebrity hair stylist, Jen Atkin, this brand is everywhere these days! Considering most hair stylists have tried almost every hair product under the sun, it’s safe to assume Jen knows a thing or two about what makes a great hair product. All of OUAI’s products are formulated to make hair easy for real life and real women. Now that’s something we can always get behind!

Honestly, the smell is part of what makes this shampoo so good. It’s addicting but then I remember how artifical fragrances aren’t so great and then some of the awe wears away. That said, this shampoo was one of my all-time favorites for so long! To combat the lack of volume, I always turned to texture sprays and volumizing products post-shower and it was a-okay!

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Sulfate-Free Shampoo ALWAYS

Just like with any product, some may work better for you than others. Heck, even some of the ones we mentioned here were all-time favs for me, but not for Claudia. Whenever possible, we recommend buying trial-sizes whenever possible to lessen the burden of testing different brands.

At the end of the day, it’s important to always look for sulfate-free shampoo to keep your hair and scalp healthy, moisturized and strong! We hope this best-of guide helps you in your journey to happy, healthy hair!