These 10 Wallet-Friendly Shampoos Are so Good We Stopped Reaching for Luxe Bottles Altogether

Salon quality, drugstore prices.

Split images of a woman with blonde hair posing at the base of a staircase and a woman with a curly, long afro posing in front of the water.
(Image credit: @rachelle.rowlings, @fiahamelijnck)

Haircare looks different to everyone. Whether you’re treating your spirals with a hydrating curl cream or encouraging Rapunzel tresses with a hair growth serum, there are many kinds of products on the market to care for your mane. With the right formulas, haircare can feel like a luxury—but that doesn’t mean your products have to be costly to feel high-end. Case in point: budget-friendly shampoos, and we’ve all but swapped our luxury bottles for these quality drugstore options.

Now, that’s not to say that all shampoos are made equal. While many drugstore formulas can perform comparably to luxury lathers, that doesn’t mean that you’ll necessarily get the same nutrients. “More ‘budget-friendly’ shampoos are made with ingredients that can allow MSRP to be lower, and sometimes those ingredients aren’t the best for our hair and scalp,” explains Gretchen Friese, BosleyMD trichologist. “Some of them can contain detergents and sulfates that can strip moisture from the hair or silicones that can coat hair strands, which prohibit the hair from absorbing good nutrients.”

However, this doesn’t mean that there aren’t diamonds in the discount aisle. “I work with high-profile clients every day, but I’ll never gatekeep good products—especially when some drugstore lines are giving salon-level results,” celebrity hairstylist Marc Ballance tells Who What Wear.

We chatted with stylists and trichologists to see which wallet-friendly shampoos are worth their salt. Scroll on to find the formulas that will give you salon-level strands without breaking the bank.

Woman with curly hair facing away from the camera.

(Image credit: @courtney__flowers)

The Best Cheap Shampoos, at a Glance

Best Overall: Kristin Ess The One Signature Shampoo

Best for Curly Hair: Shea Moisture Intensive Hydration Shampoo

Best for Thinning Hair: L'Oréal Paris Ever Strong Thickening Shampoo

Best Volumizing: OGX Thick & Full + Biotin & Collagen Volumizing Shampoo

Best for Frizz: Maui Moisture Curl Quench Anti-Frizz Shampoo

Best for Dry Hair: Dove Density Boost Hydrating Shampoo Scalp + Hair Therapy

Best for Damaged Hair: L'Oréal Elvive Total Repair 5 Shampoo

Best Clarifying: Odele Clarifying Sulfate-Free Shampoo

Best Gentle: Hairitage Gentle Daily Hydrating and Moisturizing Shampoo

Best Lather: Pantene Miracle Moisture Boost Shampoo

A woman with blonde hair posing at the base of a staircase.

(Image credit: @rachelle.rowlings)

What to Look For in Drugstore Shampoo

  • Hair Type: One of the first things you’ll want to consider is your particular hair type. If you have thick, curly hair, you won’t gain many benefits from a densifying shampoo made for thinning strands. From there, you’ll want to evaluate your scalp—are you oily or dry, or maybe experiencing dandruff? All things to take into consideration when picking that perfect shampoo.
  • Ingredients: There are a lot of different shampoo formulas out there, even at the drugstore level. While budget-friendly shampoos and conditioners might have once been regarded as drying, the category has grown to encompass products with nourishing ingredients and vegan and cruelty-free formulas—all while keeping prices down. Most importantly, many have eliminated the use of oil-stripping sulfates in their products, and every single one of our picks is free from them. (Save for the L’Oréal Elvive Total Repair 5 Shampoo. However, due to this formula’s reparative properties, it’s not likely to cause dehydration.)
  • Intended Use: While we love a good everyday shampoo (Hairitage Gentle Daily Shampoo being our top pick), sometimes you need something more targeted to see real results. Bargain shoppers with dry hair will see shiny, nourished locks after using the Dove Density Boost, while those showering in hard water will see their strands spring back to life with the Odele Clarifying Shampoo. No matter your hair concerns, there’s a drugstore option out there for you.

Do Drugstore Shampoos Compare to High-End Shampoos?

The short answer: yes and no. “There are professional brands that are incredible when it comes to specific issues like repairing damage or targeting scalp concerns, but that doesn’t mean affordable options can’t give you real results, too,” says Pugh. He points out that many major haircare brands, both salon and drugstore-level, are owned by the same parent companies and utilize many of the same research teams, labs, and suppliers. But in the end, it’s the ingredients that separate the luxury bottles from the discount aisle. “A lot of shampoos are using similar base formulas with small tweaks, so it’s possible to get great results without paying salon prices,” he adds.

What Is the Best Affordable Sulfate-Free Shampoo?

We’re glad you asked. Nine out of the 10 selections on our list are sulfate-free, which means that we’d have to recommend our best overall pick—Kristin Ess The One Signature Shampoo—to answer your question. But if you want an even lower-priced option, we once named the Hask Argan Oil Repairing Shampoo as one of the best sulfate-free shampoos on the market, and you can nab it for only $5.

How We Chose

To find the best drugstore shampoos on the market, we consulted hairstylists and trichologists to get professional recommendations based on years of evaluating high and low formulas with expertly trained eyes. From there, we dug through our archives of in-depth shampoo reporting to find which budget-friendly options performed the best in different categories, such as formulas for curly hair and thinning strands. Our findings compiled this comprehensive list of the best low-price shampoos to aid you during your next shopping spree.

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Alyssa Brascia
Associate Beauty Editor, Who What Wear

Alyssa Brascia is an associate beauty editor at Who What Wear. She is based in New York City and has nearly three years of industry experience, with rivers of content spanning from multigenerational lipstick reviews to celebrity fashion roundups. Brascia graduated with a BS in apparel, merchandising, and design from Iowa State University and went on to serve as a staff shopping writer at People.com for more than 2.5 years. Her earlier work can be found at InStyleTravel + LeisureShape, and more. Brascia has personally tested more than a thousand beauty products, so if she’s not swatching a new eye shadow palette, she’s busy styling a chic outfit for a menial errand (because anywhere can be a runway if you believe hard enough).