Shampoo for thick hair

OUAI Detox Clarifying Shampoo has the best record for thick hair: 37 of 41 shoppers said it cleaned their hair well, leaving it soft and manageable. Each record counts just shoppers who said they have thick hair. The leader is sold on Amazon by a third-party seller, not an official one, so the best pick from official Amazon sellers is Pureology Strength Cure Shampoo at 18 of 20.

  • 246 store reviews counted
  • Ulta and Sephora shoppers
  • May 2018 to Sep 2026

Updated . How we count

Did it clean thick hair and leave it soft? What shoppers said
  1. OUAI Detox Clarifying Shampoo 41 said either way
  2. Bondi Boost Hair Thickening Therapy Shampoo 9 said either way
  3. Pureology Strength Cure Shampoo 20 said either way
  4. OUAI Thick Hair Shampoo 28 said either way
  5. Bondi Boost HG Shampoo for Thinning Hair 13 said either way
  6. Olaplex No. 4 Bond Maintenance Shampoo 21 said either way

Share of reviewers who stated an outcome for dry, tangled or frizzy hair. Ranked by the lower bound of a 90% confidence interval, so a product needs both a good share and enough reports to rank high.

OUAI Detox Clarifying Shampoo Best record OUAI Detox Clarifying Shampoo 37 of 41 say it cleaned thick hair well and left it soft See price & reviews on Amazon
Best pick on Amazon Bondi Boost Hair Thickening Therapy Shampoo 9 of 9 say it cleaned thick hair well and left it soft See price & reviews on Amazon
What stands out

Scent draws praise for all six shampoos, from 17% of Olaplex reviews to 58% of Pureology reviews. Some Pureology and OUAI Thick Hair reviews find the scent bad or too strong.

The ranking, product by product

Praise and complaints are the points reviewers repeat most, shown as a share of each product's counted store reviews.

1 OUAI Detox Clarifying Shampoo

OUAI

Detox Clarifying Shampoo

37/41 say it cleaned thick hair well and left it soft

More shoppers with thick hair weighed in on this shampoo than on any other here, and 37 of 41 said it worked. Of its 57 reviews, 25% praise the scent and 18% say hair stays clean longer, while 5% call it drying.

What buyers praise

  • Nice scent 25%
  • Hair stays clean longer 18%
  • Leaves hair soft 14%
  • Gentle on scalp 4%

What buyers complain about

  • Drying or stripping 5%
  • Hair gets greasy fast 5%
  • Too expensive 4%
Where buyers said it
  • Ulta 16 of 16
  • Sephora 21 of 25
  • Brand site 1 of 1 shown, not counted
By skin type (Sephora reviewers)
  • Combination6 of 6
  • Oily5 of 5
  • Normal2 of 3
  • Dry2 of 3
By skin tone (Sephora reviewers)
  • Fair to light5 of 5
  • Light-medium to medium9 of 9
See price & reviews on Amazon

Share of 57 store reviews that mention each point. A full bar is 50%.

2

Bondi Boost

Hair Thickening Therapy Shampoo

9/9 say it cleaned thick hair well and left it soft

All 9 shoppers with thick hair who gave a verdict said it worked, the highest share here (100%), but that is a small group. Of its 20 reviews, 60% say hair looks fuller and 25% praise the scent.

What buyers praise

  • Hair looks fuller 60%
  • Nice scent 25%
  • Hair stays clean longer 20%
  • Leaves hair soft 10%

What buyers complain about

No repeated complaints yet.

Where buyers said it
  • Sephora 9 of 9
3 Pureology Strength Cure Shampoo

Pureology

Strength Cure Shampoo

Best for a nice scent

18/20 say it cleaned thick hair well and left it soft

It is the best pick from official Amazon sellers, and 18 of 20 shoppers with thick hair said it worked. Of its 40 reviews, 58% praise the scent and 45% say hair feels soft, but 8% say it costs too much.

What buyers praise

  • Nice scent 58%
  • Leaves hair soft 45%
  • Color lasts 10%
  • Good value 8%
  • Gentle on scalp 8%

What buyers complain about

  • Too expensive 8%
  • Hair gets greasy fast 5%
  • Bad or strong scent 5%
Where buyers said it
  • Ulta 4 of 5
  • Sephora 14 of 15
By skin type (Sephora reviewers)
  • Combination8 of 9
  • Oily4 of 4
By skin tone (Sephora reviewers)
  • Fair to light11 of 12
  • Light-medium to medium3 of 3
4

OUAI

Thick Hair Shampoo

23/28 say it cleaned thick hair well and left it soft

23 of 28 shoppers with thick hair said it worked. Of its 35 reviews, 37% praise the scent and 23% say hair feels soft, though 9% call it drying.

What buyers praise

  • Nice scent 37%
  • Leaves hair soft 23%
  • Good value 6%

What buyers complain about

  • Bad or strong scent 9%
  • Drying or stripping 9%
  • Hair gets greasy fast 6%
Where buyers said it
  • Ulta 14 of 16
  • Sephora 9 of 12
  • Brand site 7 of 7 shown, not counted
By skin type (Sephora reviewers)
  • Normal3 of 5
  • Dry3 of 4
By skin tone (Sephora reviewers)
  • Fair to light3 of 3
  • Light-medium to medium4 of 5

Share of 35 store reviews that mention each point. A full bar is 50%.

5 Bondi Boost HG Shampoo for Thinning Hair

Bondi Boost

HG Shampoo for Thinning Hair

10/13 say it cleaned thick hair well and left it soft

A small group of shoppers with thick hair weighed in, and 10 of 13 said it worked. Of its 36 reviews, 39% say hair looks fuller and 33% praise the scent, while 8% say hair gets greasy fast.

What buyers praise

  • Hair looks fuller 39%
  • Nice scent 33%
  • Leaves hair soft 11%
  • Doesn't strip curls 6%
  • Hair stays clean longer 6%

What buyers complain about

  • Hair gets greasy fast 8%
Where buyers said it
  • Ulta 3 of 5
  • Sephora 7 of 8
  • Brand site 2 of 3 shown, not counted
6 Olaplex No. 4 Bond Maintenance Shampoo

Olaplex

No. 4 Bond Maintenance Shampoo

14/21 say it cleaned thick hair well and left it soft

This is the weakest record here at 14 of 21, and 12% of its 58 reviews call it drying. Opinions on price differ: 19% of its reviews call it good value and 10% say it costs too much.

What buyers praise

  • Good value 19%
  • Nice scent 17%
  • Leaves hair soft 17%
  • Hair looks fuller 16%
  • Doesn't strip curls 10%

What buyers complain about

  • Drying or stripping 12%
  • Too expensive 10%
  • No difference 3%
  • Build-up 3%
Where buyers said it
  • Ulta 6 of 6
  • Sephora 8 of 15
By skin type (Sephora reviewers)
  • Combination1 of 7
  • Dry4 of 5
By skin tone (Sephora reviewers)
  • Fair to light4 of 8
  • Light-medium to medium3 of 6

Where these numbers come from

The 6 products ranked here carry 38,432 reviews at Ulta and Sephora. We searched them for dry, tangled or frizzy hair and read the newest matching reviews, up to 40 per product and store, posted between May 2018 and Sep 2026.

A review counts only when the reviewer used the product themselves. We drop reviews written in exchange for a free product or a sweepstakes entry (0 on this page), and products that are no longer sold.

Ulta also shows reviews first posted on brands' own websites. They run much more positive than store reviews of the same products (across 19 products with both, 76% of brand-site reviewers said the product solved the problem, against 55% of Ulta shoppers), so we show them on product cards but never count them.

Because we searched for the problem, people who had it are overrepresented. Compare products with each other rather than reading a share as your own odds.

Skin type, skin tone and age splits use what reviewers chose on Sephora's review form (and age on Ulta's when given). We only show a split when enough reviewers fall on each side.

Amazon buttons appear only on products that most reviewers here say fix the problem (at least 60%, with enough reviews to trust it). Everything else gets no buy link.

An AI model labels each review against a fixed list of points, and we spot-check the labels before publishing. We publish counts, never the reviews themselves.

Read the full method

Product pages we read

  1. OUAI Detox Clarifying Shampoo Ulta and Sephora (57 reviews counted)
  2. Bondi Boost Hair Thickening Therapy Shampoo Sephora (20 reviews counted)
  3. Pureology Strength Cure Shampoo Ulta and Sephora (40 reviews counted)
  4. OUAI Thick Hair Shampoo Ulta and Sephora (35 reviews counted)
  5. Bondi Boost HG Shampoo for Thinning Hair Ulta and Sephora (36 reviews counted)
  6. Olaplex No. 4 Bond Maintenance Shampoo Ulta and Sephora (58 reviews counted)

Questions buyers ask

Which shampoo works for thick hair?

OUAI Detox Clarifying Shampoo has the best record (37 of 41), followed by Bondi Boost Hair Thickening Therapy Shampoo (9 of 9) and Pureology Strength Cure Shampoo (18 of 20). The runner-up rests on just 9 shoppers, so treat that record as thin. Each record counts just shoppers who said they have thick hair.

Which shampoo for thick hair is sold on Amazon?

Three of the six are sold on Amazon by an official seller: Pureology Strength Cure Shampoo (18 of 20), Bondi Boost HG Shampoo for Thinning Hair (10 of 13) and Olaplex No. 4 Bond Maintenance Shampoo (14 of 21). The two OUAI shampoos are sold there by a third-party seller. We could not confirm an Amazon listing for Bondi Boost Hair Thickening Therapy Shampoo. The best pick from official Amazon sellers is Pureology Strength Cure Shampoo.

Can shampoo leave thick hair dry?

Some reviews say so. 12% of Olaplex No. 4 Bond Maintenance Shampoo reviews call it drying, as do 9% of OUAI Thick Hair Shampoo reviews and 5% of OUAI Detox Clarifying Shampoo reviews. Dryness is not among the complaints that repeat for Pureology Strength Cure Shampoo, which draws price (8%) and greasy hair (5%) instead.

Is OUAI Thick Hair Shampoo good for thick hair?

Mostly yes: 23 of 28 shoppers with thick hair said it worked. Of its 35 reviews, 37% praise the scent and 23% say hair feels soft, while 9% call it drying. It is sold on Amazon by a third-party seller.

Related problems

Conditioner Conditioner for thick hair Top pick: Pureology Hydrate Conditioner 212 buyer reports Hair mask Hair mask for thick hair Top pick: OUAI Treatment Mask 242 buyer reports Hair oil Hair oil for thick hair Top pick: Verb Ghost Weightless Hair Oil 108 buyer reports Dry shampoo Dry shampoo for thick hair Top pick: Drybar Detox Dry Shampoo 261 buyer reports

HiveTried earns a commission when you buy through the "See price & reviews on Amazon" buttons. It never changes the ranking: the order comes from buyer reports only, and a product gets an Amazon button only when buyers here say it works.