Choosing the right shampoo can be a daunting task, especially given the hundreds (if not thousands!) of options that consumers have these days. There are shampoos for color treated hair, flat hair, poofy hair, curly hair, straight hair, dull hair and every kind of hair in between. Adding to the difficult decision making process is the huge variances in prices between the brands.

Brands of shampoo like Joico, Biolage and Paul Mitchell can cost anywhere from $15 to $20 each, even more if you find them in a salon. However, if you buy the bottles of shampoo outside of a salon, at a retailer like Wal Mart, Target or even your grocery store, the bottles say that they are not guaranteed to work as well as if you bought them in a salon. But the same stuff is in the shampoo bottles, right?

Well, not always. Sometimes the stuff that ends up on normal store shelves (instead of the racks at your salon) is really old. Basically, you could be getting what is left over after the shampoo had sit out on salon shelves for years. However, this is not always the case. Think of it as Russian roulette, shampoo style.

There are also a ton of generic brands that claim to be just as good as the expensive shampoo you can find in salons. Suave, for example, has a type of shampoo that the company says moisturizes just as well as its Joico counterpart. Once you check out the back of the bottle, you can see that the ingredients are similar, but not exactly the same. Plus, the smell is different. But for up to 80 percent less money, is the trade off worth it?

The simple answer is that sometimes it is better to spend the extra cash and get the good stuff. There really is not a good substitute for high end salon shampoos, conditioners and styling products. If you want to save money but still take home a decent shampoo, you might want to consider purchasing mid level brands of shampoo, like Pantene, Aussie or Dove. These brands still probably will not work as well as the salon shampoos, but for the money it might be worth the trade off for you. If you are concerned with your hair, however, you definitely are going to want to avoid the shampoos that cost less than $1.50 per bottle.