Review :: Selsun Blue Dandruff Shampoo

Selsun Blue is one of the best selling dandruff shampoos in the USA. While the brand isn’t as well-known in the UK, I was looking forward to using this particular shampoo due to the active ingredient; Selenium Sulfide. In a former life, I used to work in Sweden and the Swedish pharmacies sell a tremendously effective 2.5% selenium sulfide shampoo. I used this shampoo for many years and it controlled my dandruff virtually the whole time.

Selenium Sulfide is actually one of the harsher active ingredients in dandruff shampoos. It’s also proven to be relatively effective as well. I personally used it in the event of a breakout and used a gentle shampoo as part of my regime. The 2.5% Selenium Sulfide shampoos are only available over the counter in Canada, the UK or EU. In the USA it’s often only available on prescription. As Selenium Blue is available anywhere it contains only 1% Selenium Sulfide. I’ve personally never used such a weak formula and have pretty bad seborrheic dermatitis breakouts.

The bottle, in keeping with the Blue part of the name, is a very blue prominent bottle. I’d actually bought the menthol version of the product (although I wasn’t aware of that at the time!). The shampoo itself is blue. Extremely blue. It’s perhaps the bluest shampoo I’ve ever seen. So blue in fact that the foam is blue! My shower basin ended up blue too so be careful with this stuff. The blue is actually a type of food coloring and in my opinion, they’ve probably overdone it a tad. Not least because the colorant in large doses can induce asthma in asthma sufferers! It seems such a needless additive.

On washing the first thing I noticed was the familiar tingle of menthol. Some people love this sensation. I’m not such a great fan because it’s yet another clinically needless additive. The cooling sensation is purely cosmetic. Regular readers of this site will know we prefer the less is more approach when formulating shampoos. The wash itself was pretty luxurious, the foam was rich and my hair felt soft afterward.

Unfortunately, after a week’s usage, this shampoo wasn’t sufficiently strong enough to control my dandruff. I already know that shampoos with 2.5% selenium sulfide will control my dandruff. So I can only assume that 1% is too weak. The shampoo also contains some harsh contact allergens. As it turns out I’d actually bought the harshest variant of Selsun Blue out there. All variants contain DMDM Hydantoin – an irritable preservative that is also a releases formaldehyde. In addition all variants contain Cocamide DEA – a foaming agent derived from coconut oil that is a known contact allergen. If I were to purchase a new bottle (which I won’t) I would go for the straight vanilla shampoo plus conditioner. The medicated version I bought contains even more contact allergens – Cocamidopropyl Betaine for example – and I can’t see what the medicated aspect of it actually is.

All in all, this shampoo may work if you have mild seborrheic dermatitis. Anything more and you need something stronger. Even if I did suffer from mild seborrheic dermatitis though, I wouldn’t be buying this shampoo purely because of all the harsh additives in there. There are far better alternatives on the market today.

Selsun Blue Medicated Maximum Strength Dandruff Shampoo is on sale now at Amazon