how to choose a shampoo??

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I never know how to choose one. I used to buy the Johnson's Baby Shampoo because it didn't irritated my eyes, but it doesn't make much bubbles anymore (why???) so I wanted to try another one but I went to a shop and there was so many options I got confused and there was the seller who was annoying. I thought about buying a chamomile one but the packages were ugly, I like transparent bottles so I can see the shampoo.

One of my primary criteria for choosing a shampoo is the smell. I can't stand heavy perfume scents, especially when they permeate my hair and I have to smell it all day. I will stand in the store and open bottles to see what they smell like. The ones that smell like men's aftershave are the worst. Ran across one recently that smelled like cheap perfume and burning rubber.

Back in the 70s, I used to love Clairol's Herbal Essence when it first came out, because it really smelled like freshly mown grass, very natural and earthy, but the last time I saw it, it came in all sorts of flowery scents and none of them smelled genuinely natural.

I once had one Herbal Essences shampoo as well that I liked a lot, I bought it while traveling because the package was transparent, it was a chamomile one and it smelled very good and made my hair so beautiful, also it had a good texture, but I can't find it in my country (Brazil)

Isn't Shampoo all the same, why do you have to be so particular about picking one bottle over the other?

I choose not to use anything with "poo" in its name.

^ Or we could leave the ending off altogether, but that would just be a sham.

I've used a mixture of honey and baking soda for years.

My criteria are that:
It shouldn't have a strong smell.
It must be written on it that it's for damaged hair because I do have damaged hair after years of treating it with bleach and chemical dyes. Possibly something with some natural oil like olive, coconut, macadamia nut or avocado.
It shouldn't be too cheap but better if in discount.

Could try some of the organic shampoos, or even ones based on goatsmilk or oatmeal.

I go by smell. As someone else mentioned, I have to like the smell or it's going to be unpleasant living with that smell on my hair; I have long hair so what it smells like is going to waft up at me all day, too.

I open bottle-tops and sniff. Most shampoos have the same basic ingredients to do the same basic thing, so there's not a lot to choose between them for functionality, so the smell is the main criterion for me.

I also seem to have a high sensitivity for emotional reaction to memories connected to smell --- well, everyone has high connectivity between memories and smell, because the two areas are adjacent to each other in the brain and so we all experience this strongly.

But with me, my emotional reactions seem to be heightened from it maybe a bit more than a neurotypical person's reaction to that connection, and I get too strongly affected by something that smells of a time, place or person I don't want to remind myself of. So I have to make sure the smell, even if nice, doesn't remind me of something that's painful to me.

Someone gifted me a really nice perfume that I actually like the smell of, in itself. But it smells exactly like another, discontinued perfume I used to wear about forty years ago and which now reminds me of a time in my life that I do not like to "revisit" in my memories. So I can't wear it, even though it's not unpleasant.

So with shampoos, just get what smells good to you. Functionally there isn't much difference between them even though the various companies like to claim there is. Some researchers have even found that the cheap ones do the job just as well as the expensive ones.

Different shampoos have different uses for example treating breakage, treating hairloss or treating dandruff so what you get depends on what your trying to treat/fix/cure(if anything) besides just trying to clean your hair.

I always just buy whatever is the cheapest and/or on sale. I'm a little picky about scents and because I have oily hair, I tend to go for V05 or Suave Clarifying because it works well for my hair. Anything that says "moisture" makes my hair greasy.

I go by smell(can't be too strong) and either:
- "ingredients" (lemon juice, coconut oil or argan oil are first choice),
- color (the more transparent and non-artifical color the better),
- price (if I can't decide I just grab the cheapest one with a decent smell)

Currently I am using a cheap one (3,99PLN=about 1$) from LIDL and it is surprisingly good despite it being dark blue. When I use it my hair dries fast, don't get oily too soon and it gets better color - warmer brown, despite the shampoo being a "cold" color itself.

From my experience cheap doesn't always mean bad and expensive doesn't always mean good. Also the descriptions "for oily hair" and "for dry hair" don't make much difference. Both types made my hair dry or oily on random.
And shampoos for males are often better than the ones for females - the less addons and "special effects" a shampoo has the better it is for my hair, it seems.