In general, salon shampoos don't use better or more ingredients, and they don't perform any better than drugstore shampoos. There are good and bad salon shampoos, just as there are good and bad drugstore shampoos. Surf actants clean hair by removing sebum. Sebum is a fatty lubricant the skin glands produce. These fatty lubricants make hair dirty.
Surfactants are also responsible for the lather in shampoos.
But there is no link between a surfactant's ability to clean and its ability to lather. A good shampoo will not necessarily foam well. A pharmaceutical and cosmetics expert told Street Cents all shampoos clean hair, but different surfactants will have different effects on a person's hair and scalp. Not all shampoos use the same surfactants. There are thousands of them available, and most shampoos use a mix.