The jokes and characters are archetypes of America’s most ridiculous era, which makes Shampoo serve better as a historical record than a timeless comedy. Christopher Null

Shampoo never quite connects its images of national mediocrity and personal self-deception, but maybe it doesn’t need to; maybe the message is that in a nation that doesn’t connect, doesn’t trust authenticity, what you get is a Nixon in the White House and a stranger in bed. Roger Ebert