Meu cabelo não ficou bom, então eu comprei xampu e condicionador novos.

In Portuguese, cabelo can be used as a collective singular to mean the hair on your head in general.

So:

• meu cabelo = my hair
• os cabelos usually means the hairs or can sound more specific/stylistic

In everyday Brazilian Portuguese, meu cabelo is the normal way to talk about your hair as a whole.

Here, ficou comes from ficar, which has many meanings in Portuguese. In this sentence, it means something like:

• turned out
• ended up
• came out

So:

• Meu cabelo não ficou bom = My hair didn’t turn out well / didn’t come out good

This is a very common use of ficar when talking about the result of something:

• O bolo ficou ótimo. = The cake turned out great.
• A foto ficou ruim. = The photo came out bad.

Because ficou bom focuses on the result.

• ficou bom = it turned out good / it ended up good
• estava bom = it was good
• era bom = it was good, in a more general or descriptive sense

In this sentence, the speaker is talking about how their hair came out after styling/washing/etc., not just describing it in general. That is why ficou is the natural choice.

Because bom agrees with cabelo, and cabelo is a masculine singular noun.

Agreement in Portuguese:

• cabelo → masculine singular
• adjective must match → bom

So:

• o cabelo bom
• a camisa boa

Even though English hair doesn’t feel masculine or feminine, in Portuguese every noun has grammatical gender.

Yes, you can say então comprei.

Portuguese often drops subject pronouns when the verb already makes the subject clear:

• então eu comprei
• então comprei

Both are correct.

Including eu can add:

• clarity
• emphasis
• a more explicit contrast or narrative flow

So eu is not required here, but it sounds perfectly natural.

Comprei is the preterite (simple past) of comprar: I bought.

It is used because the speaker is talking about a completed action in the past:

• Their hair didn’t turn out well.
• So they bought new shampoo and conditioner.

This is the normal tense for a specific finished action in Brazilian Portuguese.

Portuguese often omits indefinite articles when talking about things in a general, non-emphatic way.

So:

• comprei xampu e condicionador novos = I bought new shampoo and conditioner

This sounds natural and idiomatic.

If you say:

• comprei um xampu e um condicionador novos

that is also correct, but it can sound a bit more specific, as if you are emphasizing the items as individual purchases.

Both are possible; the version without articles is very natural in everyday speech.

Novos is an adjective meaning new, and it describes both xampu and condicionador.

Since those two nouns are treated together as a masculine plural group, the adjective becomes:

• novo = masculine singular
• novos = masculine plural

So:

• xampu e condicionador novos = new shampoo and conditioner

This is standard Portuguese agreement: when two nouns are joined, the adjective often comes after them and agrees in the plural.

Because both nouns are masculine:

• o xampu
• o condicionador

When two masculine singular nouns are combined, the adjective becomes masculine plural:

• xampu e condicionador novos

More generally:

• two feminine nouns → feminine plural adjective
• any mixed group or masculine group → masculine plural adjective

Xampu is the standard Portuguese spelling in Brazil, but you may also see shampoo, especially on product labels, in branding, or informally.

So all of these may appear:

• xampu — Portuguese spelling
• shampoo — borrowed spelling

In everyday Brazilian usage, people will understand both.

Ficou bom is natural and common, especially in casual speech. It means the result was good/satisfactory.

But depending on context, Brazilians might also say:

• Meu cabelo não ficou legal. = My hair didn’t turn out nice.
• Meu cabelo não ficou bonito. = My hair didn’t look pretty.
• Meu cabelo ficou ruim. = My hair turned out bad.

So bom is fine, but it is a broad, everyday adjective. Other choices can sound more specific.

The comma separates two clauses:

• Meu cabelo não ficou bom
• então eu comprei xampu e condicionador novos

Here então means so or therefore, connecting the first idea to the result. In writing, it is very common to place a comma before it in this kind of sentence.

Yes. Portuguese allows some flexibility. For example:

• Meu cabelo não ficou bom, então comprei xampu e condicionador novos.
• Como meu cabelo não ficou bom, eu comprei xampu e condicionador novos.
• Eu comprei xampu e condicionador novos porque meu cabelo não ficou bom.

These all express similar ideas, but the emphasis changes slightly:

• então emphasizes consequence: so
• como or porque gives the reason more directly: because / since