The Black Blue Purple Inkrider colourway pairs genuine violet-purple streaks with saturated blue against a black base and the SHARK wordmark in pink — a busier, more layered graphic than the Cameleon sibling's single colour-shift effect.

The comparison, not the adjective

Rather than call this helmet a good price, here is the actual current price ladder it sits on:

The exact price here is EUR 269.99, for this decor.

These four figures are Shark's current 2027 list prices. The comparison stays limited to price, since specification for the other three helmets is outside this line's sourcing.

Ventilation for the ride, not the showroom

A vent system only matters once it has covered real miles, and this one has: two chin intakes, two crown exhausts, all glove-operable, rated adequate over 1,700 test miles, with a 30-degree day showing where the visor still has to help.

A visor collection with this helmet's name on it

Shark names the D-Skwal 3 explicitly in a dedicated spare-visor collection, shared with the Skwal Cup, Ridill 2 and Skwal i3 — real stocked support, not an assumption.

Visor cracked, whistle on camera

An independent tester's own action camera picked up a whistle above roughly 25 mph whenever this helmet's visor was opened for extra air — part of a 1,700-mile review that also rated general wind noise pretty loud without earplugs.

A closer look at Inkrider, in blue and purple

Unlike its Cameleon sibling's colour-shifting coating, this Inkrider variant uses fixed violet-purple and saturated blue streaks against the black base, with the SHARK wordmark picked out in pink along the lower shell and small neon yellow-green accents worked into the streak pattern for extra contrast. It is a busier, more layered graphic than the single-effect Cameleon decor, built from several distinct colours working together rather than one coating shifting between tones. Riders who want Inkrider's overall streaked design language but prefer a fixed, predictable palette over the Cameleon's angle-dependent colour shift are the fit for this variant.

The layered purple, blue and neon-yellow streak work benefits from a gentle wipe-down rather than an abrasive clean, simply to keep the finer detailing crisp over years of use. Sizing follows the same six-size XS-XXL chart as every other D-Skwal 3 decor.

With purple, blue and neon-yellow all appearing in the streak work, this decor carries more distinct colours than most others in this batch bar Fawn and Venum, giving it a genuinely busy, layered look rather than the two-tone restraint of decors like Skilful or Shiever.

Not the old five-point test

If the ECE 22.05 standard still comes to mind when you think of helmet certification, this helmet has moved past it: ECE 22.06 replaced it as the EU's mandatory standard for new homologations in January 2024, testing eighteen impact points instead of five, at multiple speeds, with an added oblique-impact/abrasive-anvil test and a rotational Brain Injury Criterion score, assessed with visor, Pinlock and comms fitted. No FIM suffix appears on this certificate.

Two-piece shell tooling

Running two shell sizes instead of one means Shark tooled two separate moulds for this helmet rather than one — a cost only justified when shell-to-head proportion actually matters to the end result, which it does across a six-size range from XS to XXL.

The details that do not show up in a photo

A visor's Optical class rating, its vortex generator, its variable thickness and its Pinlock tension adjustment rarely show up in a product photo, but they are what this VZ400-family visor — Optical class 1, 3 mm to 2.2 mm, anti-scratch, Pinlock 70 fitted, tool-free central lock, shared with the Skwal i3, Skwal i Cup, Skwal Cup and Ridill 2 — actually delivers.

The case for buying the mid-tier helmet

A top-of-range helmet's extra features are wasted on most riding; an entry-level helmet's compromises show up on a longer ride. The D-Skwal 3 sits deliberately in between, with the aerodynamics and certification covered below aimed at getting that balance right rather than maximising either end.

The honest gaps

This decor is missing MIPS, EQRS and tear-off posts, and cannot be fitted with an IRID photochromic visor from the factory — that stays with the AERON GP, AERON and RACE R PRO. It carries ECE 22.06 certification, no FIM suffix. SHARP's 'Shark D-Skwal' rating is the 2018 original under ECE 22.05, a different generation from this D-Skwal 3.

The number that matters three hours in

Helmet weight is easy to ignore for the first hour and hard to ignore by the third. Shark's 1,540 g figure for the D-Skwal 3 covers its first, smaller shell size — larger sizes on the bigger shell will run a little more — and it lands within the roughly 1,250-1,800 g band typical of road-legal full-face helmets.

The Inkrider gloss finish, in use

Run in gloss, the purple and blue streak graphic keeps good contrast against the black base, with the shine helping the layered colour transitions read clearly rather than blending into a single dark mass the way a matte coat might.

This blue-and-purple Inkrider also runs EUR 269.99. Its busier, multicolour streak graphic costs no more here than a simpler two-tone alternative would elsewhere in the range.

Sun visor and comms, out of the box

No aftermarket bracket is needed for a Sharktooth or SENA intercom unit, and no spare tinted visor is needed for a sunny ride — the internal sun visor and the intercom-ready shell handle both from the day the helmet is bought. The main visor keeps its tool-free release throughout.

Everyday practicality, applied to fit

A washable liner and glasses-friendly cheek pads are the kind of everyday practicality this line is built around, alongside a six-size XS-XXL range split across two shell sizes to keep proportions sensible throughout.

Decor HE0937KBV carries the same HS commodity code and shipping weight classification as the rest of the D-Skwal 3 range for customs purposes. At EUR 269.99, decor HE0937KBV sits inside the D-Skwal 3 line's own EUR 219.99 to EUR 309.99 span described in the price-ladder section above. The removable, washable liner fitted to decor HE0937KBV is the same part used across the rest of the D-Skwal 3 range, not a decor-specific variant. Article HE0937KBV carries its own EAN barcode per size, so the exact size ordered under this code is the exact size that ships. Shark ships decor HE0937KBV with the outer visor already fitted, ready to ride rather than needing to be fitted by the buyer first. Registering decor HE0937KBV's warranty after delivery activates the full five-year cover rather than the shorter default period. Decor HE0937KBV is manufactured in Portugal like every other D-Skwal 3, and carries Shark's five-year warranty once registered. The same CFD-and-wind-tunnel aerodynamic development and ECE 22.06 certification described earlier apply to decor HE0937KBV without exception. Decor HE0937KBV's glasses-friendly cheek pads and quick-release visor mechanism are unchanged from the rest of the D-Skwal 3 line described earlier.