Powder
The rather powdery Aveda Shamp owder Dry Shampoo paired a lovely herbal scent with okay performance, but the squeezy bottle made it impossible to apply on the nape of the neck. Ditto for the staffer-recommended Billie Floof and the Briogeo Scalp Revival Dry Shampoo, which both contained baking soda, a rarity. Unfortunately, both had inelegant delivery mechanisms. Billie Floof requires you to just dump little heaps of the powder on your head, and Briogeo’s non-aerosol spray is impossible to control. Briogeo absorbed oil well, though.
Bumble and Bumble’s Prêt-à-Powder smells good and soaks up oil, but the tiny squeezy bottle delivers inconsistent poofs and piles of powder.
On the flip side, we really liked the Kitsch Volumizing Rice Protein Dry Shampoo, which deployed with an easy puff and was great for getting into the roots. But the similar-format I Dew Care won out with its extremely absorbent formula, refillable package, and range of shades. (Kitsch just has two.)
The built-in brush-on application of The Rootist was great, dosing out just the right amount of powder without any twisting or turning. And the starch-y, mineral-y powder was a whiz on second-day hair. But it left behind a white-ish cast.
Aerosol
Batiste Dry Shampoo is arguably the most well-known dry shampoo—maybe because of its widespread distribution and sharp price point, or maybe because of the recent lawsuit. And many staffers recommend it, although reluctantly. Though it went on invisibly, we found the strong synthetic scent lingered. Davines This Is An Invisible Dry Shampoo had a powerful invisible spray and worked great, but it left behind a cloying vanilla smell and unwanted stickiness.
Everyone wanted to like Dove Beauty Volume & Fullness Dry Shampoo (previously called Between Washes) since it’s so affordable and widely available. However, it gave hair a stiff coarseness, and we couldn’t get over the synthetic fragrance that clung to hair for days. Drybar Detox Dry Shampoo had similar staying power, yet not in a good way. “I had to work really hard to get this out, and I didn’t like how my hair looked,” one panelist wrote.
We loved Klorane Dry Dry Shampoo Ultra-Gentle with Oat, which isn’t too scented and works beautifully. Unlike other formulas, the powder has to sit on the hair shaft for two minutes before brushing through; this slowed us down but wasn’t a dealbreaker. We simply couldn’t justify the price.
Kristin Ess Style Reviving Dry Shampoo was so light and imperceptible we almost couldn’t tell if it had done anything. Our hair was left slick and unlifted. Living Proof Perfect hair Day Dry Shampoo really feels like it washes the hair, but it takes a minute to get the job done. A tester with red hair had to really work to make it disappear into her roots, and other, less-pricey sprays were comparable.
Nothing smells as good as the exorbitantly priced Oribe Gold Lust Dry Shampoo—the company sells its signature scent as an eau de parfum—but the spray works more like a styler, leaving hair grippy. One tester noted a grayish cast. For the cost, we wish it actually contained gold.
R+Co makes six other dry shampoos, but R+Co Death Valley Dry Shampoo is the most-talked-about and best-reviewed one. It was a little too gritty for daily use, though, leaving hair too texturized to wear smooth. Redken Deep Clean Dry Shampoo is a heavy-duty oil absorber—some people thought it was as good as a shower—and it doesn’t leave behind any bulk. But the thick and perfumey scent wasn’t for everyone.
With a slew of scalp-health and volume-boosting claims, those with fine hair might be tempted by Vegamour GRO Dry Shampoo. At first our bottle wouldn’t spray—a one-off?—and left a persistent white-ish cast.
Wet
K18 Biomimetic Hairscience AirWash Dry Shampoo was a winner for some testers and a disappointment for others. The pros: A mist revived sweat-wet hair, especially after strands were also hit with a blow-dryer. The cons: Stringy, days-old hair just got stiff and sticky. For protective styles, we liked Taliah Waajid’s Protective Styles Dry Gel Shampoo, which felt nice and cooling on the scalp. But removing this one required a vigorous damp-towel pat-down.
This piece was edited by Patricia Tortolani, Hannah Morrill and Jennifer Hunter.
