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The so-called "French shower," that curious Napoleonic custom of applying perfume or deodorant over unwashed flesh, went out of style with pantaloons, and certainly never spread to these more hygienic shores. Right? Au contraire: Hello, dry shampoo. Touted as a water and timesaving way to stay quote-unquote gorgeous on the go, these wildly popular shampoo substitutes allow the busiest exec to head straight from the bedroom to the boardroom without a pesky shower in between. Just apply a cumulus of powder to the scalp, wait two minutes before brushing it out, and voila! Fabulosity achieved.
The market for dry shampoos, which are sold in both spray-on and powdered formulas, has exploded over the past few years. Name a high-end hair-care brand—Frederic Fekkai, Bumble and bumble, Oscar Blandi, Rene Futerer—and the chances are good that a revolutionary new dry-shampoo product is one of the top-selling items in the company's inventory. Their average price hovers around $20 for about 3 ounces—not exactly a bargain. So, how well do they work?
Old-fashioned wet shampoo cleans hair of all of the assorted gunk and free radicals that accumulate over the course of a day, as well as its natural oils, which are known as sebum. Dry shampoo, which usually has a base of talc, cornstarch, potato, or rice, soaks up rather than washes away sebum and dirt. When you brush out the powder, you're also (allegedly) brushing out the grime, too. Because the soak-up/brush-out method doesn't rid the hair of as much sebum, you can safely use dry shampoos once or several times between regular shampooings. But alert: Because dry shampoos are essentially spray-on powders, they can, even after vigorous brushing, lighten the crown of your head, which can be good or bad, depending on your desired hair color.
I spoke to a half-dozen dry shampoo devotees about their reliance on these potions. One "natural blonde" said dry shampoo helps her disguise suspicious roots on the brink of her next highlight appointment, since the powder tends to lighten the hair. Another turns to it when she can't submit to the 45-minute blow-dry required to tame her frizzy curls. (The New York Times ran a markedly pre-recession story last February on women who are accustomed to getting salon blow-dries every week and use dry shampoos to prolong the life of their high-maintenance styles.) Then there are the avid gym-goers who use it after midday workouts, and the partygoers who want to refresh their appearance in the office bathroom.
I recruited three testers with a range of hair types. Two are chemically enhanced blondes, one with thick hair and a schedule that only allows her to hit the gym during lunch. The second blonde has thin hair that looks flat and oily by the end of the workday; she'd prefer to take a second shower before any nighttime assignations. My third tester has thick, wavy, jet-black hair that requires herculean efforts to manage. All three work full-time and shampoo daily.
I, too, joined in. I have brown, straight, generally obedient hair that I never, ever wash on a daily basis, having been taught early on that too-frequent washing strips and damages hair over the long run. (And according to a recent NPR story, we Americans wash our hair way more often than is altogether civilized, averaging 4.59 shampoos a week, or twice as often as Italians and Spaniards.) Could the most ingenious of these products allow me to extend my alternate-day shampooing routine to every third day?
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Comments
LoK Dry Shampoo
By: MaceyJones | Wed, 11/25/2009 - 11:55
I wanted to pass along something cool that LoK does. When you order from their site, they always throw in a good size sample (2oz.)of their Glossing Serum. I used it and now I am hooked.
MJ
funny you mention LoK
By: Janet Morse | Mon, 11/23/2009 - 12:55
I was just turnded on to LoK Dry Shampoo as well by my stylist. I cannot find the product anywhere expect on their site. I luv the Dry shampoo but also try the Serum...luv it!
Janet
Dry Shampoo
By: MaceyJones | Tue, 11/17/2009 - 14:21
I totally luv my dry shampoo. I use the LoK Dry Shampoo. It is a spray and is not powdery at all. kind of gross, but I go like 4 day w/out washing my hair. Here is a commerical I found for them on YouTube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eh_6gD55gWc
MJ
Hair and silk hair is all
By: karliec | Wed, 10/07/2009 - 06:13
Hair and silk hair is all women’s dream to have. But it seemed out of reach for the rest of us due to overwhelming cost of hair care products. For many using shampoos and conditioners can give them that shiny and silky hair but this is not true at all. Your assumptions of going to salons and have an expensive hair treatment are not the ways in order to fulfill your wish. There are certain ways on how to can truly make you hair beautiful and healthy and not by using those chemicals, which will just damage your hair. Sooner or later you will discover the effects of those chemicals you put to your hair. Maybe you should the documentary made by the comedian Chris Rock that is all about the hair industry called “Good Hair”. The documentary is packed with astonishing information, and takes on the hair industry and hair culture of African American women from anthropological, sociological, and economic viewpoints. According to an interview on Oprah.com, he got the idea from his daughter who complained about her hair just a bit too much for his taste.
Psssssst
By: kserra | Mon, 06/29/2009 - 17:00
To those of you thinking you were the only ones remembering Psssssst!, you are not alone.
I needed to find some dry shampoo and this was the only dry shampoo product I could find in the stores. They do not sell it a WalMart. I found it at CVS and Walgreens.
As a child of the 60's, I did remember it and remember the spelling from the Jingle. I decided to check on line for others and now I see there are more but I hate that the only way I can find them is on-line.
Does anyone know where the newer products can be bought?
ghetto fab
By: amerikraut | Fri, 06/12/2009 - 17:25
I used to put baby powder in my hair but then switched to Burt's Baby Bee Dusting Powder. Unlike traditional baby powder, Burt's powder doesn't contain starch and doesn't have a noticeable scent. I don't imagine it would work well on darker hair as is the case with a lot of these other products.
Best Styling Powder Found!
By: TanyaDThom | Fri, 06/12/2009 - 12:42
After YEARS of searching for the perfect dry shampoo and trying many of the products you have listed i found the PERFECT one- thank god!!! My thin hair becomes greasy after a few hours but now since I found the ALL-NIGHTER my hair is amazing! The product itself is free of the harmful parabens/aluminum/talc/silica that most of the products you listed contain. But the best part is the result- it feels amazing (not dirty or sticky like Bumble and bumble) leaves my hair full and smelling fresh(a light tangerine)! Check it out- you will love it!!!http://www.theall-nighter.com/index.html
Hair Fix
By: octopie | Fri, 06/05/2009 - 09:26
I don't work for Hair Fix - but I do use their dry shampoo on an almost too regular basis, the stuff smells great and works like a charm, plus it is free of some of the nasty chemicals in other dry shampoos listed here. It's about the same price range as the reviewed($20 for 2 oz.) but has lasted me quite awhile.
http://www.myhairfix.com/
you can do better, doublex
By: jbjbjbjbjb | Mon, 06/01/2009 - 14:18
Health and SCIENCE or health and BEAUTY for this entry? Yuk. I can read this kind of product review in another venue. After attending a teach-in on health care reform this weekend I'd like to direct the writers, editors and readers of doublex.com to the blog a href="http://www.ourbodiesourblog.org">. Created by the folks who brought us the much used Our Bodies, Ourselves, the Boston Women's Health Book Collective publishes a daily blog of women's health related news. These hard working folks deliver important *independent* education and advocacy that has shaped how women evaluate and consume health information. It reaches out to make its highly respected information available across cultures and languages. Please link doubleX with the kind of information published by a href="http://www.ourbodiesourselves.org"> and leave the fluff stuff to supermarket check out books or Lifetime TV. Thanks! Totally dIgging the news and politics, work and blogs.
Psssssst
By: Chatmal | Fri, 05/22/2009 - 14:33
I purchased Psssssst I think only two years ago when my mom was in the hospital and could not shower. I bought her a can and myself one. I have thick hair that takes forever to wash and there are days I just can't do it - I aim for every other day, but.... It's not perfect, but I mainly look for the itch to stop. I may try out the cornstarch - simple and no chemicals!
I just thought you'd like to know it's still out there on the shelves. Can even lists a website: www.psssssst.com (there are 6 S's)