Best Dry Shampoo for Redheads!

Hello, I’m redhead and I’m on the hunt for the best dry shampoo! Redheads seem to get the shaft when it comes to specialized hair care products. I can easily find shampoos and conditioners and brighteners or lighteners for Blondes and Brunettes…but redheads? Nope. I was having a particularly hard time finding a dry shampoo that didn’t leave behind white residue or leave my hair looking flat or dull or too dark or too light. Enter my Dry Shampoo for Redheads experiment! 

Set up for this experiment was easy and straight forward…

1. buy lots of different types of dry shampoos (none of which were specifically for redheads….why? Because I couldn’t find any!) I made sure to only buy readily available formulations, available at most drugstores, and all were under $12!
2. Wait until my hair obviously needed some help (but when I didn’t want to wash it)
3. Take a before picture
4. Take an after picture

I then took notes on the following factors

• Scent
• Ease of Use
• Residue
• Overall feeling/texture of my hair after brushed out
• How long did the look/feeling last

With all of the dry shampoos I followed the same procedure…Spray the roots in atleast 6-8 sections. Then I sprayed it throughout the body of my hair for a second or two in 3-4 sections. I waited 2-3 minutes, then brushed it out. (mid-way through my experiment I had my hair dyed…which explains the very different color from the beginning! LOL!)

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1. Garnier Fructis Dry Shampoo for Fine or Flat Hair

My thoughts…

• Very pleasant scent, not overpowering
• Sprayed out evenly
• NO white powdery residue, couldn’t see it at all
• Hair felt fluffy and full after brushing
• Only downfall on this one, was that by early evening my hair felt somewhat stringy again. I want atleast 24 hours out of my dry shampoo
• And while I’m not really bothered by it, this one did leave my hair a slightly lighter shade

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2.  Loreal Paris Hair Expert Extraordinary Clay Dry Shampoo

• A bit too purfume-y for my taste, but the scent did fade away pretty quickly
• Sprayed out evenly
• No visible white powder
• Texture was smooth, hair felt fuller
• Didn’t change the shade of my hair at all
• Seemed to last all day
• Cons on this one include: I felt I needed to use quite a bit more than previous brands. Instead of 6-8 sections at the root and 3-4 in the body, I really needed more like 10-12 at the root and 5-6 in the body. Didn’t feel overly “heavy” and no visible build up, but I’d run out of this one quick at that rate!

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3. Marc Anthony- Grow Long

This one is different than the other dry shampoos. It’s labeled as… “a  volumizing dry shampoo” but really it’s a foam. Directions tell you to rub a palm sized amount of foam throughout your roots and then through the thickness of your hair.

Conclusions…

• Didn’t care for the smell of this one. It had a bit of a chemical odor to it
• The foam left my hair feeling a bit “damp”. The directions suggest blow drying it…but if I had time for that I would have just washed it in the first place!
• Did not leave any white residue
• Did not change the shade of my hair
• Did seem to add some volume to my thin hair
• I noticed as the day went on that my hair looked and felt a bit frizzy…not the look I’m going for!
• Cons- not a pleasant smell, and the frizziness makes this a no go!

 

4. Not Your Mother’s- Beach Babe Texturizing Dry Shampoo

I will say right off I did not like this one at all!

• There wasn’t one thing I liked about this one.
• The smell was supposed to be coconut…it certainly was NOT!
• The amount of white powder was crazy…so hard to brush out
• Texture was rough and dry
• and finally…it left my hair a lighter shade, with no shine which I didn’t care for

5. Suave- Natural Fresh Dry Shampoo

I linked this to Amazon (like all the others) however, it’s WAY more expensive on Amazon…buy this one at your local drug store.

Conclusions:

• Smell was light
• no overly noticeable white powder
• hair felt fluffy and fuller
• cheap and did the job
• Cons: didn’t last all day. By late afternoon/early evening, my hair was looking kinda rough again

6. Dove Dry Shampoo

This one has become a favorite of my two (blond) daughters.

Conclusions:

• light fragrance
• sprays out light and even
• good coverage
• no build-up
• added some volume
• didn’t change the shade of my hair in any noticeable way
• readily available…I’ve seen this one at Safeway, Rite Aid, Target, etc.
• cons- it does spray out white, which was great for my blondies! But it took a good deal of brushing for me to work out the “whiteness”

7. Batiste- Divine Dark

I mentioned I was unable to find any dry shampoos that were formulated specifically for redheads. I saw this one for “darker hair” and thought I’d give it a go!

Please pardon the pictures on this one! I had a broken blood vessel in my left eye, I was trying to squint a bit so it wouldn’t be noticeable!

Conclusions:

• Fragrance was pretty heavy and it hung around for quite a while
• the color is pretty dark. It would be fine on likely any shade of brown, but on me it just looked like dark stripes at my roots.
• As I was spraying this one, it left little flecks of the brown color on my counter and in my sink…kinda weird
• I did not notice any color transfer onto my clothes
• Cons: too dark for my liking and not a pleasant scent. Also having to wipe down my bathroom after was annoying. This one is a “no” from me.

8. Rockaholic- Dirty Secret

I don’t know why but when I ordered this one from Amazon it took WEEKS to arrive! I’ve used other Bed Head products in the past and have always been very pleased, so I was looking forward to trying this dry shampoo out.

Conclusions:

• smelled alot like hair spray…which faded into a fragrance that was a little more perfume-y than I usually go for
• BUT…the feel of the Rockaholic was great! After brushing it through, my hair felt silky smooth
• clear, no white powder
• nice shine
• great volume
• lasted all day
• didn’t have to use tons to make a noticeable difference
• Cons: the smell almost made me put this one away, but other than that I really don’t have any cons.

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When all was said and done, I ended up using and reviewing 8 different Dry Shampoos. Here’s my take away…as a redhead it wasn’t easy finding one that didn’t have ANY white powder…they are elusive…like unicorns! 😉 There are a lot of choices on the market. My suggestion would be to start with one of the less expensive brands and if those aren’t working then work your way up to the pricier ones.

So…which one was my favorite???? Here’s my top three:

3rd place- Suave- Natural Fresh Dry Shampoo

2nd place-  Loreal Paris Hair Expert Extraordinary Clay Dry Shampoo

1st place- Rockaholic- Dirty Secret

 

(This was not a sponsored post! I purchased all of the Dry Shampoo’s myself and all opinions are mine alone. click here for my full disclosures.)