I thought this stuff was going to change my life. I really did. When you haven’t slept in a week and the paper pile on your desk has somehow erupted into a non-stop lava flow of things to do I guess you vulnerable to the enticements offered by a can of powdered dry shampoo. Cleans and refreshes scalp! Gives roots an extra lift! Extends your blowout for days!
Dry shampoo sounds a little like something you should be using on horses or other barn animals, right? Well, apparently this stuff’s been around for ages (like, the 1970s) and several lines have ‘em — Bumble & Bumble has their Hair Powder ($35.00) and Rene Furterer has Naturia ($21.00). It’s basically powder in aerosol form that you spray on roots to absorb oil. It cuts down on the greasy look of a blowout and extends the amount of time between shampoos.
I’m sure you’re wondering, can this girl be that lazy? Why doesn’t she just drag her lazy ass into the shower and wash that stinky mane? Well, for once thing, curly/wavy head gals like yours truly aren’t supposed to shampoo that often because it actually dries out the hair. And when you are pressed for time, sometimes blowing or flatironing your hair actually saves time over the course of a few days. A twenty-minute blowout on Sunday night means that I don’t have to do anything but run a brush through my hair until at least Wednesday. I’d want for it to last longer but what always kills me is the greasy way my scalp starts to feel and the smell of oily hair.
So when the can of Salon Grafix Dry Shampoo fell into my hot little hand visions of blowout nirvana dangled in front of me. Woo hoo, I thought. I won’t have to bother with my hair for at least five days! Their dry shampoo is a colored powder spray, with colors for blonde, brunette and black hair. I picked up the brunette color at my local Rite Aid for $6.99. “Yes!,” I thought. “I’m so very cleaver with my cheap dry shampoo! This is going to be the shizz!”
Little did I realize how wrong I was. Four hours after spraying the product on my roots, I was in the shower, squirting palmful after palmful of traditional shampoo into my hair and sudsing like a crazy woman to get all of it out.
What I didn’t like about it
First of all, it’s stinky. I started with the bathroom door closed, but after about ten quick bursts I couldn’t stand it anymore and had to run outside to get some air. It smelled exactly like the girl’s junior high bathroom circa 1988, when breaktime meant that you ran to the bathroom to stake your place in front of the mirror so that you could spray the hell out of your bangs with your ever-present can of Aqua Net hair spray along with twenty other girls.
This product is also really messy. After I finished putting it on and waited for two minutes for the powder to settle, I realized that there was soon a fine layer of black powder on my forehead and face … and on everything else in the bathroom. It was all over the sink, on the floor, on the rim of the tub (later, when I was furiously trying to shampoo it all out I realized that somehow a layer also got into the tub). So gross.
It got even more disgusting when I brushed the powder through from the roots to the ends — huge, black flakes of product started falling into the sink.
I pulled my once beautiful blowout into a ponytail and hoped to god that I didn’t sweat for the rest of the day, because the last thing I needed was a trail of black, inky sweat running down the sides of my face.
The rest of the day was spent in misery. The 80s Aqua Net smell didn’t dissipate and once or twice I absent mindedly scratched at my scalp and ended up with black goo underneath my fingernails. Blech.
But then I remembered that I willingly sprayed black powder onto my hair, and that somewhere along the way I should’ve realize that this was probably a BAD IDEA!
What I liked about it
Although there were many things that I didn’t like about this product, I can at least say that it partially did what it said it would do — it cut down the oily look of my roots and gave my flat blowout some lift.
The final word
Ewww. This is going back to Rite Aid ASAP, and I’m not going to buy it again. If you even mildly curious about this product then keep your receipt in case you want to return it. Also use it in a well-ventilated space that you plan on cleaning because you are guaranteed to get crap all over the place.
Well, I was all psyched to go and to the MAC Flashtronic event and when I got there on Friday I found out that they signed me up a day early … the event was actually scheduled for the next day, Saturday. I had a really long week and thus my plans to sleep in Saturday took precedence over limited edition Mineralize Skinfinishes, so no Flashtronic loot for me. I’m probably better off though, because I ended up using the budgeted makeup $ to buy a new hair dryer at Sephora.
I hope you’re having a good hair day and that your week is off to a fantastic start.
Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,
Karen
Thanks Karen for a very entertaining and genuine review. You saved me bucks, time and horror (albeit humorous horror).
40 years!! and a good option has not been developed. There is a mega-mint awaiting a good waterless hair oil remover.
Grateful to you,
Nancy
aloha from the 808 state, Karen! i’ve been reading your blog religiously for about two months now. my sweetie even commented on my addiction to your site after seeing me not-so-furtively purring several times in three days over all the pretty mac swatches you so kindly provide.
anyway, while i am a fan of ojon’s dry shampoo, there is a ghetto fab solution that works just as well for a fraction of the price. i use plain old corn starch, like Johnson & Johnson, and work it through my roots, making sure to run my hands through my hair and scalp as well as brush everthing through so there are no telltale white streaks in my pinay-american, very dark, slightly bendy fine hair. this gets rid of the oil. i also spritz a bit of whatever body spray i fancy that day-maybe bath & body work’s love spell or vanilla sugar- to freshen the scent. the alchohol seems also to help with the oil. i then use use a body-enhancing hair spray like dove’s version or maybe some of garnier’s curl mousse to help with style. after that, no one can tell I traded a quick shower for twenty more minutes snoozing unless they’re so close their schnozz is all up in my tresses (only the sweets should get that close, and he thinks i’m still sexy even if i’m icky dirty!).
hope you find this tip even a millionth as helpful as i find your blog!
Hi Nai,
Aloooooha! 🙂
Thank you for this tip! I have read that you could use plain powder, but have always wondered how to deal with the color!
I miss Hawaii… which island are you from?
hey, Karen!
the color isn’t a prob as long as you do no more than about a tablespoon of powder in your palm at a time. even my stylist advocates plain ole cornstarch as a tried, tested & truly inexpensive solution for fixing grimy hair in a pinch!
i live in honolulu in a neighborhood called kaimuki, which is basically up the hill from waikiki. the weather today was gorgeous-somewhere in the eighties and definitely more humid than i would like, but postcard perfect all the same. too bad i was in the office til 6pm so i couldn’t enjoy it! but such is life for most of us who live in this paradise!
Hi Nai,
Girl, that’s El Hub’s old stomping grounds! He went St. Patrick’s back in the day (aka the stone ages, ha ha).
My in-laws now live on the Windward side! Do you ever go to Haliewa Joe’s? Here I am during our last trip being a dork in the gardens:
https://www.makeupandbeautyblog.com/mac-makeup/mac-cosmetics-cool-heat-face-of-the-day-climate-blue-love/
I hope we can go back and visit soon. It’s hard to get decent manapua in Marin county, and it’s too cold to surf here.
Karen,
gorgeous pics!
you might be amused at the fact the sweets and i zoom past your hubby’s alma mater every morning to get to work via the 5th ave onramp. i’m invariably rushing to put my face on at the same time. luckily, the sweets drives.
i have not had the pleasure of visiting haleiwa joe’s, honestly. what do you recommend there? everytime we head that way, it’s for breakfast at haleiwa cafe, i think it’s called. we’ll go far for breakfast, especially good home fries!
The very best thing I’ve found to use as a dry shampoo is oatmeal. Just plain regular oatmeal in the big round container. I heard about this a long time ago when I was watching a health food/natural food program. I tried it and it worked wonders. I had tried powder many times but the powder takes the shine out of your hair …. the oatmeal doesn’t. I usually go outside and do it so I can really rub it in without making a big mess …. but you could also do it over the bathrub. You can even rub it into your scalp to clean it as well. Believe me ….this really works.
I am so glad I saw your review as I was going to buy this product this afternoon. Not now!! I would suggest staying away from their hair spray as the sprayer is always out of whack and you will end up with it in your eyes, mouth and nose and all over the sink and mirrow. I spoke to the company about this and they do not care. They said store the can upside down. I said no I will just pick another product by another company. Problem solved!!!