Vogue Arabia, November 2019. Photo: Mann
You’ve been using your dry shampoo wrong this entire time — and celebrity hairstylist and presenter Tom Smith is here to tell you why, plus how to apply the product to your hair correctly. Dry shampoo products contain a combination of absorbent powder particles such as talc, silica and starch in a can of pressurized gas in aerosol form.
The idea is that you blast these particles into your hair, where they absorb the oils and dirt from your scalp and hair to make your hair appear cleaner – but here’s what everyone is getting wrong…
Tom explains that these particles don’t need to stay in your hair as some users have learnt that brushing your hair afterwards helps to lessen the ‘powdery’ feel that dry shampoo can give – but there’s one more step you should take…
After applying a liberal amount of dry shampoo, let it sit for 1-3 minutes to give the particles a chance to absorb oils from your hair, then gently brush your hair through and grab your hair dryer for the next step.
Set your dryer to the coldest heat setting and fastest air setting, and work at blowing OUT the dry shampoo residue. “The cold air catches those dry shampoo particles (that are now filled with the oils that were making your hair look greasy) and literally blows them away – voila! You have effectively ‘dry cleaned’ your hair,” he said.
Alternating every other ‘wash day’ with a ‘dry cleaning’ is a great way of minimizing damage and color fade associated with wetting and blowdrying or heat-styling your hair, Tom states.
Finally, Tom states that if you plan to cut down your shampooing by dry cleaning your hair in this way, make sure to shampoo twice when you do wash your hair and really focus on properly exfoliating the scalp with your fingertips to make sure you keep your scalp healthy and clean.”
Now that we all know how to dry shampoo properly, we’ll be looking forward to better hair and a healthy scalp.
Originally published in Glamourmagazine.co.uk
Read next: Dry Shampoo: Could This Powdery Product Cause Your Hair to Fall Out?
