These Dry Shampoos Are The Best For Fall Hair

Greasy hair is a fact of life for most people. It’s spawned an entire industry filled with dry shampoos and clarifying treatments devoted to banishing the oils that your scalp produces, and until pretty recently many still regarded an oil-free scalp as the healthy default.

Today many have finally stopped washing their hair every single day, myself included. Styling hair takes time and effort, and if you wash every day, you can tack that styling right on top of your daily habits. For most people, investing in a shower cap for those in between days will help you shampoo less often, but for others more help is still needed. Dry shampoo is nothing new, but it also hasn’t really changed much in the past few years. Luckily two of my fave hair brands have decided it’s time for an upgrade!

Verb and R+Co are two of my go-to lines these days. I love me some Oribe, Paul Mitchell, and Kerastase, but something about the vigor of these newer lines is pulling me away from my usual favorites. Verb is an indie beauty brand from Texas, (where I’m told they know a thing or two about good hair) and R+Co is a "superbrand" founded by three legendary stylists who go by mostly first names only. That’s famous, seriously.

Left to right: R+Co Badlands Dry Shampoo Paste ($28) ; Verb Dry Shampoo ($14)

What sets these two formulas apart from that else is out there? Ingredients and delivery! Instead of the usual rigmarole of silicones, alcohols, and generally not hair friendly boosters you find in the aerosol versions, Verb and R+Co decided to take it to the next next level.

With over seven plant extracts, Verb’s Dry Shampoo saves the Earth from OD fluorocarbons and propellants by dispensing product from a recyclable squeeze bottle. Simply shake some into your parting, or squeeze if you need more, and allow to go to work for a few minutes. The powder is non-whitening and uses glycerin to add matte moisture while tapioca starch soaks in the sebum. After a good minute or so has passed, shake out excess powder and style — or don’t.

This natural-leaning and easy to use powder is a multitasker, you can use as a traditional dry shampoo powder, or you can actually use as a styling aid, for bigger badder volume.

Before Badlands: So much grease.

R+Co is taking the hair world by storm with the brand's take on styling products, and its Badlands Dry Shampoo paste is an innovation I suspect will be widely copied in the future. Instead of talc or vegetable starch as the oil fighting ingredient, Badlands uses zeolite, a mineral with powerful absorption qualities. Volcanic ash is the other porous material not seen in many other formulas. By combining the powers of ash and zeolite and suspending in a luxurious styling cream base, this paste is a restyling grand slam.

After Badlands: Such matte!

Use a pea size amount to attack your third day roots and you can double your time between the next wash. I really enjoyed using the paste for texture as well as control. As squeaky clean and perfect hair looks fall out of style again, you will see a resurface in textured hairstyles, and pastes like this will be at the forefront. By using Badlands to add bulk, you can turn a wedding updo into an editorial look, giving a lived in sheen that isn’t too perfect to be liveable.

Both of these are staying put in my bathroom, their specialties are coming in handy as I await beanie season. I will miss summer dearly, but having to deal with sweaty hair had me reaching for a hat or a headwrap before you can say Halloween. It looks like the last few days of heat will float by now that I’m better prepared with these babies!

Photos: Maria Penaloza