CHENNAI : Sigh. Winter in all its glory means that it is minus two degrees and I am over 80 per cent dry shampoo at this point. It is quite possible that this has become my punchline or a badge of honour of sorts. In other happy news: the days of post-gym shampoos, cancelling plans with friends because (oh no!) I have to wash my hair or succumb to flat, limp locks are long behind me.Enter, dry shampoo: time saver, obsession, life hack, gift from god, beauty secret, the only way I look close to human with day-three hair.
The world of pretending to be more hygienic than you actually are has evolved a lot. There is a dry shampoo for everything. Do you buy a dry shampoo to match your hair colour? Or do you buy one to protect your hair colour? Do you want extra volume? Do you need something to refresh your scalp? While a basic volumising one is a good place to start, there is so much more this miracle in a bottle can do!
One of my favourite little hacks is to spray it all over after I curl them to keep them from clumping into one giant wave. Look for a starch-based shampoo, which essentially coats your hair to make it matte, keep away the oil so they don’t intertwine and give you that beachy, imperfect, Rich Girl hair from Gossip Girl.
If you know me and follow my work, you would know that I’m not a big fan of hairspray. It holds my hair up in a very gravity-defying manner, and akin to a mad scientist who is working on bringing back the dead. Not a fan. Dry shampoo, on the other hand, adds a subtle hold, which does not leave you with hat hair! Spray it to keep bobby pins from slipping out and lock in any backcombing.
As we speak, a dear friend of mine is in transition hair. She’s dyed blonde and is trying to hide her darker roots as they grow out. Oddly enough, she uses a powder dry shampoo, which leaves a little dusting to help cover up the halfway hair. For the rest of us, who aren’t trying to conceal darker roots, let’s try to stay away from powdered shampoo. It more often than not, looks like little flakes of dandruff which cannot be very on-brand.
In other news, this space also doubles as a bangs-crisis helpline, which means that I understand what it is like to have little chunks of hair sticking to the oil on your forehead. This may be nightmarish, but you don’t need to call the police (yet). Just spray dry shampoo underneath your bangs, not all over, which will keep it together nicely. More anon!