The best dry shampoos we tested
Best dry shampoo: DryBar Detox Dry Shampoo
Dry shampoo has become a hair care staple as a quick solution to keeping hair feeling fresh and clean between washes. It is available in aerosol and non-aerosol formulas, is usually formulated with either non-toxic corn or rice starch and can be found in almost any drugstore.
And while the “best” of a beauty product is somewhat subjective — what works for one person might not work for another — we tasked 12 CNN Underscored staffers (from dry shampoo devotees to newbies) to find a dry shampoo that works across the spectrum.
We chose our testers for their varied hair lengths, textures, types and styles. We then instructed them to test 16 different dry shampoos for almost a month. After rigorous testing, one dry shampoo stood out from the pack for its effectiveness on all hair textures.
During testing, we found the DryBar Detox Dry Shampoo was the best at absorbing oil and aptly removing sweat and dirt. It also had the most pleasing scent, leaving our testers’ hair feeling cleaner and smelling better than any other dry shampoo tested.
Best dry shampoo: DryBar Detox Dry Shampoo
We’ve found products like the DryBar Buttercup hair dryer to be very effective in the past, and the Detox Dry Shampoo is no exception. It’s also the best dry shampoo for oily hair. Think of it as a sort of sponge that, even when applied in a fine, veil-like mist, absorbs excess oil, sweat and dirt for even the greasier-haired among us.
One tester with thin, long, straight hair felt the product “soaked up greasiness with just a fine mist,” calling the DryBar shampoo “as absorbent as I would ever need a product to be.” Meanwhile, a panelist with thick, 4b coily natural hair agreed, commenting that the Detox Dry Shampoo “seemed to quickly soak up oil, and not in an unnatural way.” DryBar’s effects lasted several days for each tester.
While fragrance preferences are subjective and many other products in our testing pool received conflicting and, at times, contradictory feedback, the DryBar Detox Dry Shampoo’s “powdery, fresh” scent universally won us over. As a panelist with thick, short hair explained, “While the scent was strong, it was a fresh, natural and clean smell that never overpowered.” This observation remained consistent across individuals with a range of hair textures — a tester with thin/fine hair even went so far as to say she “looked forward to using this product for its scent” by the time she was on her third round of testing.
While the Detox Dry Shampoo does leave some noticeable white residue behind during the application process, our testers generally agreed that following the instructions on the bottle and “lightly rubbing and brushing the product through hair” made this a nonissue — even those with darker hair did not see product buildup. One tester with short, thick hair commented “you could see it for a few seconds during the application, but it quickly rubbed into the hair and did not show up again.”
Some of the other products in the bunch left hair feeling stiff, dry or all-around gross, but the Detox shampoo gave our hair a bit of body and bounce, seemingly regardless of hair texture. A tester with thin, straight hair liked how the product “created a little bit of texture and volume without veering into pageant queen territories.” A tester with short, much thicker hair also commended this product’s ability to add “a touch of volume” without adding so much height as to make him look like “an ’80s dweeb.”
How we tested
We read dozens of editorial reviews, parsed hundreds of user comments and injected a bit of input from editors to find the top-rated, most highly lauded dry shampoos on the market. Ultimately, we settled on a broad testing pool of 16 products.
Over almost a month, 12 CNN Underscored staffers performed various experiments to determine the overall performance of each dry shampoo.
The hair types, colors, texture and lengths of our testers included:
- thin/fine, long brown hair.
- thick, short/buzzed brown hair.
- straight, medium-length black hair.
- wavy, long blond hair.
- thin, straight, long color-treated blond hair.
- thick, 4b coily natural black hair with thick, wavy mid-back extensions.
- thick, long brown/black hair.
- thick, straight, long blond hair.
- oily, long blond hair.
- wavy, thick, shoulder-length color-treated rose-gold hair.
- thick, wavy, short dark-brown hair.
- thick/coarse, short red hair.
We asked our testers to use each product a minimum of three times and perform the following tests throughout the trial period.
- Spray the dry shampoo before bed and see how clean the hair looks in the morning.
- Spray the dry shampoo on dirty hair after a workout to see how well it soaks up dirt/sweat.
- See how many days you can go beyond usual without washing your hair/how greasy hair looks after a few days.
- Perform a scent test, both in hand and in hair.
Each tester completed a detailed survey at the end of the testing period. Testers were asked to rate the quality and effectiveness of each dry shampoo across the following categories: how well the product absorbed oil, dirt or sweat; how easy the product was to apply; the level of residue the product left in the hair; how long the dry shampoo kept their hair feeling clean and/or refreshed; how their hair felt after using the product; the amount of product they needed to use to achieve desired results; and the scent level.
Testers were also asked to provide notes and commentary on each of the variables listed above.
Other dry shampoos we tested
If you’re looking for a dry shampoo that doesn’t leave residue, this is another great option.
While Amika Perk Up Dry Shampoo was deemed “very absorbent” by our thin-haired and thick, wavy-haired testers, if you have oily hair you won’t be able to count on this dry shampoo to perk you up. One tester with oily hair found that her hair remained just as oily after use: “My hair still looked greasy, especially in the back, and didn’t feel dryer. It didn’t make my hair worse, but it didn’t make it better either.”
This dry shampoo worked well for only one bleached-blond tester, who liked its lack of residue and even spray.
Batiste Original Dry Shampoo worked well for one tester but didn’t absorb well into all our other testers’ hair. It applied as a thick layer and left behind a powdery film. It also didn’t provide long-lasting results for any of our testers, and even our blond tester noted that it never really made her hair feel “clean.”
While our testers agreed that this product did an excellent job absorbing oil, sweat and dirt, the packaging and difficult-to-apply powder formula left this product with a low overall ranking.
The application of Briogeo Scalp Revival Charcoal and Biotin Dry Shampoo was inherently difficult, but it was made even more challenging by a complete lack of information on the packaging. One tester, who was a newbie to dry shampoo, explained, “Worst application process. There’s no clear indication on the bottle that it is, in fact, a powder — so color me surprised (in fine white powder, that is) when I finally decoded how to reveal the dispenser and a nice spurt of powder went all over me.”
Even for a more experienced dry shampoo tester, the application left a lot to be desired. “This powder product applied in super-uneven spurts, even after I learned how to use the somewhat confusing bottle. The worst thing about it was its inconsistent application, which seemed to build up on specific parts of my head and collect in my part while missing other areas of my head entirely.”
If you can get past the baffling application, this product can absorb sweat, oil and dirt after workouts. According to one tester with 4b thick, coily natural hair, “This was the most oil-absorbing formula I tried! I used it before working out and it helped with sweat post-workout, especially on my natural hair.”
This is, as the name implies, a powder rather than a spray. If you’ve never used a powder dry shampoo, the application can be a bit tricky, and for our testers, the product application took some getting used to.
One tester “hated” the messy application of Bumble and Bumble Prêt-à-Powder, explaining, “I tried it for five days, watched three YouTube videos and two TikToks on application to try to get the hang of it but to no avail.” A second tester was equally as perplexed by the application process but, after learning how to apply a powder dry shampoo, she “fell in love with the product and now loves powder dry shampoo more than a spray.”
Our testers also had vastly different experiences when it came to the level of residue this product left behind. For our tester with dark hair, it left a chalky residue, creating a grayish tinge after application. On the other end of the spectrum, a tester with blond hair felt that the powder formula seemed to leave less residue in her hair than spray formulas.
If you have thin and/or super-oily hair, this is not the ideal dry shampoo for you.
For our tester with thick, straight, oily hair this product “did absorb some of the oil and sweat, but not all,” and her hair didn’t feel fresher or cleaner after use. Similarly, one tester with thin, straight hair that is “extremely greasy” without a daily wash said the Psssst! Dry shampoo left her “hair feeling as greasy as it did before, and even added some stickiness and buildup that wasn’t previously there.”
This product didn’t provide lasting results, particularly for one tester with long, thick black/brown hair, who noticed her hair was greasy again within an hour after use.
This product didn’t leave much residue in one tester’s hair but our panelist with lighter-colored red hair noticed a “slight white film” on his hands during testing. A third tester with curly, bleached blond hair had slightly more success, saying she would purchase this product because it added some nice volume and she likes that it has SPF. This dry shampoo’s biggest merit is its scent, which users described as “light” and “clean and refreshing.”
Though it wasn't our top pick in the end, this was a very solid dry shampoo, earning praise from our testers for its scent, and it was respectable in terms of absorbency.
A curly-haired tester with bleached-blond hair didn’t notice a significant amount of residue, while someone with short, red hair noticed “more residue” with this product than some of the others he tried. A tester with long, thick brown/black hair agreed that the initial spray “left a coat of white residue, but after styling/combing through, it disappeared.” If you’re sensitive to fragrance, this could be a great option for you as all our testers liked this product’s light, pleasant scent that “quickly dissolved so you’re not left with perfumed hair.”
This dry shampoo falls in the middle of our list, and that tells you pretty much everything you need to know about it. It received middle-of-the-road feedback from our testers across every test category.
This dry shampoo falls in the middle of our list, with one tester explaining, “I’d use it if someone gave it to me but wouldn’t buy it myself.” While this dry shampoo removed oil from the hair and eliminated post-workout grease, it wasn’t as absorbent as many of the other dry shampoos we tested. This product left our testers’ hair feeling smooth and soft, seemingly regardless of their hair texture, and didn’t perform well enough in any other categories to make up for its relatively low absorbency score.
This was another dry shampoo that received overall satisfactory ratings from our testers, but it also, unfortunately, left a “powdered donut level of residue” in our testers’ hair.
This product received overall satisfactory ratings, but it left a powdered residue and it didn’t keep all of our reviewers’ hair feeling clean beyond the first day. While our testers generally liked (and in some cases, loved) its scent, this product might not be ideal for those sensitive to potent fragrances. One tester explained, “I adore the smell, but it is so strong. I can barely spray it for one second before having to stop.”
During testing, we generally thought the scent of this dry shampoo was pleasant, but beyond that, our testers didn’t agree on much.
This is one of the more affordable dry shampoos on the market and the size of the bottle makes it a good value. But one tester with long, wavy hair found that the product only kept her hair feeling cleaner for about one to two hours after use; a tester with straight, short hair thought it kept his hair feeling clean for about one and a half days; and a third tester with thick, shoulder-length wavy hair got about two days out of her hair post-use.
The scent of this dry shampoo left something to be desired during testing; it was certainly refreshing but reminiscent of hand sanitizer. However, it went on cleanly and left no streaks.
We’re huge fans of all things Olaplex, so we couldn’t wait to test out Olaplex’s volumizing dry shampoo. As the newest product in the brand’s lineup of offerings, it’s already gotten the viral treatment and did not disappoint in its effectiveness at absorbing oil thanks to the use of micro-starches. It created a noticeable volume in oily strands once flipped and tousled, and delivered the feeling of just-washed hair, free of residue or buildup. It also has the bonus of bis-aminopropyl diglycol dimaleate, which works to repair broken strands, making it more than just a dry shampoo and perhaps justifying the high-ish price tag.
This product is technically a texturizing spray and didn’t receive high marks as a dry shampoo since it wasn’t very absorbent for several of our testers.
From the company named for celebrity hairstylist Oribe Canaleshis, this product is technically a texturizing spray and not a dry shampoo. While it didn’t do much to make any testers’ hair feel “cleaner,” everyone agreed it’s an excellent styling product for adding texture and volume to hair. One tester with bleached blond, super-curly hair loved that it had “less hold than a hair spray … but fluffed up her curls,” and another with long, thick dark hair said she’d “continue to use it for daytime quick fixes.” Testers also loved the lack of residue left behind by this product and universally liked its “pleasant” scent.
This product didn’t rank among our top selections because it didn’t provide lasting results during testing.
We liked this product’s fine mist and the fact that it was easy to apply to hair in an even layer, without leaving behind any noticeable chalkiness. Other positives: It added “great texture” without any “noticeable buildup.” One panelist called the Oribe Gold Lust Dry Shampoo “the least effective” product she tested, and a second tester agreed that, while he liked the product, the results weren’t impressive enough that he’d spend his money on it.
This dry shampoo didn’t absorb dirt, sweat or oil for any of our testers, and none of them could say that it left their hair feeling any cleaner.
Like some of the other powder formulas we tested, the application process for this dry shampoo powder confused several of our testers. This product also left a significant amount of white, dusty residue in their hair.
While there was a clear consensus around absorbency, testers had a range of opinions regarding this product’s scent — one described it as “refreshing and beachy,” another thought it was “nonexistent” and a third described a “powdery, chalky” scent that was “very unpleasant” but dissipated quickly after application.
This dry shampoo sprayed evenly in a semi-fine mist to allow for even distribution and less buildup.
We gave this one the most serious task of all — making our hair look, feel and smell fresh after a weekend of wedding festivities and a handful of workouts — and it didn’t disappoint. Its starch-based formula disappeared completely in dirty blond hair (speaking both from a color and hygiene perspective), and it left not a single trace of its presence, save for its intoxicatingly gorgeous scent.