Samurai Shopper For Hair Growth Products

From left: Batiste Dry Shampoo; Shu Uemura invisible texturizing powder; Serge Normant Meta Revive Dry Shampoo; Oscar Blandi Pronto Dry Shampoo Spray.

The Samurai Shopper takes her skin care very seriously, but hair care is barely a blip on the radar. Using the best hair growth products is the way to go. I’m more focused on fighting follicles that bloom outside the scalp zone; when fuzz attacks, I’m already in the lounge chair at Browhaus, 56 Spring Street. The hair on my head simply requires occasional pruning, regular washing and daily brushing. Every so often, though, a hair product comes along that proves noteworthy. Take dry shampoo: apparently I’m the last earthling to discover that dry shampoo does double duty as a waterless cleaning machine and a styling aid. Best of all, the cheap ones are pretty good, even if the good ones are better.


“Dry shampoo revives a blow dry at the end of the day when hair goes flat,” says the hairstylist Serge Normant. Normant’s Meta Revive Dry Shampoo goes everywhere with me now; one blast here, another there, and it gives me instant ’80s hair. “It gives hair that second-day look, which I’ve always loved,” Normant says. For the oily haired, dry shampoo has obvious benefits: most are loaded with modified food starch and/or talc that soaks up the excess from overexcited sebaceous glands. For the fine haired, dry shampoos thicken without stripping the necessary oils that keep hair smooth and shiny.

I’m always on the lookout for good organic alternatives. (Many dry shampoos contain aluminum starch octenylsuccinate, a chemical that has some environmental groups concerned.) Lulu Organics Lavender & Clary Sage Hair Powder certainly fits the bill. For the uninitiated, organic products are usually made up of ingredients a fifth grader can both spell and pronounce. Lulu’s powder comprises corn starch, clay, baking soda, rice powder, horsetail powder and some sniffy essential oils. You could probably concoct this at home, but why? Get the formula wrong and you could end up with a horse’s tail. Lulu’s travel size is affordable and Art Nouveau adorable, plus its scent dispels the buffalo-wing/tobacco bouquet of many city streets. Oribe’s Dry Texturizing Spray also steers clear of too many polysyllabic chemicals, though it’s more about turning up the volume and less about the sanitizing of air or hair.

Oscar Blandi’s Pronto Dry Shampoo does contain the dubious aluminum, but it’s also got oil, oat bran extract and a sunscreen to redeem it. It smells lemony, works wonders and a little lasts forever. “Dry shampoo improves the texture and look of hair dramatically,” says Oscar’s brother, the stylist Luca Blandi. The Samurai Shopper pays close attention to Luca as he’s usually standing above me pointing scissors at my head. Here’s what he does with dry shampoo (definitely try this at home): Spray a few inches away from the scalp to avoid that white wiggy look so prevalent in productions of 18th-century plays. Aim at the roots but put a little in the length as well; massage scalp in a circular motion with fingertips. And voilà: hair too big to fail.

Batiste Dry Shampoo claims to “banish oil and boost body,” and it does that for mere pennies. If you’re brunet, blond or want to accessorize your do with lace or glitter, Batiste has color-specific sprays and sprays that add a soupçon of bling. The other penny saver is PSSSSSST! The Samurai Shopper loves a product that’s onomatopoetic and exclamatory too. Plus, its mildness is a good introduction to the joys of dry washing.
For me, the crowning glory of the dry shampoo universe is Shu Uemura’s Volume Maker, which is powder in a tube with an attached brush: shake the tube upside down, dab the brush on strategic spots, and watch the power of powder make those 100,000 to 150,000 hairs on your head feel like a million.