Review: Not Your Mother's Clean Freak Dry Shampoo

In my Quest for Dry Shampoo, I had to wait a while to finally test out the Not Your Mother's Clean Freak Dry Shampoo (which is like one of the only two dry shampoos that my local drugstore carries. Which is odd). Anyhow, I have a better idea of what I'm looking for in a dry shampoo.

1. White spots are okay, so long as I can work them into my hair.
2. Creating dullness because of said white spots (or just general dullness)  is also okay because my hair is super shiny at times and that doesn't matter as much.
3. The scent needs to be good or at the very least, tolerable.
4. It cannot weigh my hair down or make my hair feel dirtier than prior to using the dry shampoo.

I'm pretty easy to please in terms of dry shampoo so with that being said, NYM works out well! I did get a few white spots which I was able to work in quickly. This one didn't create any dullness in my hair, so my hair remained bright, shiny, and black. The scent was good as well, I couldn't quite place it but it was pleasant and didn't smell too fake. The absolutely best part? It didn't weigh down my hair and didn't make my hair feel dirtier, in fact my hair felt cleaner because it was bouncing and the waves were still short. 

How does it stack up to the others? I think that the NYM should be high on your list. It's a pretty good starting point for a dry shampoo. In fact, with the NYM I don't feel the need to have another bottle of dry shampoo stashed at my desk at work. It lasts for a long time and keeps my hair in check which is awesome.

For a cheaper version that is tropical, go for the Suave. It does almost everything that the NYM does but I will admit, Suave left my hair a little bit dull. In terms of overall performance, they are comparable -- and the Suave was about $3 cheaper. Also you will probably have to reapply it throughout the day which is kind of annoying.

TRESemme, well. I get why it may have weighed down my hair so much: it has a lot more ingredients and in general I think the clay in particular weighs down the hair which makes it feel dirtier. In concept, it sounds great however in execution, it was terrible.

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Product: Not Your Mother's Clean Freak Dry Shampoo
Price: $6 online, $7 in store
Would Recommend? Yes!
Takeaway: I highly recommend this one over the other two -- lightly scented, doesn't weigh down the hair, and is long lasting. Overall, my hair rejoices in this and I'm happy to give up the other two for it.

The Quest for Dry Shampoo

With my long hair, dry shampoo was not really necessary so I made my own blend of it. My hair is naturally prone to get oily and the longer it gets, it begins to switch from that to dryness. My hair adapts and like some crazy adapting parasite, it no longer "likes" the dry shampoo I was using before. (For reference purposes, the post about the dry shampoo I mix can be found here. Basically I blend cornstarch and old foundations or bronzers in order to darken  it and then I brush it on my hair with a cheap kabuki). 

After a few attempts with my cornstarch blend, I realized that my hair needed more touch-ups throughout the day but the powder was too messy (and not really portable either). So it was finally time to give it up and look into having a dry shampoo (at the very least, by my desk). 

The first one I have on hand is Suave Professionals Dry Shampoo Spray, which I had actually picked up for a light camping trip. I didn't have any intention of using it myself (I was getting it out of consideration for the other ladies that I'd be camping with), but one day I just got fed up with my hair and decided to use it anyway. The one stand out thing about this is that I love the scent and at the very least for that night that I had it on, it worked well. In general, it works well for immediate use (and I will reiterate that the scent is lovely) but it did not hold up well for the eight hour day. In fact after 4 hours, the greasiness returned full force and weighed down my hair. If you have super oily hair, this may not be the one you should opt for.

Given the problems I experienced with it, I'll definitely hold on to the bottle and use it for touch-ups, especially for short events. It smells good and not as chemical as some of the others I've tried out. For work however, I decided to keep a bottle at my desk just in case. Since CVS was closer, I ran in there but they apparently don't carry the Suave version, so I ended up getting the TRESemme version.

TRESemme Fresh Start Dry Shampoo Spray For Oily/Straight to Normal Hair (or the Volumizing one) feels... well, kind of ickier. Okay, I know that's not much to go on. From the beginning, it smells terrible. An hour after I sprayed it on, I had a headache because of the fumes. How terrible. My hair felt pretty weighed down and just felt like there was way too much product in it. Which is comical considering how much less I sprayed on as compared to the Suave Dry Shampoo. Anyhow, almost immediately after the chemical attack on my hair, I noticed how dull my hair looked. I decided that I wanted to exchange it immediately, even with my headache.

I ran back into CVS and grabbed the last bottle of Not Your Mother's Clean Freak Dry Shampoo that was on the shelf. (At this point I'm still wondering why dry shampoos don't have their own section but it's probably because most stores only carry a limited selection of them). Because I actually need to wash my hair, I won't have a review for it just yet. I did notice that it uses almost the same ingredients as Suave so it remains to be seen how much I will enjoy it.

I like charts so let's break this down.

Dry Shampoo Comparison
Brand	Type	Scent	Performance	Cost	Verdict
Suave Professionals Dry Shampoo Spray	Not even sure what it's base is aside from a lot of alcohol to dry out the grease.	Tropical, perhaps grapefruit, either way, it is pleasant.	Last about 4 hours in my hair. Which probably just means that it needs to be reapplied throughout the day (that is if your hair is super oily). Doesn't weigh hair down though which helps and while it can leave splotches of white, they are easy to rub in. A lot is required to do the job though.	~ $4	Decent so far, but for the amount that is needed and the questionable ingredients I'm not sure I'd purchase it again. The bright side is that I don't hate it enough to demand a refund.
TRESemme Fresh Start Dry Shampoo Spray	Zea Mays (Corn) Starch, Kaolin, Citrus Grandis (Grapefruit) Fruit Extract, Citrus Tangerina (Tangerine) Peel Extract (amongst other things).	Terrible.	Immediately weighs down hair and makes it look dull -- it seems almost more beneficial to just wash my hair. The fumes are terrible.	~ $6	No! I returned it on the same day. This was a terrible purchase.
Not Your Mother's Clean Freak Dry Shampoo (Review)	Same as Suave.	Pleasant and light though I can't place the scent.	Works well, does create a bit of a matte but doesn't overtake my natural shininess.	~ $7	Great1 Very long lasting and keeps my hair fresh without weighing it down. Overall, I'm pretty happy with this one as it works better than the others.

Reaching for that Dry Shampoo

I'm going to start by stating that I don't use "dry shampoo" at least not any of those that you can find on the shelf at a store that have purposely packaged for as such. I do however use a blend of powders to achieve the same thing.

To start with the tools that I use mostly consist of Lancôme brushes. Sorry Lancôme, I adore the company but the amount of brushes my mom had accumulated throughout the years is ridiculous. I once raided her stash and managed to get the brushes that you see in the right picture. Now I definitely don't use them all, I cycle through two at a time, alternating between washes.

As I mentioned, I use a powder so the brushes make it very easy to brush on the powder as lightly as possible. Since oiliness in my hair tends to occur in the front, it's nice know that even if I brush it on too thick, I still stand the chance of brushing it out (rather than applying the powder directly to my hair with my hands).

About that powder now (which is in an old Lush container). I use a cornstarch based baby powder -- which means that you can use either plain cornstarch, baby powder that is cornstarch, or standard baby powder that has talc. It's really your preference here, I opt for cornstarch baby powder because of the light scent. What I alter about it is it's colour which is achievable by using old powder foundation.

I couldn't quite capture the colour of it in the picture, but it's a light brown mostly because I broke down old powders into it. Prior to use Bare Escentuals, I used two different types of Physicians' Formula Mineral foundation and when I switched I wasn't sure what to do with the remaining powders, especially because they were 50% used. Well, I tossed them into my hair powder and voilà, I now have a dry shampoo that doesn't require much blending in.

Obviously if you don't happen to have older foundation powders just lying around, you can opt for just buying a cheap powder to mix in. One that immediately comes to mind is e.l.f.'s Mineral Foundation. Of course, I'm not advocating you just waste powders like that but if you find that their $5 powder doesn't work then at least you have another use for it.

Not to mention another use for large brushes that aren't quite usable and old Lush containers.