Gone Granola: Results of Hair Spray Test

We’ve gone granola in this family and I have been researching and replacing everything we use with green products, no chemicals. It’s hard work, let me tell you, and there are some things that just don’t lend themselves to being green, hair spray being one of them.

If you grew up using your mother’s Aqua Net, like I did, and think of hair spray has a staple item, like I definitely do, then going granola (back to nature, being earth-friendly, more health conscious) can be the source of some seriously bad hair days. I tried not using hair spray at all and my husband thought my hair looked “fine.” Of course, I knew that meant that it looked like crap.

So, I went to the Skin Deep: Cosmetic Safety Database and searched through all the hair sprays, trying to find some that were rated 2 or less — there weren’t that many — and I picked three non-aerosol products: Beauty Without Cruelty Natural Hold Hair Spray, Jason Natural Cosmetics Thin-to-Thick Hair Thickening Hair Spray, and Magick Botanicals Fragrance Free Hair Spray. There wasn’t an aerosol hairspray that was rated 2 or less — so much for my mom’s Aqua Net.

I ordered all three sprays from iHerb.com (love that place almost as much as I love amazon.com) and have spent the last month trying them all under varying conditions. BWC and Magick Botanicals were $6.85 for 6 oz bottles -- but when my order arrived, my BWC was an 8.5 oz bottle -- and the Jason spray was $4.80 for an 8 oz bottle.

The Jason spray was rated 0, and I really wanted to like it, especially since it smells so good, but it’s pretty much worthless as a hair spray. The only thing hair spray-ish about it is that, yes, you do spray it on your hair. It doesn’t hold anything in place and even wetting your fingers and running through you already-sprayed hair doesn’t give it any oomph. Maybe it really isn’t meant to be that kind of a hair spray. But, hey, it smells really good, so I left it in my bathroom to use as an air freshener.

The Magick Botanicals spray is rated 1, so I tried hard to like it best, now that I’d ruled out the Jason spray, and I must say that it is a very close second to the BWC spray. It’s unscented and definitely offers more holding power than the Jason spray, but it just didn’t quite measure up to the BWC spray. It seemed like it left my hair a little bit wetter and kind of separated it more. It’s hard to explain exactly what I mean, but in the end, I just preferred the Beauty Without Cruelty spray. But, having said that, if I couldn’t get BWC hair spray, I would definitely be happy with the Magick Botanicals spray, and you can buy it in gallon containers from their website, so you can refill the spray bottles — a lot less waste.

Beauty Without Cruelty Natural Hold Hair Spray is rated at 2, and I’m not sure they should call it “natural hold,” because that implies to me that it’s probably not going to act much like a hair spray at all. Anyone who uses hair spray routinely knows you need “extra hold” or “ultra hold” in order for it to be good at its job! Having said that, though, BWC is very good at its job, but it doesn’t give you such a strong hold that you can’t get your fingers into your hair after you’ve sprayed it. It’s unscented, but the smell is still familiar to me, like maybe I’ve used a similar product before. I spray it on and have time to rearrange things before it dries, and it holds my style very well. I’m very happy with this product, but I don’t think you could go wrong with either the BWC or the Magick Botanicals spray.

There you have it, another pressing decision made and another item crossed of my huge list.