Review: TREsemme Fresh Start Dry Shampoo

[NOTE: I have just posted a comparison review of TREsemme, Psssssst and Batiste dry shampoos. Click here if you'd to see it.]

Wow! I was seriously thrilled to see all the feedback I received when I posted pics of the new TREsemme Fresh Start and Naturals products I spotted at Walgreens the other day (click here for that post). I'm glad I'm not the only one who gets excited by the prospect of a new drugstore dry shampoo!

There are so few options available to us these days: Batiste at Sally Beauty (click here for my review), Pssst! and now TREsemme are the only dry shampoos I can think of that you can find easily and for under $10. If you don't want to venture into the high-end (and uber-expensive) world of Klorane, Oscar Blandi, Rene Furterer, etc., I'm hoping this review can help you to determine if TREsemme Fresh Start Dry Shampoo might be a good fit for you.

I purchased this product at my local Walgreens for $4.99:

OK, so let me show you some pics of what Fresh Start Dry Shampoo did for me. First, let me tell you that I have oily hair, oily skin and side-swept bangs, which makes me a PRIME candidate for dry shampoos. If I try to skip a day of shampooing, my bangs are always the tell-tale sign that I haven't washed my hair that day. They get greasy and stringy (yuck) especially when I pull back the top layer of my bangs and look at the layer that rests on my forehead.

In this first pic, I have pulled back the top layer of my bangs so you can see the oily hair underneath:

You can especially see, on the left side of this pic, that my hair is starting to get that next-day oily/stringy look that I cannot STAND. Ick!

Now here is my hair taken about 30 seconds after I applied three short bursts of Fresh Start Dry Shampoo to my bangs, worked it in a bit with my fingers and then combed my bangs:

First, excuse that patch of whiteness on the upper left side of this photo--that is my gray hair coming through (I started to get gray in my late 20s). I am actually coloring my hair as I type this because, when I saw this photo I was mortifiend that I've been walking around with that much visible gray (not that there's anything wrong with gray, but I just don't like the look of gray on *me*).

Anyway, as you can see in the "after" pic, my hair does look noticiably less oily, and the color didn't really change at all (no white, powdery cast as is the case with a lot of dry shampoos).

So, those are the pros: my hair didn't look as greasy as it did before I used it, and there was no detectable white cast after application.

But let me tell you some cons about Fresh Start. First, the smell. On first whiff, I really liked it. It's clean and sort of citrusy, and for lack of a better word, it smells more "modern" than other dry shampoos. But after using it for a bit, I noticed an underlying chemical smell that makes the "freshness" smell a bit off to me. As my boyfriend said when he sniffed my hair, "You smell like old-lady perfume mixed with chemicals." I wouldn't exactly call the fresh scent "old-lady perfume" (I know what "old lady" perfumes smell like and heck, many of you may even consider me an old lady!) but when it's combined with the underlying chemical scent, I kind of get where he's coming from. If this were a perfume, it might give you a headache if you smelled it for too long because in can give off that synthetic vibe.

Another con, for me at least, is that this product made my hair wet. It wasn't soaking wet, but it was definitely damp to the touch. If you've got curly or wavy hair that reacts to any type of moisture, this could be a deal-breaker for you because, depending on how much you use, you might find yourself having to style your hair all over again after you apply it.

And one more con: I didn't love the feel of my hair after using this, compared to Batiste. Even though my hair LOOKED clean, it had sort of a weird, powdery, almost sticky/greasy feel to it. I'm used to the powder residue of Batiste and other dry shampoos, but this one was different. In addition to the powder, my bangs felt a bit weighed down and...I don't know...a bit slimy? That's the best way I can describe it (this might be due to the mineral clay in this product, maybe?). But again, my bangs LOOKED good. They just didn't feel good to me.

So...while I can't give TRESemme Fresh Start Dry Shampoo a huge, glowing thumbs up, I can say that it might work for some of you, though there are some things you should watch out for if you're going to try it. The fragrance, the wetness and the way my hair felt when I touched it are things you might want to consider. BUT, if you have just about given up in frustration because all dry shampoos you've used in the past have left too much of a white cast on your hair (especially you darker-haired girls) then I think you might want to give this one a shot. Again, the cons are just my own personal experience and given the condition, texture and dryness of your hair, you could have a totally different reaction and maybe see MUCH better results.

I hope I've given you enough information to help you decide if this product might be right for you--and of course I would love to know what you think if you try it!

PS: I'm way behind on responding to comments due to some behind-the-scenes work I'm doing for some very exciting upcoming giveaways, so I hope you'll bear with me--I will try to respond to comments from yesterday and today first thing in the AM. :)