Review: New Suave Professionals Dry Shampoo Spray

Note: With the exception of a few select Walmart locations, this product will not be available in stores until February 2011.

If you saw this post, then you know I've been extremely excited about this new dry shampoo from Suave. As mentioned above, this product does not release nationally until FEBRUARY, so unless you live near one of a handful of Walmarts that already have this on their shelves, don't drive yourselves crazy looking for this just yet. You'll have to wait a few weeks, but let me tell you, it's worth the wait.

As I've mentioned several times on this blog, I have a bit of an obsession with dry shampoos. You can click here to see all of my previous reviews of the various dry shampoos that are available in most drugstores. But when I heard that Suave released a dry shampoo, I was absolutely overjoyed because I knew the price would beat any and all dry shampoos currently on drugstore shelves.

And sure enough I was right!

From Suave:

NEW! Suave Professionals© Dry Shampoo

Refreshes hair and absorbs oil between washes.

• Salon proven to refresh hair as well as Rene Furterer© Naturia Dry Shampoo*
• Helps revive hair by adding volume and texture
• Features mineral clay and absorbs oil and refreshes odor
• This product is colorless and imparts a vibrantly fresh, fruity and floral fragrance

5 oz. Suggested retail price: $2.69 - $2.99

*Rene Furterer is a registered trademark of Sebastian International, Inc.

I was fortunate enough to receive this product for review recently and, now that I've completed my testing, I'd love to share with you my detailed thoughts:

Suave Dry Shampoo Spray

(retail: around $2.69, 5 oz)

It's a bit tricky to photograph shiny aluminum cans (the glare!), but I did my best to capture the information on this bottle (enlarge the collage for a better view):

The only silver lining to come out of having a nasty cold this week is that I could really give this product a thorough testing since I haven't had the energy to wash my hair every day as usual.

In these before-and-after pics, I tested Suave Dry Shampoo on my hair after 24 hours without a washing:

As you can see, my bangs are an ugly, greasy mess in this "before" picture. Also, notice how dull and flat my hair looks as well. In the middle picture, I sprayed the product onto my hair following the directions on the bottle to a "T", using the heat from the palm of my hand to rub the product gently into my roots as directed. In the third pic, I used a fine-toothed comb to comb my side-swept bangs into place.

After looking at these photos, I think the first thing you'll noticed is that there is absolutely NO white or gray cast to my hair after using this product. Darker-haired gals and guys should be delighted to hear this!

The second thing I hope you notice is that not only does this product absorb the oils from my hair, but it also manages to impart a very lovely SHINE to my hair. I have yet to find another dry shampoo that actually manages to accomplish this!

As for the level of oil absorption (which you can never really capture in photos) I'd say that Suave Dry Shampoo is maybe just a half a step below Batiste, but certainly higher than all other drugstore brands I've used over the past few years. When I've only gone one day without washing my hair, I have found that Suave does the trick beautifully with only one application. But when I try to skip two days without a wash, I've noticed that I need to apply this product twice in order to fully elminate the "greasies". But the great thing is that this product doesn't get cakey for me or become white with multiple applications. It's as if you can just keep on spraying, and spraying, until you hit the level of absorption you desire.

And for all of you gals who utilize dry shampoos just to give your hair extra volume and texture (which I know so many of us need, especially after a washing when we want to do an up-do but our hair is too slick and hard to work with), I LOVE Suave Dry Shampoo for this purpose! I used it on my just-washed hair when I wanted to do a cute "messy bun" and my hair was SO much easier to work with, giving it a much needed boost in both texture and volume.

Finally, I want to talk to you about the fragrance of Suave Dry Shampoo. MY GOODNESS. If you love grapefruit, you are going to LOVE the fragrance of this product. My gal Paula was absolutely right when she said it reminded her of Bath & Body Works Pink Grapefruit body mist, but with a soft, powdery dry-down. This stuff smells good enough to eat (please don't!) and I LOVE the way the scent lingers in my hair. If you need a good hair refresher after a night on the town, I think you'll be very pleased with this product. The scent seems to linger on my hair all day, and I love getting little whiffs of it throughout the day.

FINAL VERDICT: Suave Dry Shampoo is an awesome addition to the world of drugstore dry shampoos. For the price, I think it delivers on all of its promises. I get no white cast on my hair when I use this, it absorbs the oils in my hair, it's easy to use, it smells insanely delicious and it also imparts added shine, volume and texture to my hair. The only critique I have is that, if you're planning to use it on severely oily hair, you may need to use multiple applications to reach the desired level of absorption. But thankfully, this product doesn't build up or get cakey for me even after two or three applications in one day. For around $2.69, this is an absolute steal and it's quickly becoming my dry shampoo of choice.

Do you already own Suave Dry Shampoo? If so, how do you like it? If not, are you thinking about picking some up in February? Please check back a little later this week because I've got the scoop on all of the other new Suave products set to hit store shelves next month. I promise you don't want to miss that!

A sample of this product was given to Nouveau Cheap for editorial purposes, either directly from the manufacturer or from the agency that works on behalf of the manufacturer. All reviews on NouveauCheap.blogspot.com are the honest opinion of its author and editorial samples do not, in any way, affect the outcome of product reviews.