The fantasy of leave-in hair lightener sells itself. There you are on the beach with a chilled beverage in hand, lying mostly in the shade but partially in the sun. As you relax, the sun’s rays transform your hair with easy, natural highlights. You head home with gorgeous surfer-girl streaks that look like they cost $200, and at work, people ask if you’ve been on vacation. Who wouldn’t sign up for the dream? Anyone who experimented with Sun-In’s original formula in the eighties and nineties, that’s who. Some people had good experiences with the drugstore peroxide formula, legend has it, but mostly we were all just walking around with orange, brassy splotches.

Flash-forward to the present, and thanks to advancements in technology, a new bounty of hair lightening products is landing on store shelves, claiming to lighten your hair up a few shades without any effort. Some do rely on various formulations of hydrogen peroxide to get there, while other brands offer versions with chamomile and citrus. To see which ones are worth trusting with our summers, we sent Glamour staffers home with their picks, and sworn promises that they wouldn’t come back to us orange. Given the rainy weather on the East Coast lately, results were mixed—but read on to see which ones delivered.

“The last time I took my color into my own hands, I ended up with fire-engine-red hair with chunky blond streaks instead of auburn highlights. That was 14 years ago. So to say I approached this Sun-In 2.0 trend with extreme caution is an understatement. But I trust Jen Atkin, the celebrity hairstylist behind the brand, and I’m always looking for easier ways stretch out color appointments, so I took a leap of faith.

The first test-run went OK-ish. I wanted to make sure I put enough on, so I overdrenched my hair and ended up with a sticky, greasy, wet look at work—fine for the beach, not so much for the office. The color, though, looked nice. It was subtle, but it brightened up the already highlighted parts of my hair that had gone brassy. The next few tries I took it easy on the spray and was left with only a sweet coconut smell—no stickiness or orange splotches. A coworker with brown hair also tried it, and while the results were also slight, it did pop out a few blonder pieces in her hair. Forget any nightmares you had in the nineties. The promises of Sun-In are finally delivering.” —Lindsay Schallon, senior digital beauty editor

“The first week or so that I had this hair lightener, the sun was simply nowhere to be found. So I tested its advertised ‘heat-activation’ capabilities and for several days sprayed it on damp hair before blow-drying my hair. I didn’t see any noticeable difference from just that, but I did see some lighter highlights in my hair start to pop once I finally got the chance to test it during a sunny day the beach. While the effects were subtle, they definitely magnified the natural lightening effect I get when I’m out in the sun all day.

As for the product itself, despite its aerosol can appearance, the spray is straight liquid, which is easy to apply but will make dry hair look like you stood under a shower for two seconds. The spray has a really nice smell, but the product is tangible in your hair—like a light hairspray—so I definitely wanted to wash it out at the end of the day. It’s not going to give you fresh highlights in one day, but I will definitely break it out when I’m lying out or heading to the beach.” —Maggie Burch, digital producer

“I couldn’t have been more frustrated with my hair when I began this test drive. I was in desperate need of a trim, and my highlights had oxidized into this awful, orangey blond that brought out the ruddiness in my skin. All of which is to say, unless this product came with a pair of scissors and some foils, I wasn’t going to be 100 percent satisfied with my hair.

Still, I love Klorane products, and this one—a light, liquid consistency with a fresh scent vaguely reminiscent of clean laundry—had a kind of earth-mother appeal, like the 2.0 version of squeezing lemon juice on your hair. My color didn’t change too much, but I definitely enjoyed the application process. And sometimes that’s 90 percent of the appeal with beauty products. I’d repurchase now that I’ve finally been to my colorist.” —Amanda FitzSimons, fashion contributor

“I’ll admit that I am very fickle when it comes to hair products—if I don’t see something that excites me within the first couple of uses, I typically discontinue. And I don’t wash my hair daily, so using any product more than a few times really means a week’s worth of waiting. In this case I really liked the smell and it had a nice texturizing effect, but I didn’t see much in the way of lightening. Considering I didn’t use the product as frequently as recommended to see real results, I can say only that this product is not for anyone interested in faking a ‘weekend in the sun’ to work friends on Monday. Prepare to take a bit more time with the process—which is probably a good thing?” —Laurel Pinson, digital director

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