No matter how long you’ve gotten to know your unique curl pattern in all its splendor, being blessed with curly hair can still sometimes feel like a (literal) handful. Crafting a routine that will nourish your spirals to their utmost potential isn’t easy, especially with the endless stream of products to consider. From hydrating masks to styling serums, a curly product lineup can go from zero to 100 real quick—but nailing down the best shampoo and conditioner for curly hair is the first step.
Wash day is the foundation of a great curly routine, since the products you use in the shower dictate how well your curls will hold up throughout the week. Personally, copious amounts of conditioner is the life-blood to my 3C curls, but keeping coils, kinks, ‘fros, and braids pristine means not sleeping on cleansers, either. Shampoo (or co-wash) and conditioner work in tandem for healthy, bouncy curls, but we wanted to know which ones our top curl crushes—and the most sought-after natural hairstylists in the industry—couldn’t live without. So clear out your shower caddy, and get ready to add the best shampoo and conditioner for curly hair to your routine ASAP.
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Aptly named the Super Dry Shampoo, the entire marketing around it feels like only something a businesswoman in the Kardashians’ orbit could dream up. (Atkin has famously worked with all the sisters—and Kris!—and most recently has been styling Kendall for appearances.) On Ouai’s website, the dry shampoo’s tagline reads “for days with a heavier oil flow” and the details section uses clever turns of phrase like don’t let “flat hair cramp your style.” It’s Instagram gold.
“Our whole Super Dry campaign is tampon-themed because the dry shampoo reminds us of super tampons—it’s extra absorbent for oilier days, has an easy to use applicator, a wider can, and our brand’s fresh Melrose Place scent,” Atkin tells Glamour. “Plus, most women can relate to relying on super tampons and super dry shampoo to get them through a tough week.”
But the campaign goes beyond gimmick. To help raise awareness and fight period poverty and stigma, Ouai is donating $20,000 to advocacy group Period.org—a move that feels all too pertinent given the recent news of migrant girls bleeding through their pants in border detention centers.
“We want to help end the stigma around talking about periods and bring awareness to the period poverty that is facing so many American women today,” says Atkin. “We decided to donate to Period.org to help them with their movement to get period products to all women. Period products should not be a luxury! We will also be gathering our team and our community to have period packing parties and deliver supplies to local shelters and organizations in need.”
Super Dry is a good campaign, a good mission, and—after testing it for the past two weeks, including one very muggy trip to upstate New York—I can say it’s a good dry shampoo. It’s powdery, but not white-casting; absorbent in all the right ways, and gave my third-day hair a just from the salon look.
I’m not sure what caught my attention first: the scalp treatment or the word bubble.
It makes sense that Kristin Ess, the stylist who spawned a line of high-quality, surprisingly affordable hair products and has masterminded many a celebrity cut (see Lauren Conrad and Jenna Dewan), would look beyond the roots. After all, healthy hair comes courtesy of a healthy scalp.
Her recent collection is all about the scalp, a term that doesn’t have to work very hard to entice me at the moment. Of all my winter gripes—dryness, dullness, the usual—I’ve been catching little flakes strewn through my hair, and they’re for sure not snow. Since they’re not the yellowish, oily flakes created by dandruff, I can only assume that I’m dealing with your average dry scalp. The detoxifying bubble mask seems as though it could do the trick.
First: If you’re unsure how, exactly, to use a bubbling scalp mask, Ess helpfully posted a thorough how-to and demo on Instagram. A budding Luddite without Instagram, I missed these, which is why I failed to shake the bottle well enough and ended up squirting some very cold liquid into my hand.
I eventually figured it out, finding it to be a mousselike foam. As soon as I applied it onto the part in my hair, I could feel the cooling, tingling action (which supposedly boosts scalp circulation, which in turn stimulates hair growth). Then I heard the popping. Technically, it’s the sound of oxygenated bubbles lifting away grime, oil, and impurities, as Ess writes in an Instagram post, but to my ears, it was reminiscent of Pop Rocks and deeply satisfying. There’s also salicylic acid in the formula, the gentle exfoliator you might recognize from your acne face wash. In this case, it’s sloughing off dead skin cells so you can rinse them away in the shower—versus them floating onto your shoulders in the middle of a conversation with your boss.
I massaged the mask in at my roots. I felt like it wasn’t evenly spreading, so although the instructions say to use a golf ball-size amount, I blew through at least a grapefruit’s worth of bubbles. The tingling eventually subsided, but the popping continued for a few minutes, even as I got in the shower and wet my hair. My scalp and roots felt so fresh and clean that I probably could’ve skipped the shampoo (though I didn’t this time) and gone straight to conditioner.
It’s like the opposite of dry shampoo: Instead of adding stuff to absorb dirt and oil (and creating residue in the process), this mask lifts them away and then disappears by popping. Genius. And while it obviously doesn’t have the same convenience factor, it only takes two or three minutes, tops—eliminating the one thing that’s kept me away from masks in the past. I have zero interest in sitting around for 15 minutes with goop in my hair.
And despite the flash-bang look of it, it’s not all diversion tactics. While the bubbles and popping are cool, they offer real results. So far I’ve noticed far fewer flakes after just one use. And maybe it’s just because I miss the experience, but damn, I can’t wait to use it again tomorrow morning.
When you’ve been a beauty editor for roughly 247 years, people assume you can pull out some serious hair tricks. But despite having written a lot about hair and styling, I have the actual hair skills of a sea urchin and can’t manage to create anything even remotely close to a hairdo. Not like it would matter, since I have the kind of hair that does nothing. No frizz, no tangles, no flyaways—but also zero bounce, absolutely no texture, and not a whiff of volume either. It’s flat, slippery, and straight; happily washes-and-goes, yet refuses to hold a damn thing—not curls, not roughed-up beachy waves, not even a friggin’ hair elastic. After years of trying to coax it into something it’s not, I’ve learned to wholeheartedly embrace it.
Now, unexciting hair that just behaves is my thing. And mostly because I’ve figured out two non-negotiables that make it look good straight out of the shower: a really solid cut with strategically-placed layers and the right shampoo that removes every trace of dirt, oil, and build-up, all of which makes fine hair look even sadder.
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The shampoo that I always come back to and will never stop buying is a shocker to most, especially considering I have access to pretty much everything out there. It’s Head & Shoulders Classic Clean Shampoo and it’s the best—even if you’re not the lucky beneficiary of pesky dandruff. There’s nothing particularly sexy about it, but I have no issues with that. It’s just excellent at deep cleaning without stripping, makes my scalp feel fresh, and has a really pleasant, not-too-flowery scent that’s good for ladies and dudes. Plus, it makes my hair insanely shiny and obliterates flakiness, so you don’t have to go around being all self-conscious. I start to panic when I run out. That’s how much I love it.
I’ve tried the $60 shampoos and can honestly say they worked no better than this stuff that’s $8 and change. In fact, this underrated formula has out-performed countless fancy/Instagram-worthy shampoos that I’ve tried, which are usually way too “nourishing” and heavy. It isn’t particularly hydrating, but for me that’s a good thing: It helps provide a boost for my droopy little locks, especially when I wash my hair twice and don’t use conditioner. If your hair is curly, thick, dry, color-treated, or in-any-way work to style, I get if you’d rather invest. There is, after all, a reason why hair type-specific formulas exist. But when you’re looking for something basic—in the best possible way—that gives good hair on the reg, this affordable gem does not disappoint.
It’s no secret most hotel toiletries are far from a luxury amenity. One tiny body wash bottle is about enough to clean your right elbow. But as Halsey pointed out on Twitter late Thursday evening, the shampoo and conditioner options available in hotel bathrooms aren’t just inconvenient for many women of color—they’re unusable. “I’ve been traveling for years now and it’s been so frustrating that the hotel toiletry industry entirely alienates people of color,” she wrote. “I can’t use this perfumed watered down white people shampoo. Neither can 50% of ur customers. Annoying.”
This, apparently, sent Twitter into a tizzy. And when fans responded with complaints—saying she was “one of those white people” trying to virtue signal, among other things—Halsey went on to defend her position, as well as clarify that she’s biracial (her dad is black and her mom is white). It isn’t the first time she’s addressed having to deal with people who don’t know her race either. “I’m white-passing. I’ve accepted that about myself and have never tried to control anything about black culture that’s not mine,” she told Playboy in 2017. “I’m proud to be in a biracial family, I’m proud of who I am, and I’m proud of my hair.”
In her Twitter thread, Halsey also acknowledged that, as a celebrity, she’s in a position of privilege to speak up for people who might not otherwise have a voice—or the money to buy their own shampoo while traveling. “I’m fortunate enough to be financially in a position to do so, but POC traveling frequently for work/medical reasons might not be,” she wrote in response to someone who told her to just bring her own shampoo. “Just making a point is all!”
Some pointed out that, in general, hotel shampoo is pretty garbage. “As a person with 4C hair I don’t travel without all my hair care products. Like why would I want to use some cheap shit from the dollar tree. And no hotels don’t need to cater to my hair I’m paying for the room bed sheets and towels,” wrote one user. Many came to Halsey’s defense, however, spurring a vibrant discussion about privilege. “We’re not all millionaires, yet we all do stay at hotels and would appreciate if the shampoo didn’t turn our hair into Brillo pads,” wrote another Twitter user.
“Who knew me acknowledging that white hair care products are the national standard (while POC are confined to a tiny aisle) would piss so many people off. Not sorry,” added Halsey. The point, she said, is that the current standard for hotel toiletries highlights a greater issue of disenfranchisement for marginalized communities. “If white ppl can enjoy the luxury/convenience, there should be an option for everyone to. Its an ‘insignificant’ example of a bigger problem. That’s all!” she wrote [all sic].
Halsey concluded her thread with a re-tweet: “She’s not saying it to start riots or some shit,” wrote a fan. “You need to remember this is one of the many small things that POC go through that makes them feel like we don’t matter enough to be catered to. It’s a microaggression.”
As someone who unabashedly subscribes to the cult of conditioner, it’s the rare shampoo that can wiggle its way into my heart. With curls, honestly, it’s all about the conditioner. The very idea behind the no-poo movement is that curls need all the hydration they can get, and shampoos, with their “we’ll get your scalp clean” antics, can contribute to dry, fragile strands. It’s led some people to swear off shampoo altogether, but that’s never been an option for me (maybe TMI, but I live a life of dander). Instead, I used to soldier through shampoo as a basic necessity, following it with heavy-duty conditioner to add back moisture. That all changed when I found Desert Essence Coconut Shampoo, hands-down the best shampoo for curly hair that I’ve ever used.
Not to brag, but we met right before the beginning of the coconut oil craze. Back in those days, coconut oil was still hanging out with olive oil in gourmet food shops, but a random stroll through the Whole Foods beauty aisle found Desert Essences’ tube of shampoo in my basket. I was lured in by the smell—imagine the freshest, most decadently delicious coconut frosting smell in the world. It was love at first whiff. My sweet tooth knows no bounds; I wanted that smell all over my head.
But while the smell is incredible, that alone wouldn’t be enough to hook me for the years that this shampoo and I have been together. That passion—that commitment—is thanks to how moisturizing and detangling the shampoo is. I squirt a palmful out, run it through my hair, squish it around until a mild lather shows up, and then wait, like, two minutes. And in that time, all of the knots fall out of my hair.
I don’t say that lightly. My curls snarl like a mofo, and I usually spend 10 minutes standing under the water detangling spider knots with a wide-tooth comb. For that reason, I reach for the Coconut Shampoo on the mornings I’m either so brain dead I want to keep sleeping while standing up, or just need a good curl day to happen. It always delivers. Despite the phenomenal coconut smell, I chalk it up to the trifecta of oils included in the formula. With coconut oil, jojoba oil, and olive oil, this is the gentlest shampoo I’ve ever found—it leaves my curls clean, but it also makes that “squelch” sound that means you can skip conditioner if you want to, because your hair is full-up on moisture. As a creature of habit, I never do. But I like having the option.
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