The good thing about having longer hair is that I don’t have to wash it as often. I have the type of hair that gets really greasy and limp by the second day, no matter what length. I had heard that dry shampoo could help me out, but it is so expensive! Also, I was never sure what was in it and whether there were phthalates. I looked at various brands for a while and noticed one ingredient in common: corn starch.
So I got a box of corn starch, sprinkled some on my hands, and put it into my second-day-dirty hair.
Voila! Dry shampoo!
For the longest time, I used only corn starch as dry shampoo. Then I read that some people use baby powder. So I started mixing baby powder and corn starch. It smells nice and works great!
Here’s my super simple recipe:
Homemade dry shampoo
updated 9/2012 from reader comments for brunette hair
corn starch
baby powder
* cocoa powder
travel size squeeze bottle
funnel or piece of paper
- Put the funnel into the squeeze bottle or roll up a piece of paper to create your own funnel.
- Fill the container about 1/4 with baby powder.
- If your hair is brunette, add the cocoa powder here. Add just enough to achieve a color that will blend. Remember that your hair will absorb the powder, so don’t try to make it too dark because that isn’t necessary. Just dark enough!
- Fill the rest of the way with cornstarch. Make sure to leave some room to shake.
- Shake the bottle to mix the powders. If you’re having trouble evenly mixing the cocoa, use a chopstick to manually stir.
That’s it! Because the bottle is so small, you can take it pretty much anywhere. It doesn’t take a lot, either. I like to shake it onto my hands and then rub my hands into my scalp.
Enjoy!
See I tried this but with my darker hair, it doesn’t work. It is obvious what I tried. I have managed to find some for under $10.
As my hair got longer I tried dry shampoo to extend a hairwashing. I used the really expensive one… cuz I found the cheaper ones didn’t work as well.
But now that I regularly only shampoo every other day I find that I don’t need the spray to hold out… I think your scalp eventually adapts to the change.
I used to be very greasy after a day and a half. now I’m good till the end of day two.
That is really good to know – I would love it if I had to wash my hair even LESS than every-other-day!!
Have you tried the homemade shampoo? The vinegar solution. {See Simple Mom.} I hear there’s a greasy adjustment period 🙁 but that after that it’s great.
I have heard of that but have been too chicken to try it! So does it work with straight hair? Do you do it?
Recipe for dark or black hair:
corn starch
baking soda
drawing charcoal (for turning dry shampoo black, so there will be no white residues on your dark hair!!!)
Grind drawing charcoal (buy at artist shop, perhaps also activated charcoal powder would work) with spoon on the shallow plate.
mix cca 1 part of the grinded charcoal with 2 parts of corn starch (it absorbs grease) and 1 part of baking soda (it absorbs odour). You shoud experiment with the quantity of charcoal, the more you add, darker dry shampoo you wil get.
If you have brown hair (brunette), you can add grinded brown sidewalk chalk, for bluenettes blue sidewalk chalk, for lightbrown hair add yellow or light brown sidewalk chalk etc…
apply the mixture in your hair, wait 5 minutes and rubb it off with a towel. You dont have to rubb off all of the powder, becouse it has the same color as your hair.
Dry shampoo is a great solution for dyed hairs becouse it reduces the need for hair washing and therefore preserve the color and prevent its fading. It works great for my hair dyed with natural indigo (indigofera tinctoria mixed with hot water 65°C and 1/4 tbs of non iodic salt left immediately after mixing for 30 minutes on extra clean hair washed with dishsoap).
corn starch…ahhhhhh! Now I get it. Thanks.