How do you use hair mousse, and which one suits your hair?
Hair mousse is one of those Boozyshop products that almost everyone owns and almost nobody gets the most out of. You squeeze out a handful of foam, you scrunch it through your hair, and afterwards it is either flat or sticky. That is rarely the mousse. It is almost always the moment you apply it, the amount, and the way you dry your hair.
Below you will find what works for each hair type, and which mousse goes with it.
Wet, damp or dry hair?
Mousse needs water to spread. On bone dry hair it clings in patches and you get exactly those sticky strands nobody is after. So apply mousse to hair that is still damp.
How damp depends on what you want. For curl definition you work on towel dry to soaking wet hair, because the more water there is, the better the curl forms and the more evenly the mousse spreads. For volume at the roots you work on lightly damp hair instead, because too much water pulls the volume straight back out as soon as you start blow drying.
How much is enough?
Start with an amount the size of a mandarin for mid length hair, and build up if that is not enough. Using too much mousse is the most common mistake, and you only see it once your hair is dry. At that point there is no going back, because mousse cannot be combed out without losing your styling.
Two small moves make the difference. Scrunch the mousse into your hair with your head bent forward, so you get lift at the roots instead of weight. And work from the ends towards the roots rather than the other way round, so you leave the least product at your scalp.
Curls and waves: how to break the crunch
A mousse for curls leaves a slightly hard layer behind as it dries. That layer is called a cast, and it is there on purpose: it holds the curl in place until the hair is completely dry. Only once there is no moisture left do you rub your hair gently between your hands to break that layer. Do it too early and the curl collapses and you get frizz.
The Curly Secret Define+ Styling Foam is the most straightforward choice here, with hydrolysed corn starch for the hold and a light texture that follows your curl pattern.
For wavy hair that needs less hold, the Umberto Giannini Wavy Whip Style Control Mousse works better. This is an aerosol on butane and propane, so shake it well before use, otherwise mostly propellant comes out.
And for travelling or for trying it out there is the Curl Whip in 50 ml, the same idea in travel size.
You will find more along these lines in the curly hair and wavy hair collections.
Fine or limp hair: volume at the roots
With fine hair the roots are the whole story. You apply the mousse there only, in a thin band across your scalp, and you blow dry it with a round brush or upside down. You skip the lengths, because that is where mousse mainly adds weight.
The Envï Root Volume Foam is made specifically for this and comes in a pump bottle, so you dose exactly as much as you need.
The Curly Secret Volume+ Styling Foam sits between volume and definition, and is the one to pick if you have waves that could use some lift too.
The rest of the range for fine hair is in the thin hair collection.
Does mousse dry out your hair?
That is the question that comes up most often, and the answer is in the ingredient list. The alcohol the complaint is about is alcohol denat, a fast evaporating alcohol that older styling products used a lot of. None of the six mousses in this article contains alcohol denat. What you do come across is benzyl alcohol, and that is a preservative, not a drying alcohol.
If you are looking for a mousse without fragrance, there is one option among these six: the Chey Haircare Weightless Natural Volume Foam. Its ingredient list contains no fragrance ingredient, with flaxseed oil and corn starch doing the work. The other five have fragrance in the list.
In short
- Mousse on damp hair, never on bone dry hair
- Less than you think, and build up if it is not enough
- From the ends towards the roots, with your head bent forward
- With curls, break the cast only once your hair is completely dry
- With fine hair, roots only, and then blow dry with a round brush
Which mousse suits you depends on your hair type, and the full range is in the hair mousse collection.