I am a person who uses a lot of dry shampoo. I don’t have to wash my hair all that often, but you can bet I’ll still push that 1.5–2 hour wash and dry session back another day when I can. In other words, I knew the new JVN Hair Dry Shampoo would be an easy one to slot into my weekly haircare routine to review.
Launched in 2021 by hairstylist Jonathan Van Ness—who is best known for their role as Queer Eye’s grooming expert—JVN Hair is all about efficacious and sustainable haircare and styling products. And believe me and my fellow beauty editors—you can tell that they were created by a hairdresser. As such, fans have been desperately asking the brand to launch their contender for the best dry shampoo for a long time; it is their most requested product, so expectations, including mine, were high. Here’s how I got on with it.
In terms of first impressions, you can’t deny that JVN has gone for probably the most cheerful-looking colour possible here, a bright lemon yellow that’ll stand out from any other hair products. Other than that, the design is as minimalistic as the rest of the range with the understated signature branding. At £26 for 204ml, it’s about on par with other premium buys like Living Proof’s dry shampoos.
I spritzed some into the lid of the can not long after I got it. The scent was not what I was expecting—not that that’s a bad thing—and is fresh, a little citrusy and musky. There’s a kind of nostalgic summer holidays vibe to it, which will make for a nice uplifting summery feel no matter the time of year.
Then there’s the formula. There are some scalp-care ingredients on offer here, namely ground cherry extract, which the brand says helps to hydrate and soothe the scalp, while rosemary extract is there to help support scalp and hair follicle health. Mediterranean algae is also in the mix to help regulate the scalp’s oil production over time—while I’ve not been using the formula for long enough to report on that front, it certainly sounds promising for those whose hair gets greasy very quickly.
But probably the most interesting thing, in my opinion, is the cleansing technology. Remember when the topic of the week on social media was using micellar water as dry shampoo? JVN has incorporated that phenomenon into The Essential Dry Shampoo with a micellar-powered solution that cleanses hair gently. The difference is, unlike micellar water, which has been formulated for your skin, here it’s also been designed for use on hair from the start. Clever, no?
Now, for what you really want to know: how I got on it when I applied it to my oily (and a while past their last colour appointment) roots. You can see from the before and after images above that it did its job of freshening things up nicely for an instant difference. After spraying it from a distance and leaving it for several seconds, I used a brush to distribute it through my roots evenly and let that micellar tech work its magic.
One of the biggest sticking points around dry shampoo is the risk of white or chalky residue left behind by the cleansing powders, particularly visible on darker hair. As with pretty much any dry shampoo I’ve ever tried, if you spray JVN’s at too close a range, you might see a very small amount of white residue. However, this settles down within seconds and disappears completely when you massage in or brush through. Though I do find I have to apply quite a bit of it, it still feels fairly lightweight in the hair and, crucially, noticeably freshens it up.
All in all, very good stuff. I know I’ll be using it right up to the final squeezed-out spray.
