Take a second to think about your absolute favorite hair products. Up until I was about 17 years old, I believed the top hair styling products that someone could have were L'Oréal's Tangle Tamer spray, Aqua Net Hairspray, and whatever bright pink shampoo my friends had that probably smelled like a damn cupcake. Granted, I still think L'Oréal's Tangle Tamer spray is God's gift to me personally, but otherwise, I've thankfully evolved as a hair product owner. (But I'm not ashamed of where I came from, you feel me?) Now, after talking to Queer Eye's very own Jonathan Van Ness, hair artist extraordinaire, about the top five hair products he swears by, my hair styling habits will evolve even more.
As someone with dried-out, bleached hair that can still somehow be slicked back with no product after a day without washing, I wanted to kiss the ground Van Ness walked on when I learned all his favorite products somehow involve stretching out the lifespan of one wash. That's because I am admittedly 1) lazy and 2) wary about all of my hair breaking off one day.
So whether you're looking for ways out of washing your hair like I am, or if you're drooling over Van Ness' gorgeous locks in every episode of Queer Eye, Van Ness hears you, understands you, and has the dopest product recommendations to make your life (and your hair) infinitely easier to manage.
The first product Van Ness swears by is Shu Uemura's hair primer, Wonder Worker. "It’s this air dry/blow dry perfector that I love," he tells Elite Daily.
It's easy to see why Van Ness loves this product because it's essentially a tube filled with a magical elixir that fixes 99 percent of your hair issues, and I, for one, would bathe in it if I could. All you have to do is spritz it onto damp hair — the middle and ends of your hair, specifically — and work it through with your hands. It helps your hair shine. It smoothes and detangles. It conditions and hydrates. TBH, it would probably give you a hug if you asked it to nicely.
I'm gonna let you in on a secret that I didn't learn until I was 21 years old with simultaneously dry/greasy hair and broken dreams: Washing your hair too much isn't helping you. So how do your save your hair without looking like you dunked your head in a grease vat (i.e. what mine looks like the day after washing — no shame, though)? Enter: OUAI Dry Shampoo and Dry Shampoo Foam, two other products Van Ness also says he can't get enough of.
The Dry Shampoo and the Dry Shampoo Foam (which won't leave any white, powdery residue in your hair), will help to soak up some of the oil in your hair to keep it looking fresh and clean, without drying it out. Just spray the regular dry shampoo onto the roots of your hair, holding the bottle about 6 inches away from them. When it comes to the foam, squirt a small amount into your hands, rub 'em together, and start scrunching the product into your hair from the roots.
New Wash by Hairstory is what Van Ness describes as a "co-wash," meaning it's a conditioner-only wash for your hair. And before you hate on this suggestion, hear me out: I use this product myself, and my hair is truly #blessed.
"I really like co-washes," says Van Ness. "Usually, I’ll do a co-wash three out of four washes. So three times a month, I’ll use a co-wash, and then, once a month, I’ll do a proper shampoo." Basically, a co-wash won't bubble up when you lather it in your hair. This means it's free of detergents and sulfates, which dry out your hair over time. "Any bubble is too much bubble," he says.
He even notes that using a co-wash has limited the amount of other products and services he used to use on his hair. "I used to have to clear gloss my hair for shine. That was the only color that I did," he says. "But ever since I started doing co-washes, I don’t keratin and I don’t gloss. [Co-washes] made the other services I used to need to do to my hair not necessary, which I think is fun."
Believe it or not, "a lot of mousses actually extend the sh*t out of your blow dry," according to Van Ness. And Oribe's Grandiose Plumping Mousse is one product that Van Ness says will keep your hair feeling fresh for a lot longer... meaning you get to wash your hair less... meaning more time for you to sob into a burrito while watching Queer Eye
"[Grandiose Plumping Mousse] literally makes my blow drys last longer, even if I sweat," he says. "You really don’t have to rewash your hair from scratch. You can just keep kind of blow drying the sweat into your hair with some dry shampoo."
Van Ness continues that this particular mousse "gives [him] lift" and keeps his hair from looking rough a week after a wash. "Before I started using mousse, I would still not wash [except] once every week, but by day five or six, [my hair] had to be up, because it just looked a hot mess," he says. "But now, I’ve discovered these mousses, [and] a lot of them have products in it that are designed to extend the life of your blow dry, usually by absorbing oil."
All you gotta do it is shake the bottle up, squirt a little ball of the mousse in your hand, work it through your hair, and blow dry. The lift on your hair will deserve a standing ovation.
Unfortunately, we can't all appear on Queer Eye for a life makeover from the Fab Five. But luckily for all of us, with these product recs, we can all have a healthy, mini hair makeover by Jonathan Van Ness.
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