Review & Comparison: Not Your Mother's Clean Freak dry shampoo versus Batiste Dark & Deep Brown

As someone who has quite fine, limp hair, I am a huge fan and user of dry shampoos. Although I can work up some nice volume the day I wash and blow my hair dry, day 2 hair inevitably starts to look all flat, stringy and greasy. Sure, I could just wash my hair every day, but in trying to protect it from too much heat styling, I prefer not to. Of course, complicating matters is the fact that I have very dark, reddish brown hair, so most dry shampoos -- which use a fine powder to absorb the excess oils in your scalp -- leave me with an oh-so-beautiful prematurely going gray look (aka white powder streaks everywhere!).

Not the look I'm going for.

About 6 months ago I was wandering through Marshall's of all places and saw the Batiste Deep & Dark Brown dry shampoo in the beauty aisle, and after examining the ingredients to check for parabens and other major no-nos, excitedly put it in my cart. It was great to finally find a dry shampoo that actually blended in with my hair!

Of course, I will admit that I don't think ANY dry shampoo is a total miracle worker. For me, I find that they do a decent, if sometimes pretty good, job at absorbing the oil and making my hair look freshly washed. And, as an added benefit, they tend to add some volume and make my somewhat greasy hair at least a little bit easier to style. But frankly, by mid-day, I probably need to be re-applying, for my hair most definitely still falls flat and starts to look greasy as it did before I applied. Probably not much we can do to avoid that, I guess!

Needless to say, I was pretty satisfied with my Batiste until I got my recent Influenster Violet VoxBox, which had a travel size Not Your Mother's Clean Freak Refreshing Dry Shampoo in it. Of all the items I got in my VoxBox, I was most excited to try this one (as the rest were a bit junky, as I mentioned in my previous post). However, I'll admit that I was kind of scared that this would be just like the typical dry shampoos and cause my hair to turn a hideous white! (Thankfully that was not the case!)

At first, I didn't believe it, but it actually seemed as though the NYM dry shampoo was working better than my Batiste! Where the Batiste took a bit longer than I'd like to dry after spraying my hair, the NYM seemed to absorb much more quickly. Where the Batiste sort of made my head itch throughout the day (and when you scratched left a kind of gross brown smudge under your fingernail from the added colorants), the NYM left me feeling much more comfortable. And despite not having any ADDED colorants, the NYM dry shampoo didn't leave even the slightest ounce or tinge of gray or white in my hair.

From a scent perspective, the two products are quite different, with the Batiste smelling sweeter, a bit more flowery, and the NYM smelling much more fresh (as the name claims) with a hint of citrus or grassy notes. I don't care so much about fragrance, so this doesn't make me prefer one product over the other.

What's the only thing I didn't like about the NYM dry shampoo? I think their brand is aimed at girls younger than myself (I'm 29) with their "Not Your Mother's" claim and the way they describe their product on the back: "I know you're busy keeping up with that social life!...Get that perfect hair (and the perfect guy!) before all the other girls, etc. etc." It seems very much geared toward the pre-teen and teen market, which I am certainly well past (although I appreciate that segment of the marketplace very much!). So if anything, the branding makes me feel a wee bit alienated.

This post is getting REALLY long so I want to wrap up my thoughts quickly. After doing some final research, I discovered that the NYM product is not only better, but cheaper! You can get a 7 oz can for $5.99 as compared to a 6.7 oz can of the Batiste for $8.99. And, if you care, the NYM is rated a 6 on the Environmental Working Group's Skin Deep cosmetics database, whereas the Batiste is a 7 (and in retrospect seems to have more harmful ingredients).

Looks like I'll be buying the Not Your Mother's Dry Shampoo the next time I'm in the market!

Do you have a favorite dry shampoo? Tell the Beauty Babble community in the comments below.