Best Organic Dry Shampoos to Refresh and Nourish Your ‘Do

With organic ingredients that volumize hair, absorb oil, and provide a pleasant fragrance.

Dry shampoo is a life-saver for traveling, busy weeks, nights out, and even fixing yourself up after a tough workout. It’s easy to use and convenient to carry around in a day bag, and it can go a long way toward boosting your look on days when you don’t have time to go through your usual hair care routine.

Why choose organic dry shampoo?

While dry shampoo is a miraculous product with plenty of uses, conventional, aerosol dry shampoos are extremely harmful to the environment. The use of aerosols contributes to indoor air pollution, affecting not just the distant reaches of the climate but the air we breathe in every day. We strongly recommend using powder dry shampoo rather than aerosol products. It’s healthier for your lungs and for the environment.

We also recommend avoiding dry shampoos that contain artificial chemicals. It’s important to check the ingredients label on any product before purchasing. Some particularly harmful ingredients that are commonly found in dry shampoo include talc, cetrimonium chloride, denatured alcohols, and silicones. Ingredients like these can contribute to dry or oily scalps, can cause allergic or other adverse reactions, and have even been linked to an increased risk of cancer.

Benefits of organic dry shampoo

1. Oil absorption

Natural dry shampoos feature astringent ingredients like clay, baking soda, and arrowroot powder. These organic ingredients absorb natural oils from your scalp and hair roots, improving the appearance of oily hair.

2. Volumizing

Dry shampoos can also help to build up the volume of your hair, making them a handy tool for pulling off certain hair styles, or just for days when your hair is looking limp.

3. Scent

Organic dry shampoos usually include natural, essential oil such as lavender oil to impart a subtle fragrance.

Our favorite organic dry shampoos

Mermaid Dry Shampoo from Captain Blankenship
Cruelty-free
This dry shampoo powder is totally talc-free, and contains only six ingredients. It features aluminum-free baking soda, kaolin clay, and arrowroot powder to mop up excess oil. It also adds volume to your hair, making it a perfect option for any bad hair day. It’s delicately scented with essential oils, so your hair will smell as great as it looks!

Hair Powder from Lulu Organics
Cruelty-free, vegan, gluten-free
Talc-free and silky to the touch, this powder is formulated from corn starch, white clay, baking powder, and horsetail powder to condition your hair while blotting excess oil. It comes in a range of different scents to suit your needs, including an unscented option for those who prefer to go natural.

Dry Shampoo for Brunette to Dark Hair from Acure
Cruelty-free, vegan
This dry shampoo is free of parabens, sulfates, petroleum, mineral oil, and silicones. Its main ingredients are arrowroot powder, corn starch, baking soda, and kaolin clay. It also features an essential oil blend for fragrance. This powder is pigmented with cocoa powder, so it’ll blend in with dark hair, making it suitable for use by brunettes and other dark hair colors.

Refresh Dry Shampoo from Innersense Organic Beauty
Cruelty-free
It can be difficult to apply powder dry shampoos with precision, but this foam-to-powder formula makes that hassle a thing of the past. It features tapioca starch and witch hazel to blot oil out of your hair, and honey to to add volume and shine. It’s a versatile, lightweight product that’s suitable for different hair types.

Flowers + Pink Clay Dry Shampoo from Little Barn Apothecary
Cruelty-free
The rice starch in this formula helps to build volume while it absorbs oil. Meanwhile, pink and white clay work together to degrease hair, while an essential oil blend imparts a soft, feminine, floral scent. The narrow dispenser allows you to apply the product with precision.

Fruit Fusion Coconut Water Weightless Dry Shampoo by SheaMoisture
Cruelty-free
This formula mops up oil while keeping your hair conditioned. It uses a base of cornstarch and tapioca starch to absorb oil, and also features moisturizing ingredients like shea butter, coconut fruit juice, and aloe. It adds volume and life to your hair, keeping your locks healthy while giving them a boost.

All Natural Cleansing Hair Mist/Dry Shampoo by Bare Alchemy
Cruelty-free
This lightweight mist cleanses your hair without leaving behind any residue. Eucalyptus and lemon myrtle enrich hair and balance the scalp, while essential oils impart a subtle scent. This formula is also enriched with biotin to promote hair strength, growth, and health.

Overnight Dry Shampoo by Kaia Naturals
Cruelty-free, vegan
This dry shampoo is free of talc, synthetic fragrances, and sulfates, and is available in two tints: blonde and brunette. It features a non-aerosol spray dispenser for easy application. Best of all, it’s formulated to be sprayed into your hair before you go to sleep, allowing it clean up your hair while you sleep. Rice starch, arrowroot powder, and charcoal absorb oil, while citrus oil perfumes and nourishes hair.

How to use dry shampoo

We recommend using dry shampoo up to two days in a row, at most, without shampooing. If you use dry shampoo more often than this, the product may build up on your scalp to cause clogged pores and hair follicles. To thoroughly cleanse your hair in between dry shampoo uses, you could use an apple cider vinegar rinse. Just saturate your hair with apple cider vinegar and allow it to sink in for 5-7 minutes, and then wash the vinegar away.

To use your dry shampoo, start by applying a small amount of powder to a few different areas of your scalp. Gently massage the powder into your scalp and roots, and then comb out your hair to see the full effect. Apply more powder and repeat the process if needed.

Dry shampoo may not be a catch-all solution for all hair woes. It’s best to consider it as a supplement to your hair routine, for crazy weeks when you can’t give your hair the attention it needs. Still, the right, natural dry shampoo is a seriously handy tool to have up your sleeve! What’s your favorite dry shampoo brand that you swear by?