We need to talk about the Living Proof Dry Shampoo that actually cleans your hair

By Holly O'Neill
01st Dec 2019

We need to talk about the Living Proof Dry Shampoo that actually cleans your hair

Dry shampoo that actually cleans your hair. The future has arrived.

Talk to me about how you use your dry shampoo. I bet you my Charlotte Tilbury Magic Cream that you do exactly the same as me — roll out of bed too late to wash your hair, grab your can of dry shampoo, spray it all over the crown of your head until you resemble Karl Lagerfeld, brush out the whiteness and then remain chalky-headed for another approximately three to five business days.

It feels gross, it’s bad for our hair, we’re suffocating our scalps but you know, we’re busy but also lazy.

There is, believe it or not, another way. A better way, an easier way, a brighter future, a more enticing choice between scratching your scalp all day versus the effort of blowdrying your hair.

Forgive me, if you are already among the initiated cult following, but it was news to me that there exists in the world a dry shampoo that actually does what it says on the tin.

“Yeah, it actually cleans your hair,” Michael Shaun, Global Creative Director at Living Proof told me as I examined the can of Living Proof Perfect Hair Day Dry Shampoo, which states, “actually cleans hair”.

“We sell millions of these every month, it’s like 30% of the business, it’s become a revolution,” says Michael. “I say ‘Living Proof’, people say ‘dry shampoo’. You have to try this. Editors, directors, women, bloggers, everybody goes nuts for this product. This is the reason it’s so loved, because it actually cleans your hair.”

“Most dry shampoos,” says Michael, “are a powder. It goes in the hair, stays in the hair, it absorbs oil. It discolours the hair. Living Proof went to work on how do we actually clean the hair? And how can we use the power of our science?”

The secret is Living Proof’s patented Healthy Hair Molecule, OFPMA, created by MIT scientists.

“The key is, once you spray it in, don’t touch it right away,” advises Michael. “Leave it on 30 seconds to a minute. What’s happening is, it’s acting like millions of little sponges, absorbing the oil, sweat, odour. All these little sponges, they need time to suck it up. Next, once those 30 seconds to a minute have gone, you do exactly what you do in the shower, just like you would with real shampoo.”

Michael sprays it into my hair, which is pretty crunchy already with texturing salt spray, and gives my head what I can only describe as exactly the same treatment you get on the first shampoo at the backwash at the hairdresser. He really works it in, exactly, as he says, like you would with real shampoo.

Afterwards, I can run my fingers through my previously crunchy hair. “You see all that volume is back, airy lightness, it’s not frizzy, it’s clean.”

There’s a little bit of residue on Michael’s hands, which he says is literally the oil and sweat from my hair. Gross for him, but amazing for me. My hair is actually clean.

“After a workout or after running around, you get to the office, this will take away the sweat. It’s hydrophobic and lipophobic, plus it’s got a time-release fragrance that’s not overwhelming, it will continue to work throughout the day, or two. It completely cleanses your hair.”