There’s a new player in town to replace your favourite salt spray. But why should you swap from salty to sweet? Let us enlighten you …
Summer is within our midst (just!) which means festivals, barbecues and beachy locks. To achieve the latter, salt spray has always been the next best thing to dunking your hair in the sea and running Baywatch-style across the shoreline as it dries into Pammy-perfect curls. But salt sprays aren’t for everyone. Like seawater - they can leave hair dry and parched. Plus, not everyone’s a fan of the resulting ‘crispy’ texture. Meet your new hair hero…
So why should you swap this sweet option for your savoury hair BFF? The formulas are less drying for one – which is ideal if your hair’s brittle and partial to frizz but you still want it to have all that defined, wavy goodness (curly /Afro hair types take note). As senior stylist at Neville Hair & Beauty Jack Merrick Thirlway explains, “Sugar spray creates a similar result to a salt spray but with a softer finish. It leaves the hair looking defined and beachy without the crunchy texture.”
To be honest, sugar spray doesn’t create that same ‘raw’ finish as its salty cousin, but it still gives good tousle. We find it’s perfect for adding definition and oomph, or if you want windswept locks without the ‘Something About Mary’ stiffness (ahem).
What’s more, plenty of these sprays are packed with nourishing ingredients to deliver a hefty hit of moisture to parched strands. All you need to do is shake it and mist over towel-dried tresses, scrunch drying or blow drying with a diffuser if you’re strapped for time.
Want to add a little sweetener to your strands? Here are six to try:
As well as the groovy packaging brightening up our bathroom shelf, this is great for fine, straight hair as it texturises and lifts like a dream.
This non-sticky formula creates natural looking waves – it works well even on bone-dry hair, so it’s one to keep by the desk to top up with during the day.
If your thinning locks need a bit of a boost, this contains a special sugar starch called maltodextrin that coats and thickens each strand, while ginger and ginseng stimulate the scalp to help boost hair growth.
Containing a hydrating cocktail of sunflower seed extract, marine algae, and sea kelp, this is the perfect foil for frizz-prone strands, while still delivering a beachy texture.
Not strictly a “sugar spray” as such, but if you want to swap out your salt spray for something more gentle, this uses rice protein - which gets hair looking artfully dishevelled without any stiffness - as well as conditioning plant oils and an addictive scent to boot.
This is the sugar bomb for any hair type. It’s great for fine locks to add brightness and body, creating natural, subtle texture to give that perfect “après-surf” appearance. The nourishing formula with Aloe hydrates and conditions strands so thick, coarse hair can also benefit. Tresses look big, beachy and full-bodied without being weighed down.
Images: Maxx Miller / Instagram
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