Scents for a Good Hair Day: Is it Advisable to Spray Perfume in Your Hair?

Hair scenting has been a big trend for a few seasons now, eschewing the matter of potential allergens, since hair can't react, and providing formulae that won't dry out delicate hair cuticles like alcohol-based products such as eau de toilette or eau de parfum does. As the company claims, "a blend of moisturizing oils provide a veil of fragrance and subtle shine".

Hair Mist is a form of fragrance product that has been gaining in popularity for a reason. Hair mists in several fragrance lines are a wonderful and relatively newer product that can be applied on the hair without damage. They typically contain water, added scent, soluble silicones and emulsifiers and little else, so they bypass the main culprit of a regular bottle of eau de toilette or eau de perfume, namely alcohol. They come in the form of spray mists that can be directly applied on the hair or on the brush and they impart a light veil which holds its scent for more than a couple of hours.

There are several companies and brands that have invested in this market and I have some recommendations to make accordingly.

Tocca has come out with 5 scents for their Hair Mists: Florence (floral with violet), Cleopatra (ambery spicy), Colette (fresh citrus with juniper and musk), Liliana (fresh peachy neroli and gardenia) and Stella (refreshing freesia and lily with musk). The bottles look as cute, or even cuter than the actual eaux de toilette and the scents project credibly, if subtler.

White Moss Nourishing Hair Perfume by Acca Kappa was formulated to envelop the hair in a pleasant, delicate scent while at the same time contributing to its beauty. According to Acca Kappa, it “contains a hydrolyzed corn, wheat and soy protein complex chosen for its hydrating and nourishing action. The organic green tea and red grape vine extracts help protect the hair against damage caused by external aggressors. The fresh white moss scent will leave your hair pleasantly fragranced.”

The offerings in Thierry Mugler Angel and Narciso Rodriguez For Her are particularly caring and they smell very nice indeed. In the case of Angel, in fact, this is probably the very best way to carry this powerhouse of a scent; the hair product retains the wonderful gourmand and patchouli qualities without overpowering anyone in the vicinity.

Chanel is another company who regularly offers hair mist products and those come in a variety of fragrances: No.5, Chance and Chance Eau Tendre are available in hair mists as we speak and they come in beautiful bottles that adorn the dresser at a relatively lower price point; good news if you want some Chanel but are budget-restrained. There is also the dedicated Balmain Hair Perfume (shown above) which is a separate product that is constructed to be a scent that adapts well to use in hair, although the promise of a fragrance is probably a bit too much considering the simpler peachy nuance that recalls hair products. 

Dior's J'adore Hair Mist is another good product, retaining the characteristic bouquet of the eau de parfum, as is Miss Dior Parfum pour les Cheveux. Byredo Blanche Hair Perfume is a great long lasting option of warm clean musks, and Carnal Flower Hair Mist by Frederic Malle is the supremely indulgent option, great for those loving the green fresh tuberose scent and wanting to be surrounded by it all day long! Frederic Malle has recently also issued Portrait of a Lady in a Hair Mist formula; the gorgeous combination of rose, patchouli and incense rests on a bed of smoky amber that makes a deep impression and creates an intense mystery.

The Lover's Hair

James Jacques Tissot, Mme & M.Mauperin en Égypte

"She came to live only through him and for him, by his presence, by the thought of him, by his future, his portrait, which she carried when she last met him. When she parted from him, she ran her hands through his hair several times and then put on her gloves quickly. All the following day she breathed, sitting next to her husband, next to her daughter, in her house, the smell of her beloved and of his hair, which emanated from her hands, which she had not washed."

Edmond & Jules de Goncourt, Renée Mauperin (1864).

Hair Fragrances: the New Frontier

Starting with the mention of the unusual notes of white chocolate and orris root in Catwalk Your Highness Elevating Shampoo and Nourishing Conditioner by TIGI and the blue hyacinth of Philosophy's Field of Flowers shampoo, a New York Times article by Hilary Howard notes that hair might be the new frontier when it comes to fragrance.

Aficionados who read this blog might recall that we had proposed that a way to bypass the latest perfumery restrictions would be for companies to really exploit that segment of the market. One might not be able to wear oakmoss-rich scents on the skin, since oakmoss above a certain level can be a skin sensitiser, but our dead cells growing out of our heads (yup, we're talking hair here) are imprevious to those risks!
Indeed several companies, Chanel (Allure, Coco Mademoiselle), Thierry Mugler (Angel) and Narciso Rodriguez (Narciso For Her) and even Aquolina (Pink Sugar), among them have products called "hair mists" in their range, long before such concerns became prevalent among our community core. These are products which act as a veil of fragrance meant to be used on our hair itself, often labelled "parfum pour les cheveux" or simply "hair mist" or "hair scent". The compositions usually hold scent well, they are almost identical to the scent of the regular Eau de Toilette or Eau de Parfum whose range they compliment and they contain no abrasive alcohol so as to leave hair supple. And best of all, they can be used on body and clothes, just as easily as a regular fragrance. And who can forget the Guerlain "stillboide" products? They were light oily-lotion type products meant to be used for hair, to impart sheen and a delicate scent. Luckily for us, they can be used on skin as well.

Still, hair products bear their own stigma, it seems: Yves Durif,of the Yves Durif Salon (in The Carlyle), expresses doubt in the above article about saturated-with-scent hair products, while any “nice perfume, which can be sprayed into the hair, should not have to compete with hair products. You can make perfume for each individual, but hair products need to please everyone,” he said. “They can’t be individualized.”

pic via evecare