Scented Halo: Why Your Hair Needs Perfume Too

For someone obsessed with clean hair, I think I may have just found my nirvana in a bottle. It’s called hair mist and it’s making my days heavenly. With a lighter fragrance and less alcohol than eau de parfum, hair mist is the ultimate way to help you smell incredible from head to toe, literally. And, blessedly for me, a growing number of fragrance houses are adding hair mists to their range.

IMAGE: INSTAGRAM @ANHCOTRAN

Whether you fancy Diptyque or Dior, Tocca or Tom Ford, there’s now a stunning selection of scents to spritz your tresses with. Lasting far longer than the scent of your shampoo, hair mists are not only the perfect addition to your après shampoo regime, they’re also a great way to freshen your porous locks between washes. We all know how our hair can tell the story of the night before or an early morning gym session. But by adding a spritz of hair mist after some dry shampoo you can change the narrative, leaving your hair looking and smelling like you’ve just stepped from the shower.

Little wonder that Mecca’s Head of Education Jacob Stanley describes hair mist as having a scented halo effect. Having flagged hair mists as one of its top beauty trends for 2018, the beauty powerhouse has been busy expanding it range of these wonderful concoctions since the launch of its first hair mist offerings – two Maison Francis Kurkdjian scents – late last year.

If you have a favourite fragrance, adding the matching hair mist to your EDP and body oil creates another lovely layer to the experience. But hair mist can also act as your solo scent, offering a softer suggestion of your preferred perfume at times when you feel like a lighter alternative or don’t want your scent to be intrusive.

CHANEL CHANCE EAU TENDRE HAIR MIST

TOCCA FLORENCE HAIR FRAGRANCE

Mecca’s Jacob says hair mist is a great option for the office. “Most people don’t want their perfume to overwhelm their desk mates or engulf the meeting room, so they like to go for a hair mist, which always have a lower concentration of fragrant oils,” he says.

Whether you match your mist or keep it simple, the wonderful thing about wearing fragrance on your hair is that it continues to gently make its magic as your hair moves, with the scent wafting through the air with every flick of your tresses.

So are hair mists good for your hair? There’s no question that they are far less harmful than traditional perfumes which contain a higher percentage of alcohol (so are off limits for locks), and many mists include additional elements to hydrate and add shine and UV protection. As with all good things, the general consensus seems to be you should mist in moderation, giving your hair a few sprays throughout the day to freshen your fragrance when needed.

And that’s easy to do, because not only are hair mists quite compact (Byredo’s stunning scents come in funky spray cans), many of them are also fabulously affordable, with some beautiful offerings starting from around $30. A small price to pay for a halo around your hair!