Beauty Life

Maybe you care about things like your hair looking awesome and the well-being of the planet. If you don't, I can only assume you have reached a monk-like state of asceticism, or are one of the very first beta testers of a Mars travel program, and have better things to worry about, like whether or not they will print your name correctly in history books. For everyone else: I would like to notify you that Tresemmé Compressed Micro Mist Hairspray is genius on both fronts.

The scientists behind the new hairspray compressed the particles that make up a standard 11-ounce hair spray can into a bottle half the size. That means the bottle is slimmer than the classic Tresemmé hairspray. And less packaging means less packaging waste, which one can only imagine must make for more efficient shipping process, and a smaller environmental footprint.

But that's only half of the reason this hairspray is very very cool. The compressed technology also allows them to deliver the same amount of product with less gas, which means fewer volatile organic compounds (pollutants generated by gases) are released into the air. These two factors — the eco-friendly packaging and the innovative formula — are the reason this impressive styler won an Allure Best of Beauty Breakthrough Award this year.

So yes, it's better for the environment, which is awesome, but how does the hairspray actually perform, you might ask? The formula is neither too wet nor too light. In other words, it's all the things I love about hairspray (fewer flyaways, insurance that your hair will look remotely the same after you leave the house as it did when you first fixed it) and nothing I don't (helmet hair, the inability to brush it after you've spritzed it on).

“The formula had to be more concentrated, but we still wanted a fine mist,” Alfonso Valecillos, a senior product development manager for Unilever, told writer Victoria Kirby in our October 2018 Best of Beauty issue. His scientists tried more than 50 versions of the spray to get it just right. “These compressed droplets give you long-lasting hold with lots of movement — something I haven’t seen before with smaller droplets,” says cosmetic chemist Kelly Dobos.

And, unlike my natural toothpaste and deodorant, which make me feel equal parts good (that I'm reducing my chemical exposure) and not good so good (specifically, like I might be emitting low levels of unpleasant odors), this hairspray performs as highly as I expect it to. It holds up my teased hair, calms my halo of baby hairs, and keeps fixed styles looking fixed. Genius, indeed.