How to use salt spray

If there is one thing that most women want for their hair, it’s volume – but that doesn’t always mean going big on the crown or only focusing on lifting the roots. The expert’s secret is to add width to the hair and create body as well, so that it doesn’t look flat and lifeless.

While dry shampoo is the popular choice to temporarily revive flat and limp hair, using it at the roots of clean and second- or third-day hair can irritate the scalp by creating product buildup. It also leaves a powdery, dusty feeling, making it unsuitable to spray through the lengths of the hair. According to London-based hair stylist James Galvin, we’ve got it all wrong, and what we should be using for thick and “gutsy” hair is a salt spray, also known as a beach spray.

“Instead of a dry shampoo or volumizing mousse that can make your hair go lank by day two, the one product I’ve found that gives great volume and texture without leaving the residue is a good beach spray,” says Galvin. “It gives tousled, beachy waves and also volume and natural movement throughout the hair. My favorite is the R+CO Rockaway Salt Spray – it creates height at the roots as you’d expect but also plumps the hair fibers, creating real thickness and width without that usual crunchy texture left by some salt sprays.”

Spritz through the roots and lengths of towel-dried hair (wet hair dilutes the product, making it less effective) before blow-drying.