12 Best Mousses for Curly and Wavy Hair Tested & Reviewed, 2024

Table Of Content

• Use Hair Growth Oils to Keep Your Hair Healthy While You Grow it Out
• John Frieda Volume Lift Air Whipped Foam
• Locsanity Passion Fruit Alcohol-Free Conditioning and Styling Mousse
• Design Essentials Natural Almond and Avocado Curl Enhancing Mousse
• SoCozy Curl Volumizing Foam For Kid’s Hair
• Best Overall Mousse: Biolage Styling Foam
• DevaCurl Frizz-Fighting Volumizing Foam

Scrunch and twirl a golf-ball-size puff through damp—not wet—hair from roots to tips, then diffuse or air-dry. Another botanical-filled product, Cloud is a lightweight formula that delivers body and manageability to all hair types. After washing your hair with shampoo for curly hair and conditioner, Taylor says that mousse is typically applied to towel-dried hair for better definition and hold. You can still apply mousse to dry hair, but she explains that it should mostly be saved for touch-ups. For curly hair type 3 or 4 hair, she advises detangling first and spritzing a leave-in conditioner for a boost of hydration before putting on any mousse. You'd be hard-pressed to get a better deal on a curl mousse than this formula from Herbal Essences, priced at less than $3.

Use Hair Growth Oils to Keep Your Hair Healthy While You Grow it Out

But keep in mind that due to its airy lightness, it does not provide the same stronghold that gel does. Mousse is less crunchy than a gel and thus provides a more natural, soft appearance. It can also offer more flexibility in your preferred style, allowing you more time to perfect it before your hair dries. You might not always want a super-strong hold, particularly if your hair is fine.

John Frieda Volume Lift Air Whipped Foam

For fine or thin hair, coconut oil will be light enough to give you curl definition without weighing down your hair. There are certain things you want to look out for when shopping for a hair mousse. It’s important to keep in mind your hair type, curl patterns, and what type of style you are after to ensure you pick the product that fits you best. It hydrates damaged hair, plumps up curls, and gives you the soft, tumbling locks of your dreams. It is also great for using with natural coily hair to moisturize and strengthen the strands.

Locsanity Passion Fruit Alcohol-Free Conditioning and Styling Mousse

We’ll display the strength of each product as we move through our list. Fine or flat hair doesn't do well with product build-up, which can weigh hair down and make it look greasy. This formula is so lightweight and helps to smooth frizz and leaves a knockout shine to lengths. Many formulas offer heat protection and added hydration, so they treat and style simultaneously.

18 Best Anti-Frizz Hair Products of 2024, Tested by Experts - Good Housekeeping

18 Best Anti-Frizz Hair Products of 2024, Tested by Experts.

Posted: Fri, 18 Aug 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]

So, instead of backcombing and dry shampooing your way to fuller lengths, give one of these foams a go and await the influx of compliments. Trial and error is essential if you’re going to find the right mousse. All products featured on Allure are independently selected by our editors. This won Best of the Best awards for Best Mousse for Coily Type 4 Hair and for All Hair Types voted by the NaturallyCurly community. If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, WWD may receive an affiliate commission. Good Housekeeping participates in various affiliate marketing programs, which means we may get paid commissions on editorially chosen products purchased through our links to retailer sites.

It’s also extra nourishing, thanks to shea butter and coconut oil, so you’ll get defined curls and coils without the crunch. The Virtue Volumizing Mousse combines nourishing and strengthening ingredients to simultaneously treat and style locks. The star ingredient is the brand’s proprietary Alpha Keratin 60ku, a repairing protein that’s said to be identical to the keratin found in our hair. Other key ingredients include baobab seed oil, panthenol, amino acids and hydrolyzed amaranth protein for shine and fullness.

Best Overall Mousse: Biolage Styling Foam

Fortunately, we’ve gathered a list of the best mousses out there and broken down the benefits of each one, so you don’t have to. Personally, I like to use mousse as a styling base and finish it off with a touch of gel (always mixed with water) to ensure maximum frizz-control. “If diffused until fully dry, a lot of times, the curl cast created by mousse will turn soft, leaving you with light and airy curls,” says Kaleel. We love that the weightless mousse was designed to provide strong hold for those with loose curls and protective styles like locs and braids. Though a few online reviewers found the formula to be drying, we were impressed by how soft and moisturized our curls felt. Though, we do think the product performs best in conjunction with the brand’s Leave-In Conditioner or Styling Cream.

In the end, it all boils down to finding the best mousse for your hair type. Mousse is a versatile and trusted hair product that can be used by everyone — whether you want to tame your frizz, enhance your natural waves, or add volume to normally flat hair. We hope our guide has helped you find the mousse of your dreams, giving you the gorgeous waves you deserve. If you have thin and flat hair that is borderline curly, you’ll find that this styling mousse gives it a beautiful and controlled bounce. However, if your hair is very thick, SexyHair Styling Mousse might be a little too lightweight.

If you’re looking for a very versatile mousse that can even work on synthetic hair then look no further. The For Every Hair Type Smooth & Style Mousse is true to its name. Therefore, making it the best mouse for curls that are both human hair and synthetic. This mousse works great when you are working on wet hair or dry hair. But if you still don't, then at least trust this invisible lightweight hairspray.

We put several hair mousses to the test, and these 17 below are the best mousses that are deserving of your hard-earned money. "Hair mousse was first created around the '60s with the idea to create maximum volume to hair. Initially, it had a very sticky texture," says expert hairstylist Larry King. However, there's a product we've totally been sleeping on, and it is currently being used by just about every top celebrity hairdresser right now to create full, voluminous hair on the red carpet. While it once garnered a reputation for being a little old-fashioned, we can assure you that hair mousse is firmly back on our dressing tables. Jennifer Lopez is one of our top picks for hair inspiration, and we love these volumised, bouncy curls created by celebrity hairdresser Chris Appleton. To use the mousse, just apply it to damp hair and diffuse or style as you normally would.

It has a crunch-free and softening formula making it perfect for natural hair use. To apply the Suave Professionals Captivating Curls Mousse Cream, gently massage it into wet hair. A top-notch formula at your local drugstore, this mousse has volumizing polymers that give fine hair bounce and body without weighing it down. It also offers a medium hold, so you can use it to keep your style in place all day, no hairspray needed. This mousse has a been a long time fan favorite for it’s moisture-rich styling formula that does not leave any flaky residue, stickiness, or crunching. The blend of shea butter, coconut oil, and hibiscus help to deep moisturize and protect dry and brittle hair from breakage.