A Few Good Dry Shampoos

I love drugstores as much as I love the movie A Few Good Men. I'm pretty sure I could stop at one drugstore every day and always find something I need. My love of the drugstore probably originated during my formidable years back home in the Midwest. When the Target closed in my small hometown, CVS became the only comparable store in town. It was either CVS, or drive across the river to the border state for the closest Walmart.

Anyway ... I love drugstores, and my recent drugstore obsession has been dry shampoos. I'll buy one, use it a few times and then decide there's something just not quite perfect enough about it and go spend $4-5 on another one.

So I feel like I'm a pretty decent judge when it comes to determining the best dry shampoo on the market, and as surprising as this might seem, Suave wins.

That's not to say that the others I've tried aren't swell ... It's just that I prefer Suave's, which is ironic because I never favor the least expensive anything. (Ask Mr. Cush and he'll confirm before you can finish the question.)

Here are my quick assessments of the dry shampoos I've tried out for you, in order of least favorite to the gold standard by which I'll forever compare any other ...

Garnier - One of these days, I swear I'm going to stop buying Garnier hair products because of the scent. The scent sticks around all day, just like the Subway smell sticks to your clothes once you've walked in for a sandwich. Unlike Subway, though, this smell gags me. I can't handle it. It smells like melons and apples mated and they shouldn't have, and the melon-apple-hybrid-spawn-demon baby clings to my head all day and never relents.

Tresemme - This one seemed to receive the best reviews from my favorite beauty bloggers, but I found it to just be "ehhhhhhhhh." It made my hair feel a little like putty - it felt strange to touch and its difficult to express how it changed the texture of my hair at the roots. Honestly, I probably expected too much after the reviews I saw, and like most New Year's Eves, it simply didn't meet expectations.

Dove - Pretty darn good. I won't lie, I was drawn to the packaging of this one. It'd be my favorite dry shampoo if I had never tried the Suave or Batiste alternatives. (DISCLAIMER: It's entirely possible that the packaging persuaded me to say that, because, well, it's partly pink.)

Batiste - This is the first dry shampoo I ever tried, and I'd consider it my second-most favorite. I found this one worked best when it was vigorously shaken before applying, otherwise I looked like I dumped a bottle of baby powder on my head. I need to try the Batiste Dry Shampoo for Blondes someday, but I'll wait until the next ULTA coupon hits my mailbox before making that purchase.

Suave - Perfection. When Mommabear raised my sisters and I on Suave brand products, I always thought she was trying to skimp out and save a few pennies. It's taken me a few years to come back around to this brand, mostly because I think society teaches us to believe generic is less quality. In the case of the dry shampoo battle, generic wins in a first-round KO. You need this in your life if you're hoping to skip a day or two between shampoos.