Living Proof Full Root Lifting Spray: Get Back to the Lab, And See What's on the Slab

Dixie

Countless ladies with hair on their head, be it curly or straight, want to achieve the perfect balance of healthy, full hair. Some of us may not wish to or even have the time to spend doing our hair, so it remains a wish released into the mirror. Others, like me, try in vain every miracle product they come across in the hopes that it will provide enough volume to avoid sad limp hair, but not so much volume that Kelly LeBrock travels forward in time to hand us a brush and tell us to tone down the mane already. So it was with the Living Proof Full Root Lifting Spray, all I wanted was some volume at my roots.

Living Proof is famous for developing their products in a lab. To make a long story short, a bunch of scientists got together and said to themselves, "Hey, all of the hair products marketed to women suck. How can we make it better?" So they whipped out their beakers, test tubes, pipettes, and other sciency stuff and made a few molecules that were unique to their products. And then they launched a marketing campaign. It totally worked, at least on me. Their first premise is mostly correct - a lot, if not the majority, of hair products for women suck. Every salon, cosmetic retailer, and department store is positively stuffed with products filled with silicones, waxes, and petroleums that no woman ever needs on her hair, especially if she is questing ever after the eternal Good Hair Day. Their second premise, "How can we make it better," well, Living Proof whiffed that one big time, at least with the Root Lifting Spray in the Full product line.

Normally, I have no problem with getting and maintaining good volume in most of my hair. It's the couple inches near my scalp that tend to fall flat without some serious help. At the time, I was using another Living Proof product (more on that in a future review) and getting okay results with it. So I figured that I might as well try the Root Lifting Spray because even only half-way decent results would be better than what I was getting (flat hair at the roots) and it would help me reach the $50 mark so I could get free shipping at Sephora.

The results I got were, shall we say, less than half-way decent. Holding the bottle the requisite 8-10 inches away from my head, I sprayed the product at my roots...and got a half-dollar sized spritz on my head. A one-inch sized application of product directly to my roots. Not exactly the volume I'm looking for. After applying one-inch sized spritzes to my roots all the way around my crown, I massaged my scalp a bit in hopes of breaking up the tiny application of product. Maybe if I had hair that I could get a brush through, it would have been different? I don't know. What I do know that is when I diffused my hair, I ended up with crispy rounds of product at my roots. Uh, not exactly volumizing so much as gluing my hair in an upright position. And on second day hair, it was downright gross.

Honestly, I'm not sure whether to fault the product or the delivery system. My thought is that a good product wouldn't end up crispy. But, a better delivery system, one that delivered more of a mist or at least a flatter line of spray, might have ameliorated the slight There's Something About Mary effect that I got with this product. Either way, the Living Proof scientists clearly need to go back to the drawing board with either the product, the pump in the bottle, or both. I give this product 3/8 tentacles. It earns the three only because it lifted my hair away from my scalp and because it might possibly maybe work if you have hair that cooperates with a brush. If you are so inclined, you can find the Living Proof Full Root Lifting Spray at Sephora or the Living Proof website for $26 for a 5.5 ounce bottle.

Rating: 3/8 Tentacles