The Return of the Styling Mousse—Hair Care’s Next Big Bet

Though the best hair mousse has long been a pro-hairstylist essential for expertly shaping, holding, and molding tresses into place, 2024 is seemingly the year that the styler transitions from an IYKYK secret weapon to a staple in the beauty cabinets of the masses.

Our Top Picks

• Best for Air-Drying: Crown Affair The Texturizing Air Dry Hair Mousse, $38
• Best for Heat Styling: Briogeo Miracle Styling Foam, $26
• Best Drugstore: Lottabody Coconut & Shea Oil Wrap Me Foaming Mousse, $6
• Best for Natural Hair: Pattern Curl Mousse, $23
• Best for Wavy Hair: R+Co Aircraft Pomade Mousse, $36
• Best for Volume: Oribe Grandiose Hair Plumping Mousse, $42

For Crown Affair, its Texturizing Air Dry Hair Mousse aims to help consumers embrace natural textures and style sans hot tools. “We’re entering the era of the air-dry,” Crown Affair founder Dianna Cohen tells Vogue. “I love a blowout as much as the next person, but there’s something really empowering and beautiful about enhancing your natural texture.” With her label’s just-debuted hair mousse, she envisions users able to leave home with damp hair, confident their mane will look incredible once dry. “I’ve been educating on the art of the air-dry for years with our existing product lineup, and I realized not everyone is able to achieve the texture I was able to without a mousse product in the mix,” she continues. “This formula is a love letter to them.”

Briogeo’s Nancy Twine took a similar approach when introducing her brand’s new Miracle Styling Foam, part of its inaugural four-piece styling collection. “We’ve always had a really strong care-and-treatment category, but we have wanted to expand our expertise in styling products to round out our collection,” Twine says. “Full Miracle Styling Foam is the first wet-styling, volumizing, style-extending, heat-protection product we’ve ever created.”

With these debuts from Crown Affair and Briogeo, a hair-mousse resurgence isn’t too far off. Forget about the crunchy, sticky formulas you might recall from your youth: With the best hair mousses of 2024, expect soft, flexible hold, definition, and incredible volume. Ahead, a look at Vogue’s favorite formulas currently on the market, plus everything you need to know about incorporating it into your routine.

In This Story

• What is hair mousse actually for?
• Do you apply hair mousse to wet or dry hair?
• How to apply hair mousse
• Meet the Experts

Crown Affair The Texturizing Air Dry Hair Mousse

• Why We Love It: In Cohen’s desired air-dry fashion, celebrity hair colorist Jeremy Tardo loves using this Crown Affair mousse on hair that needs more texture. “It’s nice to use on damp hair that is left to dry naturally without heat,” he says. For that perfectly tousled effect, Cohen would wash and condition as usual, then add mousse to damp hair “from root to tip, scrunching and twisting to enhance its texture.” Follow with a finishing gel for definition and hold, and voilà—you have effortless waves of dreams.
• Key Ingredients: Pink Bolivian salt, Tsubaki Meadows oils, plant-protein blend
• Size: 150 ml/5.1 fl. oz.

Briogeo Miracle Styling Foam

• Why We Love It: “Our foam is a lightweight, airier form of mousse that has a higher water content and can be used on wet hair to help amplify body and volume and provide a greater longevity of hold to the desired style,” Twine details. It ensures hair is not left dry and crunchy via nourishing ingredients like yuzu extract and plum oil. Plus, if you use a blow-dryer or curling iron after application, this delivers heat protection up to 450° F.
• Key Ingredients: Yuzu extract, plum oil, B vitamins, squalane, niacinamide, biotin
• Size: 150 ml / 5 oz.

Oribe Grandiose Hair Plumping Mousse

• Why We Love It: Oribe Grandiose Hair Plumping Mousse is a pro-hairstylist gem. “[This] is my favorite mousse to keep in my kit for voluminous blowouts,” says LaFond. “It gives the hair lots of body and lift.” Lather on a few pumps of this sumptuous foam to achieve, as Tardo puts it, “sexy Texas hair.”
• Key Ingredients: Structure-forming starch polymer, sunflower-seed oil, glycerin, vitamin E, panthenol, Oribe’s Signature Complex (watermelon, lychee, and edelweiss flower)
• Size: 175 ml / 5.7 oz.

Pattern Curl Mousse

• Why We Love It: Want to take your natural curls to the next level? Our experts say Pattern’s Curl Mousse is for you. “If you want a few extra days out of your twist-out, then the Pattern Curl Mousse needs to be in your arsenal,” LaFond says. Plus, per Tardo, it helps achieve shiny curls that are soft to the touch. I sometimes reach for it to refresh braids and protective styles on wash day.
• Key Ingredients: Castor oil, marshmallow root, biotin
• Size: 236 ml / 8 fl. oz.

R+Co Aircraft Pomade Mousse

• Why We Love It: Want to embrace your wavy hair all summer long? Tardo says to look no further than R+Co’s Aircraft. A sort of mousse meets pomade, this formula is thick and cushiony but lays weightless on hair, creating defined separation and enhancing body. “It’s also good as a refresher for second-day hair,” Tardo adds.
• Key Ingredients: Vegetable protein, neem oil, papaya extract, heat-protection polymer
• Size: 166 ml / 5.6 oz.

Bread Beauty Supply Hair-Foam Curl Defining Mousse

• Why We Love It: If instead of a twist-out you’re more interested in an unreal wash-and-go, celebrity stylist Laura Rugetti says this one “does an amazing job of defining curls.” Bread Beauty Supply’s formula is a lightweight, vegan foam enriched with biomimetic silk proteins and keratin for noncrunchy, low-to-medium hold—meaning your coils and waves will remain soft to touch.
• Key Ingredients: Biomimetic silk proteins, vegan keratin, TeraBond bond builder
• Size: 200 ml / 6.7 fl. oz.

Moroccanoil Volumizing Mousse

• Why We Love It: Rugetti is a big Moroccanoil fan and reaches for its Volumizing Mousse “for volume and any slicked-back looks.” Basically, this is great for the person who loves versatile styling. Say one day you want sleek fullness, then a few days later, you decide to sweep your tresses back into a low pony as wash day looms; this mousse will suit whatever style the day brings.
• Key Ingredients: Argan oil; a weightless, flexible polymer; and an anti-static agent
• Size: 250 ml / 8.5 fl. oz.

Alterna Caviar Anti-Aging Multiplying Volume Styling Mousse

• Why We Love It: Turns out even brittle hair types can experience the benefits of hair mousse. If that sounds like you, Tardo recommends Alterna Caviar’s formula “as a leave-in treatment for strengthening fragile strands, as well as a styling aid for volume.” Its fluffy foam is packed with caviar extract and a marine plumping complex to boost hair’s thickness, moisture retention, and shine for healthier hair with each use.
• Key Ingredients: Caviar extract, marine plumping complex, age-control complex
• Size: 243 ml / 8.2 fl. oz.

Lottabody Coconut and Shea Oil Wrap Me Foaming Mousse

• Why We Love It: “Lottabody has been the go-to mousse for textured and curly hair for years,” says LaFond. The Wrap Me Foaming Mousse has everything you want in a good curl mousse: coconut and shea oils to nourish dry strands or reveal a lustrous sheen, plus a lightweight texture that dries down quickly. I’ve noticed stylists use this on my hair for years, and I’ve recently added it to my collection for at-home silk presses and styling my extensions with its frizz-fighting benefits.
• Key Ingredients: Shea and coconut oils
• Size: 207 ml / 7 fl. oz.

“Mousse truly doesn’t get enough credit for all it can do,” LaFond admits. “[It] can be used for a variety of results depending on how you use it and the hair type it’s used on. Mousse can slick hair down, minus the shine of gel. It can provide volume to a blowout. It can provide hold to a curl/wave set, and it can even spike the hair up for those gravity-defying looks.”

“Apply your mousse to damp, towel-dried hair,” Tardo instructs. Rugetti agrees, adding that it can also be used on dry hair for a snatched bun.

Tardo recommends applying mousse from the scalp to the ends of your hair. “Use a wide-tooth comb to rake the mousse through your hair for even distribution and style consistency,” he continues. “Then allow your hair to air-dry or style as desired.”

• Naeemah LaFond is a pro hairstylist whose clients include Tyla, Ayo Edebiri, and Yara Shahidi.
• Laura Rugetti is a celebrity hairstylist whose clients include Amelia Hamlin, Noah Cyrus, and Emily Lind.
• Jeremy Tardo is a celebrity hair colorist who often works with Miley Cyrus, Jared Leto, and Miranda Kerr.