How to Make Dry Shampoo at Home | 3 Easy Recipes

The basic recipe for dry shampoo at home takes two ingredients and about five minutes. Cornstarch or arrowroot powder soaks up scalp oil, and a few optional add-ins match the blend to your hair color or add a light scent. The payoff: a fresher look between washes without the cost or packaging of store-bought sprays.

The Base Recipe You Can Adapt

Every homemade dry shampoo starts with the same foundation: a fine starch powder that lifts oil from the hair shaft. Cornstarch and arrowroot powder are the two most common choices, and both work well on their own or mixed together.

For light hair, the plain starch blend is all you need — no adjustments required. For darker hair, unsweetened cocoa or cacao powder gets added gradually until the mixture matches your natural tone, which keeps the powder from leaving a white cast against dark roots.

Beyond the base and color adjuster, two optional ingredients show up in most recipes:

• Baking soda for extra oil-fighting power, though it can irritate sensitive scalps so it’s worth testing on a small area first
• Essential oils like bergamot or lavender for fragrance, though they’re purely cosmetic and easy to skip

Three Recipes That Actually Work

Each of these recipes follows the same method: stir the dry ingredients until no clumps remain, then transfer to a jar with a shaker top or a clean spice jar for application.

Light Hair: Simple Arrowroot Blend

Mix 4 tablespoons of arrowroot powder (or cornstarch) with nothing else. This plain blend disappears into blonde, gray, or light-brown hair without any tinting. If you want a hint of scent, add one or two drops of your preferred essential oil and stir thoroughly.

Dark Hair: Arrowroot and Cocoa

Combine 2 tablespoons of arrowroot powder with 2 tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa powder. Add the cocoa gradually rather than all at once — different hair tones need different amounts, and it’s easier to add color than to remove it. For brown hair, many recipes suggest starting with less cocoa and working up until the powder visually matches your roots.

Extra-Strength: Cornstarch and Baking Soda

This version absorbs more oil than starch alone, making it a good pick for very oily scalps or humid days. Store it in a mason jar with a pierced lid or a powder spray bottle, and use it sparingly since the baking soda can dry out skin over time.

How to Apply It Without a Messy Residue

Application technique matters more than the recipe. Too much powder leaves a dull, dusty cast that looks worse than the oil you started with, so the rule is: start small and repeat only if needed.

Work through these steps on dry hair:

1. Dust a small amount of powder directly onto the roots along your part, then lift sections and dust the other oily spots
2. Wait 60 seconds so the starch can absorb the oil rather than just sitting on the surface
3. Massage the powder in with your fingertips, working it down toward the scalp in small circles
4. Brush or comb through thoroughly to distribute the powder and remove any visible excess

A clean makeup brush gives you the most control — dip the bristles in the powder, tap off the excess, and sweep it along your part for targeted coverage. Shaker jars work faster but make it easier to overdo the amount.

One honest caveat: homemade dry shampoo is a cosmetic stopgap for oil between washes, not a replacement for actually cleansing your scalp. The powder absorbs surface grease but leaves behind buildup, so use it once or twice between real washes rather than stacking it for a week straight. If you’re shopping for a ready-made option that handles darker hair tones well, our tested roundup of dry shampoos for black hair covers the formulas that avoid chalky residue entirely.

Healthline’s guide to DIY dry shampoo recipes echoes the same caution and walks through variations for different hair types.