The best mousses for wavy hair are a multitalented bunch. United in foaminess, these formulas do everything from prep and prime blowouts to encouraging a beach-day level tousle to smoothing and taming flyaways. If mousse sounds like a recipe for crunchiness and heaviness, it’s time to change your perspective. These days, fan-favorite products are supremely airy and non-crunchy, while still delivering on volume and texture. In addition to shaping, hair-loving oils make an appearance, as well as strengthening amino acids and fragrance notes, putting heart emojis in our eyes. Our wavy-haired editors piped up to share their go-to mousses and what exactly won them over. Check out the best of the best, and thank us later.
Our Top Mousses for Wavy Hair
Frequently Asked Questions
Best Overall: Davines Oi Souffle Silkening Bodifying Foam
Why it’s worth it: Davines’ Oi Souffle is a liquid-to-foam leave-in that instantly amps up shine, boosts body, and gently enhances your waves without supplying crunchiness—no matter how fine your strands are. It features the brand’s signature roucou oil, bolstered by chicory oil and plant-based amino acids, and rounds out the benefits with heat protection up to 446°F. Its decadent fragrance—a blend of thyme, pine, musk, and amber—is gorgeous enough to give your hair perfume some PTO, any day of the week. Apply the mousse to damp, towel-dried hair, avoiding the roots to prevent oiliness. It’s especially ideal for type 2 waves, which can be easily weighed down by the heavier stuff.
Tester feedback from contributing commerce editor Deanna Pai
“I’m typically a leave-in and air-dry girl, but I reach for mousse to get more volume and lift at my roots, especially around the crown of my hair. This made my hair impossibly soft and supple, although I would have loved a bit more definition—but maybe the tradeoff is in the hold. And my hair had a ton of body, which is a big ask for it.”
- Key ingredients: roucou oil, chicory oil, amino acids
- Hold: light
- Fragrance-free: no
Best Light Hold: R+Co Chiffon Styling Mousse
Why it’s worth it: Nourishment is non-negotiable in R+Co’s Chiffon, which weightlessly strengthens, smoothes, and texturizes with every pump. The formula is a robust blend of Abyssinian oil (to retain moisture and protect from heat damage), black Polynesian volcanic sand (for conditioning and color protection), and a styling polymer (to thicken and hold), perfect for bolstering blowouts, updos, and air-dried hair alike. You can apply this formula section by section for extra volume and frizz-control before heat styling, too.
Tester feedback from senior news editor Nicola Dall’Asen
“Whether I’m styling it wet or dry, my combination wavy-curly hair simply does not cooperate without mousse. The one most likely to whip it into shape is R+Co’s Chiffon, a creamy foam with a thick, bouncy texture that reminds me of Cool Whip. It sounds like it would feel heavy on my fine hair, but the reality couldn’t be more opposite—it almost breaks down into a light, fluid texture that spreads to mold each curl with bounce it otherwise lacks.”
- Key ingredients: Abyssinian oil, black Polynesian volcanic sand, styling polymer
- Hold: light
- Fragrance-free: no
Best for Heat-Styling: Sachajuan Ocean Mist Mousse
Why it’s worth it: Sachajuan’s Ocean Mist Mousse starts airy and dries down to a dependable level of grip—ideal for days when your waves need extra-defined definition. It also reduces static and prevents hair from appearing dry or dull, which we’re always on board with. Shake the bottle well before dispensing to ensure the mousse is perfectly foamy, pump, and enjoy the fresh, subtle fragrance that ties the entire experience together.
“I love how lightweight this mousse is while still shaping my waves. It smells light and fresh, and makes my post-shower hair feel even cleaner somehow. I like to scrunch it in damp-wet hair, and if I’m using heat, it works really well with a diffuser attachment. Sometimes, I need to shake the bottle a bit because it has a tendency to separate, but that’s no biggie.”
- Key ingredients: castor oil
- Hold: medium
- Fragrance-free: no
Best Strong Hold: Bed Head Foxy Curls Mousse
Why it’s worth it: Bed Head’s Foxy Curls Mousse is your new favorite prepping product. This adaptable formula can be used on damp and wet hair, meeting you wherever you are on your styling journey. Run it through wet hair to prime your hair for blow-dry diffusing (that’s this product’s specialty), or scrunch into closer-to-dry hair for a tousled, lived-in vibe. We love this mousse for waves, but it also looks stunning on curly girlies. Play around with the amount of product you use, because your hair may call for less or more depending on how you’re styling.
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“I’ve been on a mission to finally embrace my naturally wavy hair, and this mousse totally gets it. It fights frizz, gives my waves real definition, and somehow makes it look like I meant to have great hair without trying too hard. Bonus: it smells amazing and makes styling feel like way less of a chore.”
- Key ingredients: glycerin
- Hold: strong
- Fragrance-free: no
Best for Subtle Waves: Crown Affair The Texturizing Air Dry Mousse
Why it’s worth it: If your waves tend to need extra coaxing to make an appearance, Crown Affair’s Best of Beauty-winning The Texturizing Air Dry Hair Mousse is for you. This texturizing formula allows for an effortless beachy energy, shaping subtly without stiffening strands. Pink Bolivian salt, a proprietary Tsubaki Meadows blend, and a plant protein blend add up to a ton of beautiful body, hydrating all the while. It smells amazing, too, thanks to a mélange of bergamot, yuzu, and lemongrass.
Tester feedback from commerce editor Sarah Han
“I’m so here for any product that will help coax my natural baby waves to life, especially since my hair is quite straight and stringy out of the shower. Crown Affair’s Best of Beauty-winning formula checks all of my boxes. Most importantly, there’s zero crunch or heaviness, but it’s also stuffed with nourishing, softening ingredients like tsubaki seed oil and plant proteins—I recently bleached and dyed my hair, so I need all of the hydration. I’m a little extra and work about four pumps into my hair, twisting large sections along the way. I’ll admit, my hair looks a little wild when I wake up (but that’s bound to happen regardless, because I toss and turn), but after a few gentle passes of a detangling brush, and my waves are looking as good as they get for such a low-effort mousse. I love!”
- Key ingredients: tsubaki oil, pink Bolivian salt, plant protein
- Hold: medium
- Fragrance-free: no
More mousses for wavy hair to consider:
- Plenty moisturizing without sacrificing hold and major volume, Hours’ Full-Time Plumping Mousse won a Best of Beauty Award in 2024 for good reason. My hair retains a ton of water post-shower and gets weighed down super easy, but adding two pumps of this to wet hair inflates my hair like a freakin’ balloon,” says commerce producer Sarah Hoffmann. “It’s also responsible for the longest-lasting blowout I’ve ever had—it’s literally a miracle product to me.”
- For a formula fully prepared to tackle anything from Type 2 waves to Type 4 coils, you’ll find a friend in Oribe’s Curl Shaping Mousse. “It adds moisture and is excellent at keeping curls and waves in place,” says Cheryl T. Bergamy, a hairstylist and texture expert in New York, NY. The sweet almond oil lends a lovely fragrance as well as natural heat protection.
- If you like your mousse to be as rich and foamy as a bubble bath, grab Color Wow’s Xtra Large Bombshell Volumizer, a 2023 Best of Beauty Award winner. You’ll get a wild amount of volumizing and strengthening benefits, thanks to bamboo extract’s amino acids.
Frequently Asked Questions
How should I apply a mousse for wavy hair?
Instructions for how to apply a mousse vary from bottle to bottle, but applying to damp hair is usually best. “To increase longevity of the style, mousse should be applied to clean and damp, not wet hair, distributed through hair from roots to ends with a tool or hand,” says Naomi Dove, hairstylist and artistic director at Aveda North America. If you’re going for a tousled look, use a diffusing attachment on your blow dryer to support volume, or scrunch with your hands before letting your hair air dry. If you’re using mousse to prep for a sleek blow out, skip the scrunching.
How should I choose a mousse for wavy hair?
When selecting a mousse, consider both your hair thickness and your preferred hold. If you have fine hair, a lighter-weight mousse may be a better choice, but if your waves are thick, feel free to venture towards heavier formulas. Cosmetic chemist Ginger King suggests testing a bit of product on your fingers before putting it into your hair to make sure the formula doesn’t feel overly oily. “If it feels greasy on your fingers, chances are it will weigh down your hair,” King says.
Meet the experts
- Naomi Dove, hairstylist and artistic director at Aveda North America
- Cheryl T. Bergamy, a hairstylist and texture expert in New York, NY
How we test and review products
We always enlist a range of testers for our makeup vertical, but hair-care products and tools are another story. While there are certainly products that can be used across different hair textures, lengths, curl patterns, thicknesses, colors (natural and unnatural), and needs, hair products are often created with specific consumers in mind. Many are created in order to address a concern (dandruff, breakage, brittleness) or to work most effectively for a specific hair type (4C curls, wavy hair, gray hair). You wouldn’t want to pick up a purple shampoo that’s only been reviewed by someone with, say, auburn hair, or a diffuser that’s never been tested by anyone with curls—right?
For our review of the best mousses for wavy hair, we enlisted the help of multiple editors, writers, contributors, and hair experts. Testers considered performance across four primary categories: efficacy, texture and experience, fragrance, and packaging. For more on what’s involved in our reporting, check out our complete reviews process and methodology page.
Our staff and testers
A beauty product is a personal purchase. You might be searching for a face cream to address persistent dryness or a new nail product to add to your Sunday self-care routine; you may simply be browsing around for the latest launches to hit the hair market. No matter what you seek or your individual needs and concerns, Allure wants to ensure that you love anything we recommend in our stories. We believe that having a diverse team of writers and editors—in addition to the wide range of outside testers and industry experts we regularly call upon—is essential to reaching that goal.
After all, can we really say a skin-care product is the “best” for people over 50 if the only testers we’ve solicited opinions from folks who have yet to hit 30? Can we honestly deem a high-end diffuser worthy of your hard-earned cash if it’s never been tested on curls? We’re proud that our staff spans a wide range of ages, skin tones, hair textures, genders, and backgrounds, which means that we are able to fairly assess any beauty product that comes into the beauty closet.