10 Best Heat-Protectant Sprays That'll Tone Down Damage
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Just like your favorite sunscreen, the best heat-protectant sprays are essential for preventing damage. With that being said, the main culprit these lightweight mists tackle is heat damage (though a handful do claim to guard strands against UV rays, too). In the same way that you wouldn't just sit under the hot sun without putting on UV protection, you absolutely should not put a 400-degree hot tool on your hair without first using a heat protectant. These necessary hair-care products build a boundary between your hair and the heat, which staves off breakage, frizz, and all-around damage to the follicle.
Our Top Picks:
- Best Overall: Olaplex No.9 Bond Protector, $30
- Allure Best of Beauty Winner: Bumble and Bumble Invisible Oil Primer, $34
- Best for Fine Hair: Living Proof Restore Perfecting Spray, $33
- Best Under-$20: Chi 44 Iron Guard Thermal Protection Spray,
$17$12 - Best Shine Booster: Moroccanoil Perfect Defense Heat Protectant Spray, $30
- Best Multi-Benefit Formula: LolaVie Perfecting Leave In Conditioner, $29
- Best Heat Protectant Cream: Redken Extreme Play Safe Heat Protectant Spray, $30
According to cosmetic chemist Ginger King, you'll want to look for products with ingredients like meadowfoam seed oil and VP/DMAPA acrylates copolymer, both of which "form a shield" to prevent heat damage. But those aren't the only protective ingredients out there; brands use a range of familiar additives like aloe and argan oil to help seal the hair cuticle and keep heat from scorching your precious hair.
If you like to style your hair with a hair dryer and curling iron, stylist Sarah Potempa recommends a flexible, lightweight formula that plays well with tools like the Nexxus Weightless Style Prep & Protect Leave-In Hair Spray. But if you have textured hair and are more interested in enhancing your natural waves, she suggests focusing on a product that's more moisturizing and conditioning like Mielle Organics's Mongongo Oil Thermal & Heat Protectant Spray. Folks with fine hair should look for light sprays that won't weigh your hair down.
To help narrow down the best heat-protectant sprays out there, we asked Potempa, Williams, and several other hairstylists to share their go-to products. Each stylist had not one, but multiple favorites, which work across a range of hair textures and styling needs.
Best Overall: Olaplex No.9 Bond Protector
Why It's Worth It: The Olaplex No.9 Bond Protector feels like a hydrating hair serum, but it's so much more than that. This hair product is rich in shine-boosting, conditioning antioxidants à la red algae extract that'll leave hair feeling smoother than ever without the weight of silicone. Meanwhile, the brand's signature bond-repairing ingredient, bis-aminopropyl diglycol dimaleate, supports damaged hair strands to minimize frizz, flyaways, and brittleness.
Editor Tip: According to Olaplex, this pre-styling product is also beneficial for calming static-stricken strands.
Key Ingredients: bis-aminopropyl diglycol dimaleate, red algae extract | Temperature Maximum: 450 degrees Fahrenheit |Who It's For: All hair types
Allure Best of Beauty Winner: Bumble and Bumble Invisible Oil Primer
Why It's Worth It: Bumble and Bumble's Invisible Oil Primer just nabbed its third Allure Best of Beauty Award in 2023 for its ability to turn hair impenetrable against heat and humidity. Its frizz-reducing properties come from a cocktail of moisturizing oils derived from coconut, argan, grapeseed, and more, which prevent hair from looking its shine and style without leaving a greasy feel behind.
Editor Tip: TO use this formula as a pre-styling detangler, Bumble and Bumble suggests combing your hair with a wide-tooth comb after applying to untangle without breaking strands.
Key Ingredients: Coconut oil, argan oil, grapeseed oil, macadamia oil, sweet almond oil, safflower oil | Temperature Maximum: 450 degrees Fahrenheit |Who It's For: All hair types
Best for Fine Hair: Living Proof Restore Perfecting Spray
Why It's Worth It: Living Proof's Restore Perfecting Spray helps ease the transition from the shower to styling with both detangling and heat-protecting properties. A beet derivative in the formula offers up to 400 degrees of thermal blocking as time-released amino acids keep hair conditioned well after you've finished styling. According to Kayla McNeill, a stylist in Poncha Springs, Colorado, the treatment also helps create shine and smoothness.
Editor Tip: McNeill prefers to use this spray on clients with fine or thin hair — it's so lightweight that it smooths and protects without weighing you down.
Key Ingredients: marine algae extract, beet-root extract | Temperature Maximum: 450 degrees Fahrenheit |Who It's For: Fine and thin hair types, color-treated hair
Best Under-$20: Chi 44 Iron Guard Thermal Protection Spray
Why It's Worth It: From the same brand that brings us Best of Beauty-winning hot tools comes the 44 Iron Guard Thermal Protection Spray, which is made to reduce hair damage. Chi's formula features strengthening wheat protein and hydrolyzed silk to give hair a smooth and shiny finish. The spray is a favorite of Palisades Park, New Jersey-based stylist Tiffany Mack, who puts it to use on clients of all hair types right before she begins a blowout.
Editor Tip: Though Chi notes that this pick is for all hair types, the brand claims dry, curly, or thick hair hair types will especially love it for its nourishing, conditioning formula that softens frizzy, dehydrated strands.
Key Ingredients: Wheat protein, hydrolyzed silk, vitamin A, vitamin E, jojoba oil, panthenol, olive oil | Temperature Maximum: 425 degrees Fahrenheit |Who It's For: Dry, curly, and thick hair hair types
Best Shine Booster: Moroccanoil Perfect Defense Heat Protectant Spray
Why It's Worth It: For anyone — of any hair texture — who uses heat tools, Rachel Williams recommends Moroccanoil Perfect Defense. The heat shield protects the hair up to 450 degrees, so feel free to use it along with your heartiest flatiron. Best of all, it's made with argan oil, which both moisturizes the hair, boosts shine, and gives it the brand's signature, tantalizingly sweet and nutty scent.
Editor Tip: According to Williams, this heat styling protectant can be applied to wet hair before blow-drying or on second-day dry hair before styling.
Key Ingredients: Argan oil | Temperature Maximum: 450 degrees Fahrenheit |Who It's For: All hair types
Best Multi-Benefit Formula: LolaVie Perfecting Leave In Conditioner
Why It's Worth It: What makes LolaVie's Perfecting Leave In Conditioner such a triple threat is its ability to protect hair from heat damage, moisturize, and reduce frizz all at once. How? Through the additions of strengthening, protein-rich chia seeds and moisture-locking bamboo extract, of course. It’s no wonder that it nabbed an Allure Best of Beauty Award, our most prestigious accolade, in 2022.
Editor Tip: This lightweight spray also conditions hair with rosewater, which replenishes moisture without weighing strands down.
Key Ingredients: chia seed extract, bamboo extract, rosewater | Temperature Maximum: 450 degrees Fahrenheit |Who It's For: All hair types
Best Heat Protectant Cream: Redken Extreme Play Safe Heat Protectant Spray
Why It's Worth It: "In finding a great heat protectant, I want to make sure that it brings more to the table than just protection," says McNeill. "I need it to add shine, seal, shape, and form." Her go-to option, Redken's Extreme Play Safe Heat Protectant Spray, delivers heat protection while helping to prevent and lessen the appearance of split ends.
Editor Tip: Infused with hair-strengthening plant proteins and smoothing tourmaline, this multitasker preps all hair types for safe slicking or curling.
Key Ingredients: Glycerin, tourmaline, hydrolyzed proteins derived from wheat, corn, and soy | Temperature Maximum: 450 degrees Fahrenheit |Who It's For: All hair types
Best for Curly Hair: Mizani Heat Screen Heat Protectant Spray
Why It's Worth It: Mizani's Heat Screen Heat Protectant Spray uses VP/VA copolymer, a light powder that creates a weightless barrier around each strand to shield hair from damage. There's also rice protein and rose extract, to protect, smooth, and add shine to hair. This mist absorbs into hair and reduces frizz without leaving behind added weight, which can make curls limp.
Editor Tip: The Heat Screen Heat Protectant Spray is formulated to work on curly hair types ranging from 3A to 4C.
Key Ingredients: VP/VA copolymer, rice protein, rose extract | Temperature Maximum: 450 degrees Fahrenheit |Who It's For: Curly hair types ranging from 3A to 4C
Best UV Protectant: Ceremonia Guava Rescue Spray
Why It's Worth It: Heat damage doesn't just come from hot tools. In addition to 450-degree shielding from hair dryers and flatirons, the Best of Beauty-winning Ceremonia's Guava Rescue Spray also protects hair from UV damage. Though it doesn't act as a UV filter, it contains antioxidant-rich extracts from guava, butterfly ginger, and avocado to fend against environmental aggressors brough on by UV, blue light, and thermal heat from your hair tools.
Editor Tip: This lightweight formula can also be used as the perfect dentagler before you whip out your styling tools.
Key Ingredients: Aloe vera juice, coconut oil, avocado oil, guava extract, blue agave extract, butterfly ginger extract | Temperature Maximum: 450 degrees Fahrenheit |Who It's For: Wavy, curly, natural, or thick hair
Best Heat Protectant Foam: NatureLab Tokyo Repair Leave-In Treatment
Why It's Worth It: NatureLab Tokyo Repair Leave-In Treatment has many reparative hair conditioners, including vegan keratin, argan oil, and castor oil, that give moisture and strength back to hair without weighing it down, miraculously so. Its foamy formula instantly soaks into hair, giving strands a glossy finsh without weighing them down in the process.
Editor Tip: A pump or two of this light-as-air foam is enough to easily coat all ends while wet before blow- or air-drying — because with all the shine it leaves behind, who needs a flatiron?
Key Ingredients: Keratin, argan oil, castor oil, bamboo extract, prickly pear oil, pea protein | Temperature Maximum: 400 degrees Fahrenheit |Who It's For: Dry, damaged, or color-treated hair
