Hair serums are like magic potions for your hair—they tame frizz, add shine, and protect against damage, ensuring your locks always look red-carpet ready.
Want flawless hair? It's all about choosing the right products. While staples like shampoos, conditioners, masks, and heat protectants are crucial, using top-notch hair serums can elevate your locks to red-carpet status.
Still skeptical? According to Peter Butler, the go-to stylist for It Girls such as Ana DeArmas, Sydney Sweeney, and Beanie Feldstein (no big deal), hair serums are like magic potions for your hair. "They're packed with active ingredients that penetrate the hair cuticle, taming frizz and adding a glossy finish," he explains. "Serums also soften and shield hair from damage, keeping it vibrant and lustrous."
To unlock your hair's full potential, I tapped into Butler's and Mitchell Ramazon's expertise. From the benefits of hair serums to savvy shopping tips, they shared insights and revealed their top picks for the best hair serums of all time.
1. Garnier Fructis Sleek and Shine Anti-Frizz Serum
This Garnier anti-frizz product is among the best hair serums when you only have a few bucks to spare but want sleek and shiny hair. This dry-hair essential is truly excellent for nixing frizz.
I love that it can be applied to dry hair and used later in the week to help prolong your style and doesn’t weigh down hair. It can also help revive second-day hair, which is super handy.
My best solution: If this hair serum offers too much slip, encourage your giftee to use less than a pea-sized amount and warm it up in their hands before applying it from the midsection of their hair down to the ends.
2. Kérastase Elixir Ultime Hydrating Hair Oil Serum
Our runner-up hair serum recommendation goes to Elixir Ultime because Ramazon and I are both fans. It’s infused with a blend of argan, camellia, and marula oils to nourish and smooth hair while imparting shine, ensuring your blowout is always on point.
Given its oil-based ingredient list, Elixir Ultime has a thinner consistency compared to other serums on this list, including the Paul Mitchell Super Skinny Serum listed below.
We also love how it’s compatible with all hair textures. No, really; I use it on my thick curls or wavy extensions, and my friends love applying it to their fine, straight hair for frizz-free blowouts.
3. Olaplex No. 9 Bond Protector Nourishing Hair Serum
Olaplex earned the top spot in our best hair serums guide because Jeremy Tardo , the go-to hair colorist for Jared Leto, Miley Cyrus, and Miranda Kerr, tells us that he considers it one of the best on the market.
He loves that it combines red algae extra with the brand’s signature bond-building tech called bis-aminopropyl diglycol dimaleate. A total mouthful to say, but it’s incredible for your hair health. Essentially, it repairs your hair bonds to reverse damage caused by heat damage and bleach, and let’s be honest: Who doesn’t love that?!
As for styling, this hair serum is elite. Its weightless formula is helpful for fine and thin hair, but anyone with thicker hair will also experience shiny, soft, and detangled hair. Annoying winter static caused by hats will be a thing of the past. If you or your loved ones have waves and curls, everyone will be happy to know it helps texture bounce back.
Tardo suggests combing it through wet hair for a nice, even distribution. Then you can style your hair and achieve a more consistent result.
4. Phyto Paris Phytopolléine
To Butler, this Phyto Paris product is among the best hair serums because it’s made with 100% botanical oils, like corn, lemon peel, and rosemary oils, that stimulate and energize your loved one’s scalp. This unique hair serum rebalances itchy, irritated, and dry scalps . And they can even use it if their hair scalp is typically on the oily side.
Once a week or whenever the scalp needs a refresh, Butler advises applying this treatment hair serum onto the scalp and letting it sit for at least 20 minutes. For a more intense hair regimen, your loved one can leave it on overnight and shampoo out in the morning.
Need further proof it’s worth the price tag? It can help stop hair from shedding and thinning and promote new hair growth.
5. Seen Magic Serum
Seen’s Magic Serum is made with minimal ingredients to help tame frizz, add shine, and strengthen weak hair while protecting strands from hot tools and breakage. It’s safe for all hair types, including those with super sensitive scalps dealing with eczema.
Best of all, the brand was created by board-certified dermatologist Dr. Iris Rubin, M.D., a Harvard Medical School graduate and former Harvard faculty member.
“It gives you the smooth, shiny hair you’ve always wanted, and won’t cause breakouts or skin irritation," Rubin explains. "There are only three naturally derived ingredients in Magic Serum: Ethylhexyl olivate, squalane, and hemisqualane. It provides instant shine and frizz control on wet or dry hair with just a few drops, and Seen Magic Serum reduces breakage by up to 81% after a single use."
This fragrance-free and non-comedogenic hair serum also won’t clog pores, which can lead to scalp acne. (Yup, it’s a real thing!)
6. Kérastase Résistance Sérum Thérapiste
Ramazon highly recommends this hair serum for anyone who uses hot tools on their over-processed or damaged hair because it has a hair-repairing formula.
“The super hard-to-come-by product treats your hair while protecting it," he says, adding that it's great for anyone with breakage around their face because "its formula is lightweight and doesn’t leave the hair feeling oily or weighed down. This is perfect for someone wanting to keep their length while maintaining their hair color."
Ramazon says its secret sauce is a trio of under-the-radar ingredients, including a gluco-peptide that penetrates the deepest layer of the hair cuticle to strengthen existing hair and stimulate hair growth. He’s also impressed that it's formulated with a wheat protein derivative to improve the elasticity of damaged hair, restore uniformity, and smooth your strands. Rounding out the ingredient list are native plant cells that hydrate and soften.
7. IGK Crybaby Anti-Frizz Smoothing Serum
Do you and your giftee only want the best hair serums created by professional hairstylists? Well, that sentiment is totally understandable — and IGK, a favorite of Hailey Bieber and Sofia Richie Grainge, delivers top-rated results.
IGK co-founder Aaron Grenia explains that this serum "is a lightweight serum that is the perfect smoothing finisher for any style, as it contains coconut oil, which is known to help seal in moisture. This formula also can help control frizz for up to 72 hours, which is perfect for creating looks with longevity."
It also contains antioxidant-rich prickly pear to smooth, soften, enhance shine, and boost the dimension of color-treated hair. This weightless hair serum even offers UV protection from solar rays that could fade your hair color.
8. Paul Mitchell Super Skinny Serum
I’ve been using this hair serum since college, and I can safely say it is the best-smelling product on this list. I always say the fragrance reminds me of a stick of high-end watermelon gum, but we’re actually smelling a nice blend of crisp apples, juicy berries, and sweet florals. It’s genuinely so enticing and low-key ruined other hair serums for me because it really smells that delicious.
Fun fragrance aside, it’s totally functional; it locks in my silk presses, aka a blowout, followed up by a flat iron , bone straight and shiny. What’s most impressive is that it kept my hair frizz-free while living in Miami, which is no easy feat considering it’s hot and humid throughout the year.
It’s a game-changing serum that leaves hair feeling like satin and most importantly, it decreases drying time by about half, so my arms no longer hurt.
9. Virtue Split End Serum
Virtue’s Split End Serum revives second-, third-, and sometimes fourth-day hair for a fresh, blown-out look with shiny and smooth strands and minimal puffiness.
Users will experience a dramatic improvement in their hair after using this hair serum for two weeks. This hair serum uses Alpha Keratin 60ku to help heal hair in between professional trims, making it the ideal gift for someone with split ends.
Is this the best hair serum? You'll have to find out yourself, but if it's any consolation, celebrities such as Jennifer Garner and Halle Berry are big fans of Virtue — and so am I! The Virtue Smooth collection is incredible and I always get compliments on the smell of my hair whenever I shampoo and condition with those products. Given my positive experience with Virtue, I’m confident this hair serum will deliver on its promises.
10. Rene Furterer Absolue Keratine Ultimate Repairing Serum
LA-based celebrity hairstylist Bobby Eliot counts stars like Julia Garner, Alex Daddario, and Jodie Comer as clients, so you already know his recommendation will be incredible. He’s a huge fan of this under-the-radar hair serum. Notably, it utilizes plant-based keratin to repair hair damage and helps prevent future split ends.
It’s also formulated with organic camelina oil, which is rich in omega-3 fatty acids, to deeply nourish your hair, and pellicer to help repair the hair fiber from heat damage and other external factors.
Eliot appreciates its lightweight feel and highlights its compatibility with all hair types as a major win. He also loves that it doubles as a heat protectant, guarding strands up to 428 degrees Fahrenheit.
