Forget Salt Spray—You Won’t Believe This Sweet DIY Hair Texturizer!

Summer may be over, but tousled, textured tresses aren’t going out of style anytime soon. Popularized by off-duty models and surfer girls, beachy hair is the quintessential look of effortless cool.

And getting the look actually is super simple. Just take a dip in the ocean and let the saltwater do the job naturally. Even people who are miles away from the coast have no shortage of options for texturizing salt sprays.

But salt can seriously dry out hair—not great for tresses, especially with arctic winter temperatures coming our way soon. Spending all day in the ocean or spraying one too many spritzes of texturizer can leave your locks crunchy and brittle.

Guess what? You can ditch the salt. Easy, breezy beach hair can be weightless and shiny. The secret? Sugar! And no, it doesn’t make your hair sticky, but it does make hair shiny. Trust us—we concocted a sugar spray of our own and tried it ourselves.

There’s no need to spend a ton of money on new texturizing sugar sprays hitting the market—most likely, the essential ingredients are already on hand.

8 ounces warm distilled water
1 tablespoon sugar (any kind that will dissolve)
1 teaspoon melted coconut oil

Shake up these ingredients in a spray bottle. Turn your head upside down and mist all over damp or dry hair, concentrating on ends. Flip your hair right side up, scrunch, and revel in shiny, bouncy beach hair.

The coconut oil might start to solidify in the mixture a little—just store the bottle in a warm area if possible, and shake it up vigorously before every use to reheat or run under a stream of warm water to reincorporate the oil into the mixture.

Move over Gisele Bundchen, and take the salt spray with you. We’ve got a sweet new substance making waves in our hair game.

Photo credit: Alicia Cho