The Best Color Wow Dupes

The closest Color Wow dupe is John Frieda Frizz Ease Secret Weapon for One-Minute Transformation: both are finishing creams for dry hair, and their ingredient lists open the same way, with water, propylene glycol, avocado oil and phenyl trimethicone. Next is Kristin Ess Working Texture Spray for Style on Steroids, two dry texture sprays built on the same hold polymer and zeolite. For Dream Coat, the dupe is L’Oréal Paris EverPure Iron Sleek Coat, a spray for damp hair that’s set with a blow-dryer and made with polysilicone-29, the same polymer Dream Coat uses. Clairol’s concealing powder stands in for Root Cover Up at about a quarter of the price. A dupe gets you the product type, some of the main ingredients and the job. It doesn’t get you Color Wow’s exact formula, and the last two of the seven matches below are loose ones.

The seven at a glance

Prices are approximate, and they change often.

1. Color Wow One-Minute Transformation dupe: John Frieda Frizz Ease Secret Weapon

One-Minute Transformation is the cream you reach for after your hair is already dry. A small amount goes on the frizzy or dented sections, then you brush it through or hit it with the dryer for a few seconds. The formula starts with water, propylene glycol, avocado oil, phenyl trimethicone and glycerin.

John Frieda Frizz Ease Secret Weapon starts with the same five ingredients in the same order. Further down, both have isostearyl palmitate, glyceryl stearate, PVP for light hold and a wheat protein. It’s a dry-hair cream too: rub a little between your palms, pull it through the ends, then smooth the surface. Both tubes hold 4 ounces, and John Frieda’s costs about $8, though the price changes often, to Color Wow’s $26. The sunscreen-type ingredient and the preservatives differ, and so does the scent. This is the easiest swap on the page.

2. Color Wow Style on Steroids dupe: Kristin Ess Working Texture Spray

Style on Steroids is a dry aerosol texture spray for volume and grip, used on dry hair or section by section before a curling iron. Its short ingredient list is mostly propellant and alcohol, then VP/VA copolymer for hold, trisiloxane, the silicone PEG/PPG-17/18 dimethicone, zeolite, glycerin and acetyl triethyl citrate. Color Wow says the texturizers are transparent, so they won’t cloud or dull color.

Kristin Ess Dry Finish Working Texture Spray shares most of that list: the same main propellant, alcohol, VP/VA copolymer, zeolite, glycerin, acetyl triethyl citrate and the same silicone, PEG/PPG-17/18 dimethicone. The cans are nearly the same size, 6.9 ounces to Color Wow’s 7, at about $15 against $32. Kristin Ess adds a long tail of plant oils and extracts and describes the finish as soft and matte. There’s no trisiloxane. If you bought Style on Steroids because it keeps color glossy, a matte finish is the trade.

3. Color Wow Dream Coat dupe: L’Oréal Paris EverPure Iron Sleek Coat

Dream Coat Supernatural Spray is the product that made the brand. You mist it on damp hair and blow-dry with tension from a brush, and the heat sets a polymer into a water-repelling coating. That polymer is polysilicone-29, third on a short list after water and dipropylene glycol. There’s no added fragrance among the ingredients. Color Wow says the results last through three or four shampoos.

L’Oréal Paris EverPure Iron Sleek Coat works the same way and is made with polysilicone-29 and dipropylene glycol too. The directions match: spray on towel-dried hair, comb through, blow-dry with a brush under tension to activate it. L’Oréal says the smoothing lasts up to five washes when it’s used with the matching shampoo and conditioner, and that it protects up to 450 degrees. The bottle is smaller, 5.1 ounces to Dream Coat’s 6.7, for about a third of the price. It has fragrance and lactic acid, and it leaves out Dream Coat’s second silicone and its chamomile and calendula extracts.

Our Dream Coat review names L’Oréal Paris Sleek It Iron Straight Heat Spray as its budget swap, and at about $6 it’s still the cheapest way to a smoother blowout. It’s a different kind of formula, a conditioning heat spray built on dimethicone, so it helps on the day you style without the wash-after-wash hold. Iron Sleek Coat is the one built like Dream Coat.

4. Color Wow Root Cover Up dupe: Clairol Root Touch-Up Concealing Powder

Root Cover Up is a pressed mineral powder in a compact with a two-ended brush. You press it into dry roots and it stays until you shampoo. The base is mica and talc with corn starch, silica and dimethicone, and it comes in eight shades, a platinum and a red among them. Color Wow describes it as water-resistant and says a compact lasts six months to a year.

Clairol Root Touch-Up Temporary Concealing Powder is the same kind of product at about $8 against $35. It’s a pressed powder you press onto dry roots with a brush, built on mica, talc, corn starch, silica and dimethicone as well, and Clairol calls it water and sweat-resistant, lasting until your next shampoo. The link here goes to Medium Brown. Clairol’s shade range is shorter, so check that yours exists before you count on it, and Clairol puts the compact at up to 60 applications. For regrowth past a half inch, our root touch-up guide covers when powder stops being enough.

5. Color Wow Raise the Root dupe: Marc Anthony Big Volume Root Boost Spray

Raise the Root is a pump spray aimed at the roots, for damp or dry hair. It’s alcohol and water with PVP-type hold polymers, panthenol and hydrolyzed keratin. Color Wow says it lifts without feeling stiff or sticky.

Marc Anthony Big Volume Weightless Lift Root Boost Spray has a similar skeleton: water, alcohol, PVP and panthenol, with soy, corn and wheat proteins where Color Wow uses keratin. It’s for wet or dry styling too, and Marc Anthony says it offers thermal protection. You get 6 ounces to Color Wow’s 5 for about a third of the price. The supporting polymers are different, so the hold won’t feel the same, and Marc Anthony calls its hold maximum. Go light on the first try.

6. Color Wow Pop & Lock dupe: John Frieda Frizz Ease Extra Strength Serum

Pop & Lock High Gloss Finish is a shine serum for wet or dry hair. Color Wow calls it ultra-light, and the formula shows why: the silicones (cyclopentasiloxane, phenyl trimethicone and dimethiconol) sit in a base of propylene glycol and water, with a little mica for sparkle.

John Frieda Frizz Ease Extra Strength Serum does the same job, a few drops on wet or dry hair for gloss and frizz control, at about $10 for 1.69 ounces against $24 for 1.8. The overlap is dimethiconol. The rest of the formula is mostly dimethicone with no water in it, so it’s a more concentrated serum. John Frieda’s directions say one pump, used sparingly, and less than that on dry hair.

7. Color Wow Xtra Large dupe: Marc Anthony Big Volume Weightless Lift Mousse

Xtra Large Bombshell Volumizer is a pump foam with an 11-ingredient formula: water, propanediol and a styling polymer do most of the work. Color Wow makes it without alcohol, salt or the drying resins volumizers usually rely on, and it goes on damp or dry hair.

Marc Anthony Big Volume Weightless Lift Mousse is the loosest match here. What it shares is the brief: an alcohol-free volumizing foam for fine, limp hair, with heat protection up to 450 degrees by Marc Anthony’s account. It’s an aerosol mousse, though, with different polymers, three plant proteins, fragrance and sodium chloride, which is salt. The can is 8.4 ounces to Color Wow’s 6.5, at well under a third of the price. Our blow-drying guide covers where a volumizer goes in the routine.

When the expensive one is still worth it

When the short formula is the point. Xtra Large has 11 ingredients and no fragrance among them and Dream Coat has 16 and none either. Every dupe on this page except the Clairol powder is scented, and most have longer lists. If your scalp is fussy or your hair is fine enough that residue shows by day two, that’s what the extra money buys.

Shade matters too. Root Cover Up comes in eight shades, and a root powder that’s a half step off is worse than no powder.

If I Were You

• If you only swap one thing, I’d swap One-Minute Transformation for Secret Weapon. The formulas are close enough that the price gap is hard to justify.
• If Dream Coat is the only Color Wow product you buy, I’d try Iron Sleek Coat once, on a humid week, before reordering. It has the same polymer and the same blow-dry step, so you’ll know after one wash cycle.
• If your hair is fine and flat, I’d keep Xtra Large and dupe Raise the Root. The root spray is the closer match of the two volume products.
• If you’re covering gray between appointments, I’d buy the Clairol powder if it comes in your shade, and Root Cover Up if it doesn’t.
• If fragrance bothers your scalp, I’d stay with Dream Coat, Xtra Large and Root Cover Up, and see a dermatologist about itching or flaking that doesn’t settle.
• If your color fades fast, I’d put the money into a shampoo made for colored hair and save on the stylers.

Bottom line

Color Wow’s stylers are easier to dupe than its reputation suggests, because several of them are simple formulas doing one job. Swap the finishing cream, the texture spray and the root powder without much thought, and give Iron Sleek Coat a fair trial against Dream Coat. Think harder about the Xtra Large foam, where what Color Wow leaves out is the whole idea.