Scalp care is no longer a new concept, but the trend has certainly evolved with time. What began as a spotlight on exfoliating, sometimes abrasive, scalp scrubs has evolved into a focus on balancing the environment to better encourage healthier, stronger, fuller-looking hair growth.
Scalp serums, designed to be used daily—preferably at bedtime—on a clean, dry scalp are trending now, and these six deliver some pretty stellar results.
Best For a Dry Scalp: OUAI Thinning Hair Scalp Serum ($52)
Created with the goal of hydrating and balancing the scalp, this lightweight serum offers up ingredients like ginseng and chaga mushroom to keep the scalp happy and hydrated, red clover to minimize irritation, and peptides to support fuller, thicker-looking hair over time.
Best For Mature Strands: Better Not Younger Superpower Fortifying Hair & Scalp Serum ($47)
Designed exclusively for women over 40, this nongreasy serum helps reduce hair fall and breakage. After daily use for eight weeks, the brand reported that 80% of women said their hair felt stronger and they saw less hair on their hairbrush—two major wins.
Best For Dry Shampoo Addicts: dpHue ACV Daily Scalp Serum ($49)
If your daily hair routine involves lots of dry shampoo and styling products, this one’s for you. Not only do ingredients like apple cider vinegar, maca root, hyaluronic acid and apple stem cells help usher in stronger, healthier follicles, it’s also designed to deliver a gentle detox to strands to curb buildup and irritation.
Best Greener Option: Luna Nectar Atmosphere Hair Density & Scalp Serum ($52)
Waterless, natural, vegan and cruelty-free, this good-for-the-earth option also delivers serious results with help from ingredients like aloe vera, herbal extracts and peptides. According to the brand, testers have seen a difference in the “look and feel of the density, thickness, and condition of their hair and scalp” in an average of 3-4 weeks.
Best For Stronger Hair: Augustinus Bader The Scalp Treatment ($80)
The brand’s patented TFC8 complex—also the hero ingredient in the best-selling skin-care line—helps to strengthen and rejuvenate the skin on the scalp to result in less shedding and thinning.
Best For Reversing Thinning Hair: Vegamour Gro+ Advanced Hair Serum ($74)
Boosted with microencapsulated CBD to travel deeper into the dermis of the scalp, this supercharged, best-selling serum—it’s packed with caffeine and botanicals, too—promises “fuller-looking hair in as soon as 90 days, with peak results around 120 days.”
