It’s rare that I walk into my local Boots and see a new brand, it’s a small store so we don’t get a lot of the cool and upcoming brands in the store, in fact – I don’t think any of the makeup brands in this store have changed in 10 years. So when I went into said Boots recently when I had my haircut in September, I stumbled across a brand I hadn’t seen or heard of before – SGX NYC Haircare. I’d actually entered the store to get, hairspray, dry shampoo and a texturising spray. There was a buy one get one half price deal on at the time, so I decided to get the things I was after to try from this brand.
I normally can’t help but start with comments on the packaging, but let’s be honest – this brand is unavoidably about the packaging. I imagine they designed the packaging to draw millennials in, like moths to the flame. With soft pastel colours of clouds, geodes and abstract pictures. They don’t have a huge range of products, 7 styling products to be precise – only one of which is a cream, the others are in spray form – there does seem to be some additional products however Boots do not stock them. All of the products are £7.99 each. I’d normally not spend £7.99 on a dry shampoo – however these are fairly large cans which seemed like it would last longer than average.
SGX NYC Haircare is also 100% vegan, not tested on animals, paraben and sulphate free.
Okay, so let’s talk about these SGX NYC Haircare products…
SGX NYC Dry Touch Volumising Dry Shampoo
There are two dry shampoos within the line and I was umming and ahhing between the two. I decided on the Volumising one in the end as since I’ve had my haircut I love the fact that my hair holds volume more easily. The scent of this is jasmine and fig – it’s fairly light and not too overpowering, I can’t say that I’ve noticed that the scent has lingered too much but is enough to freshen the hair up. It’s important with this dry shampoo not to spray too close, it is definitely most effective when used as instructed 20-25cm away, too close and it doesn’t spread out through the hair properly.
It’s not the most effective dry shampoo that I’ve tried in terms of oil control, it does freshen up the hair’s appearance but I’ve tried others that are more effective – I find I can only really use this once between washing my hair by the time I’m at day 3 it doesn’t really freshen up the hair at all. In terms of it’s volumising effects, it’s good spraying over the top layer of roots alone doesn’t do too much in terms of volume, but if you section off and do a few layers you can definitely amp up volume more.
The Body Guard Texture Protective Spray
This was the fourth product I picked up and wasn’t one of my intended products, it’s a bit of a strange one as it’s this in between product. The first point that this has on the can is thermal protection up to 220 degrees, however don’t try using this on wet hair, don’t try using it before straightening, it’s a finishing spray and is more designed (I think) to protect against environmental heat.
The spray is more a humidity protector with built in light hold, something that I’ve definitely enjoyed testing as the weather has got wetter and wetter. I’ve trialled the effectiveness of this by styling my hair curled and it does seem to make a difference, however I’m not sure that it makes much more difference to the under control spray. Maybe it’s better in hot humidity rather than wet-England humidity, but it’s definitely not a bad product. This does have a scent but it’s pretty light – similar to the dry shampoo.
The Do It All Texture Spray
Compared to the volumising dry shampoo, this has more hold and more volume, this is described as a dry shampoo meets hairspray and whilst I do see where that comes from, I wouldn’t recommend using this on the top layer of your roots. But sectioning hair off and ruffling up the layers as you go creates great volume. Some similar texturising sprays in the past that I’ve tried have turned he hair too crispy or felt sticky once in the hair, but this is the perfect blend of being able to hold and add texture without it looking like you’ve used products, it looks like natural oompf. This is the star of the show from these for me, and if you’ve been looking for a texture spray, this one is great!
Under Control Finishing Spray
Last up is the hairspray/finishing spray – I’ve spoke at length about the fussiness I have towards hairsprays, and as I finished off the design.me hold me spray, this had big boots to fill. First off the spray of this is really fine, something personally I’d like as if I want something really heavy I’d rather just coat my hair in layers, but my hair is pretty good at holding styles, so I tend to go for something that’s more on the light-mid hold for day to day styling.
One of the things that makes me fussy over hairsprays is that a lot seem to stick to my throat with this vile chemical taste, this thankfully doesn’t have that. It does have that muted hairspray scent, but isn’t so strong that you smell like a walking chemical factory. This tames flyaways and smooths ponytails well, it does a good job of holding a looser curl without looking too crispy, but when I want to do a heavier curl it doesn’t have enough hold to keep everything in place without it dropping out, but for soft, natural curls it’s fine. 
Have you heard of SGX NYC Haircare before?
Available to purchase from Boots here.
Post contains affiliate links, products purchased myself.
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I’ve never heard of these before, but the finishing spray looks right up my alley! I am not a fan of crispy hair, but definitely need a little frizz control. It looks like these are cheaper in the US (Target’s website says $6.99 a bottle), so I might have to give it a go!
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Of course they’re cheaper in the US haha – they’re not too badly priced here, but that does sound like a good steal at that price!