The Founder of Drybar Just Launched an Anti-Blowout Line of Products

06.06.2025, 21:54 allure.com

In 2011, I was an intern at Seventeen, getting my first taste of the beauty publishing world by writing blog posts in a windowless closet for $0 an hour and attending after-work events that left me with gift bags filled with thousands of dollars worth of products. Starting that fall, many of those events happened at Drybar, which debuted its first New York City location in September of that year. (The first salon opened in Los Angeles the year before.)

The concept of a blowouts-only salon was novel, but quickly became something many people in my life felt they couldn’t live without: When I was hired full-time at Seventeen after college, I learned that one of my managers didn’t wash her own hair, ever, instead going to Drybar once a week. (She was partial to the “Mai Tai”—beachy waves, straight ends.) At $40 a blowout (tip not included), it was a relatively affordable service that felt, to me, luxuriously frivolous. (I would be remiss not to note that it also was not for everyone: I remember editors with coily natural hair recounting interactions with stylists who had no idea how to handle their texture, which often led to bad experiences and an automatic rejection of future events hosted at the salons.)

Behind those salons was Alli Webb, a hairstylist who quickly created a blowout empire. When Allure included Webb in its annual “Influencers” package in 2014, Drybar had 35 salons across the country—and counting. (That number ultimately hit well over 100.) “A lot of people have said Drybar is the Starbucks of hairstyling, which is really flattering,” she said at the time. In 2013, the first Drybar products arrived—nine in total, including the Hot Toddy Heat Protector and Money Maker Flexible Hold Hairspray which are both still staples in my routine.

Webb was by far the most front-facing founder of Drybar and arguably still associated with the brand, even though she exited many years ago. Helen of Troy bought the Drybar trademark and product line for $255 million cash in 2019. (As part of the transaction, they granted a worldwide license to Drybar Holdings LLC to continue operating the salons.) After the sale, Webb’s personal life, in her own words, “nearly fell apart.” Webb and her husband, who is also a founder of Drybar, divorced, and her son entered rehab for addiction. But, ever the entrepreneur, she leaned into branding that chaotic part of her life with a series of “messy” projects.

First, a book The Messy Truth: How I Sold My Business for Millions but Almost Lost Myself, which Webb has called “part memoir, part business book” in interviews. Then, The Messy Collective, which, for $40 a month, grants its members access to business-focused masterclasses and monthly group calls with Webb. (For $1,200, you can join “The Messy Mastermind,” which includes six smaller calls over the course of eight weeks.) Now, Webb is launching Messy by Alli Webb, a line of hair-care products that, as the name implies, focus on a less-polished finish.

The line was inspired by Webb’s own hair journey. She tells me that between the sale of Drybar and, soon after, COVID-19 shutdowns, she just started doing less with her hair. “I wasn’t coloring it, I wasn’t doing any blowouts,” Webb says. “I just started taking really good care of my hair, and it started to grow and get healthier.”

Alli Webb

That meant embracing her natural waves, which, as anyone else with wavy hair can attest, can be quite the styling rollercoaster. Webb notes that she recently rewatched old videos from when she first started moving away from blowouts and thought, “Oh, no, that does not look good.” But now, she thinks she’s nailed it—and is selling products to help everyone else nail it too.

“Obviously, the blowout [trend] was largely my fault. I mean, I’m proud that I did that…but now there’s this in-between,” Webb told me this spring. “Right now, there’s a big movement for air-drying, but air-drying doesn’t work [for me]. It kind of sometimes works, but it’s a crapshoot. You would never go out to do something important, like a meeting or a date, with the risk of the crapshoot of air-drying your hair.”

As a fellow crapshoot-adverse person with wavy hair, I got my hands on the products back in April and have been testing them ever since. Here’s how it’s gone so far.

Messy is launching with five products: shampoo, conditioner, a rough dry cream, silk spray, and overnight hair serum. Other than the $34 serum, they’re all $32 and launching initially on ItsMessy.com and Sephora on June 24.

Before I get into a breakdown of the three standout (for me) products from the line, I have to say one of the best parts, overall, is the fragrance. The musky, herbaceous scent is definitely strong—I feel like I can skip perfume when I use the line on washdays—but I also think quite lovely and sophisticated. “Fragrance, as you might imagine, was really important to me,” Webb says. “The Drybar fragrance was so well received, so [for Messy] I wanted to create something that’s really beautiful and timely to where I am right now.”

I asked the brand to send some product to Mia Santiago, a hairstylist I’ve worked with on photoshoots in the past, for her professional thoughts, and she also called out the fragrance. “The very first thing I do with any new product is hit it with the ol’ sniff test. This scent? It’s IT,” she says over email. “Luxurious, herbal, oudy perfection. I had people literally stop me to ask what perfume I was wearing, and I had to be like, ‘Oh, this? It’s my hair.’ Off to a banging start.”

The styling cream, which has a texture that’s slightly thicker than your average leave-in conditioner, is clearly meant to be the hero of the line. It’s to be used on days when you only want to partially blow-dry your hair, which isn’t a way I’ve ever seen a product positioned before. With that in mind, perhaps it’s not surprising that it took me a few tries to figure out how to use it.

Webb designed the cream to complement the styling technique that she found works best for her own texture: Rough-dry your hair until it’s 30-40% dry, apply a styling cream, use your fingers to twist one-inch sections around your head, and then leave your hair alone until it’s completely finished air-drying. “Not touching your hair after you [twist it] is kind of an interesting unlock for people,” Webb says. “Just give it an hour and it will open up.”

Webb says the cream works particularly well for people with a similar wavy hair texture to hers, but says they also tested it on other curl patterns. She recalls one woman on her team who has very straight hair saying the finger twist technique doesn’t actually create waves for her. Instead, after twisting, she clips each section up on top of her head while it dries, so the twists stay in place. On the flip side, Webb says her testers with ringlets and coils would mix the overnight serum with the rough-dry cream for added hydration—and, of course, would need to use a lot more product than someone with hair like Webb’s or finer.

My hair is finer and has a slightly looser curl pattern than Webb’s, but it seems like it falls in approximately the same hair type category. The first time I tested the cream, I applied the styler before I hit it with a blow-dryer, but did follow the twisting technique. The results were… fine? My hair definitely wasn’t frizzy, but also had zero volume and not as much curl definition as I’ve been able to get with other products and techniques. On a video call with my coworkers, the general feedback was “Your hair doesn’t look awful, but we’ve seen it look way better.” Here’s a photo of my hair after that first attempt, compared to how it looks when I do my usual wavy hair routine, which involves plopping and using a curl cream with more hold.

After using the Messy Rough Dry Cream

After using another curl cream

When I tried the cream again a few days later, I thought it looked best after I took my dog for a walk during a light drizzle: Sure, there was more frizz, but also more wave definition.

When I mentioned this on a call with Webb a few weeks later, she theorized that my hair needed humidity to really thrive and advised that I try applying the cream after I’d hit my hair with a blow-dryer, rather than when it was sopping wet. The results (below) that I got after taking her advice were much better than my first attempt. ("Oh, that looks nice!" was one coworker's review this time around.)

While this obviously isn’t the waviest my hair can get, it is a vibe! This hair makes me want to walk barefoot down a beach at sunset while wearing a white cotton dress. It makes me wish I were reading a book on a wraparound porch while sipping iced tea. It definitely took less effort than my usual routine, and I’m into having an option for looser waves on days when that’s the look I’m going for.

Santiago, however, loved her results—zero caveats. “I twisted my hair the way the packaging suggested, and wow—it worked better than I imagined. The shape! The texture! Chef’s kiss,” she writes. “Next time, I skipped the twist and just went to bed with wet hair, and four days later, my hair was still a glorious, messy dream.”

I’ve saved the best, in my opinion, for last. Guys, this is a really good shampoo and conditioner combination. The shampoo is rich and sudsy; it cleansed my hair thoroughly without leaving it feeling overwashed. It does contain moisturizing ingredients, like ucuuba seed oil, so it might not be for everyone… but it’s definitely for me. Santiago agreed. “The shampoo left my hair squeaky clean, but not dried out like some texturizing shampoos I’ve tried.”

As Santiago puts it, the conditioner is “the perfect medium weight.” We both found that it smoothed and hydrated our hair without weighing it down. And, again, the scent is delicious. “The scent honestly deserves to be its own perfume,” she says. “It lingers just enough to catch whiffs throughout the day and feel like you’re walking through an expensive spa commercial.”

Santiago d