Everything You Need To Know About Hair Milks

2025 made clear that the milk mania isn’t slowing down anytime soon. We’ve been closely monitoring its rise; think: milky toners and fragrance milks, and now, its hair milk’s time to shine. While these lightweight hydrators have been popular solutions for textured hair to deliver moisture without weighing down curls and coils; the category seems to be expanding as brands look to skin-ify haircare. What exactly is a hair milk, and why is it buzzy?

Vogue’s Favorite Hair Milks

Image may contain: Bottle, Lotion, Cosmetics, and Perfume

Image may contain: Bottle, Cosmetics, and Perfume

Image may contain: Bottle, Cosmetics, Perfume, and Aftershave

Image may contain: Bottle, Lotion, Shaker, and Cosmetics

Per celebrity hairstylist Keshia Tabaran, think of a hair milk as a lightweight leave-in. “It’s usually thinner than a cream but more nourishing than a spray, so it hydrates the hair and helps with detangling while still keeping movement,” she says, noting how the industry is just now catching up to how well these picks work. The industry is just now catching up to how exceptional milky formulas are—thanks in large part to their ability to nourish without the weight; attributing their popularity to a bigger shift towards consumers concerned with overall hair health and maintaining hydration.

Fellow celebrity hairstylist and JVN Hair founder Jonathan van Ness, would agree, whose brand features a bestselling formula. “While moisture and smoothing benefits that can be a hair milk’s sole purpose, many formulas also contain added features, too, like hair protection, added strength, or in our case, style memory,” van Ness tells Vogue.

With that in mind, there’s little not to love about hair milks—it’s just about finding the right formula for your hair type. Below we rounded up our eight favorite picks, with expert insights from celebrity hair stylists along the way.

Best Universal Leave-In: Davines OI All In One Milk

Davines

OI All In One Milk

Why We Love It: Tabaran’s favorite leave-in for all hair types—that’s right, all hair types, pin straight to curly—comes from Davines. Talk about a crowd pleaser! Referring to it as a universal leave-in, the clean formula features a blend of roucou oil, vitamin B5, glycerin, and sunflower seed oil to impart impossibly soft-to-the-touch lengths. And as an added bonus, the scent of this product is considered to be particularly delectable and creamy.
Editor’s Experience: “Uninstalling your braids? The oil-infused mist makes easy work of untangling kinks and knots. Refreshing lackluster curls? It also hydrates hair, smooths frizz, and imparts a healthy sheen. This emulsion made with protective ingredients that shield your hair from damage, it can be called on before intensive heat-styling, too. Best of all, it smells exquisite. I’d even say that its scent supersedes some of the best perfumes in my collection. It has a clean, sparkling aroma distinctive to fragrances that feature aldehyde–think: the fresh profile of Maison Francis Kurkdjian’s 724, but for a fraction of the cost.” —Tracy Achonwa, British Vogue contributor
Key Ingredients: Roucou oil, vitamin B5, glycerin, sunflower seed oil
More to Know: Vegan, cruelty-free, sulfate-free, phthalate-free, paraben-free, mineral oil-free, silicone-free
Type: Leave-in spray
Size: 4.56 fl oz