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Does mousse or gel work better on wavy hair?
Mousse and gel are both good styling product options for wavy hair. Which you want will primarily come down to your style preferences. If you want frizz-free, well-defined waves, try gel on wet hair. If you want big volume, go for mousse on damp hair.
When I first found the curly girl method a few years ago, I thought gel was the go-to styling product that had hold. I didn’t really hear much about mousse at the time. I was following a lot more curly-haired channels than wavy, at the time. It seems like gel is the most common choice for people with curly hair.
In the last year or so as I’ve found a few wavy-specific communities, I’ve noticed mousse is mentioned a lot more than it is in curly circles.
When I started embracing my waves in 2018, I bought LA looks gel. It took a little while to figure out exactly how to best use it. I wasn’t able to get a cast for a while, and once I did get a cast, I realized it improved my results quite a bit.
If you’re new to the idea of a cast, check out my post what is a gel cast and how to get one. I did try mousse once early on, a random old bottle we had laying around in the bathroom that wasn’t CG approved. It didn’t seem to give me any hold at all, my hair turned out terribly and I didn’t bother to try mousse again for a long time.
About a year ago I gave mousse another try…I don’t really even remember why. I’m so glad I did though, because I was able to get a cast with the mousse, and I really liked my results! I have primarily been using mousse ever since then.
In the fall I tested out 10 types of mousse, tracking my results for 3 days each, and did a comparison blog post. Check out my Best Mousse For Wavy Hair post to see it. I did another comparison blog posts, for gels. Check out my best gels for wavy hair blog post to see that. I also have a wavy hair product recommendations post sharing my top favorites of gel and mousse.
