11 Best Serums For Straightening Hair
It’s impressive how some of the simplest hairstyles can prove to be the most versatile.
Among these adaptable hairdos is the timeless look of pin-straight hair.
We’ve seen this look since the 70s during Cher’s reign, and the style hasn’t hibernated since then.
While achieving perfectly straight strands may seem as simple as taking a flat iron to your hair, you may find that your results could end up frizzy, dry, and far from smooth.
Even worse is the unfortunate possibility that your hair will snap from damage in the long run!
So what can you do to keep your hair protected, and also preserve the silky, waterfall-type locks you’re yearning for?
The answer lies in finding a good hair serum!
So, what is the best serum for straightening hair?
If it contains a heat protectant and nourishing ingredients and is non-greasy, you can rightfully consider it one of the best serums for straightening hair.
There are so many incredible choices out there on the market, but we’ve picked out several that cut into our personal hall of fame!
We chose these products for good reason, as each of them goes above and beyond the call of your run-of-the-mill hair serum.
Here, learn all about our picks so that you can find the next best addition to your haircare routine.
What Is A Hair Serum?
A hair serum is a hair care product designed to penetrate deep into the hair shaft, effectively distributing smoothing, healing, and heat-protecting qualities!
While you can use this product every single day, it is considered a styling product — meaning it’s most beneficial when you’re styling your hair.
Serums can be used on wet or dry hair, and can coat your hair with a variety of beneficial properties, some even claiming to restore your hair’s natural strength and lustre over time.
Since it surrounds your locks with a sort of shield after application, serums are a fantastic product to use before using heat on your hair.
Does your hair tend to frizz throughout the day?
Serums are also perfect at blocking out humidity, meaning you can keep your style in place all day without fear of frizzing up or losing the sleekness of freshly straightened hair.
But the biggest rule about serums has to be that you should use them sparingly!
As far as hair products go, this one is rich and concentrated, so the risk of going overboard is very real!
How To Choose The Best Hair Serum
Heat Protectant
One may think that all hair serums can double as a heat protectant, but the unfortunate truth is that unless the bottle distinguishes itself as a thermal protector, it won’t do anything to save your strands from heat damage.
A serum that protects against heat will typically be more viscous than your average serum, as it needs to coat the hair in a thicker layer of protection before it undergoes high temperatures.
What’s extra nice about heat protectant serums is that they usually have restorative properties.
Healthy oils help turn back time on the damage you did to your locks before adding them to your haircare ritual!
Nourishing Add-Ons
From honey to plant extracts to vitamin E, finding a hair serum with benefits that mend your personal hair concerns is what takes a serum from a hair product to a hair necessity.
Some properties are there to give your hair a sweet scent, while others are added for the miracle work they can do on your locks!
During your search, you’ll also find that oils are a popular inclusion in most serums.
Keratin is a popular addition for its hair-strengthening ability, but you’ll also find jojoba and argan oil making themselves known, too.
If your hair is feeling brittle and dry (especially during the winter months), finding a serum with oil isn’t optional!
Oils will give your hair immediate moisture, hydrating your locks and keeping them frizz-free all day long.
A Weightless Feel
A popular misconception about hair serums is that they leave your hair looking heavy, oily, or weighed down. And the truth is, that is a total possibility.
The rule applies to hair as well as life: you can have too much of a good thing!
That’s why it’s important to find a serum that’s compatible with your hair type.
If your hair is more absorbent and porous, you can get away with using more product at one time.
You can even try your hand at a heavier, more oil-based serum.
Finer locks should search for serums that label themselves as ‘lightweight’ or ‘weightless.’
Since your hair is on the thinner end, the overuse of any product can leave your strands looking clumpy and greasy.
And since oil is most apparent on straight hair, make sure to apply serums with a gentler hand!
Best Serums For Straightening Hair
| Rank | Product | Key Featurse |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | Sutra Beauty Hair Serum | Heat protectant, frizz-free, vitamins, jojoba oil |
| 2. | L’ANZA Neem Plant Silk Serum | Repairs damage, reduces hair fall |
| 3. | Paul Mitchell Super Skinny Serum | Paraben/sulfate free, no-frizz, anti-humidity |
| 4. | Goldwell Just Smooth Spray Serum | Spray bottle, humidity-resistant, UV protection |
| 5. | Obliphica Seaberry Hair Serum | 14 vitamins, improves elasticity, silky hair |
| 6. | Redken Frizz Dismiss Serum | Frizz-free, vitamin E, moisturizing |
| 7. | Fantasia Heat Protector Straightening Serum | Vitamin E, SPF, for thick hair |
| 8. | HerStyler Hair Serum | Vitamin E, argan oil, aloe vera, moisturizing |
| 9. | Mixed Chicks Straightening Serum | Curly/coily/natural hair, 6 botanicals, shiny hair |
| 10. | SheaMoisture Strengthen & Restore Hair Serum | Free of harsh ingredients, C type hair |
| 11. | John Frieda Frizz Ease Serum | Non-greasy, UV and heat protectant, biotin |
1. Sutra Beauty Hair Serum
If your locks are damaged after years of heat usage, finding a hair serum with potent restorative properties should be at the top of your list!
Luckily, Sutra has concocted a product that smooths your hair and works hard to prevent future damage.
This hair serum can be used as a heat protectant before styling, but you also have the option of using it after heat styling to seal your straightened style into place.
It works alongside the warmth of your hair to penetrate deep into your locks, enriching each strand with vitamins and nutrients to not only keep your mane frizz-free, but to restore it to its healthiest state.
With the incredible trifecta of jojoba oil, omegas, and vitamin E, it’ll be impossible for you not to see and feel a difference in your hair.
While vitamin E moisturizes and soothes all the damage done by your straightener, jojoba oil strengthens your strands to ensure that breakage is a thing of the past.
One of our favorite things about this product is the benefits provided by omegas 3 and 9.
This not only protects against the heat of your flat iron, but also from the harmful UV rays emitted by the sun.
2. L’ANZA Neem Plant Silk Serum
If you pride yourself on your long locks, you probably do everything in your power to keep them nice and healthy.
Unfortunately, split and damaged strands are difficult to avoid during the hair-growing process since the ends of your hair aren’t necessarily built to withstand the test of time.
That’s why we’re super thankful to L’ANZA for their Neem Plant Silk Serum — which can turn back the clock on years of growth, heat damage, and over-shampooing!
Featuring Neem plant, white tea, lemon, and Manuka honey, this formula targets just about any issue your mane may be having.
Are your locks losing lustre?
White tea will reduce the free radicals in your hair, acting as a literal anti-aging product for your strands.
Wishing your hair were stronger?
Lemon and Manuka honey increase collagen production and reduce hair fall, respectively, meaning any new growth will be stronger than it’s ever been.
Or maybe you want to stimulate faster growth.
Thankfully, the Neem Plant extract in this serum is chock-full of fatty acids — aka, hair food!
This serum is a great pick for all hair types, and is weightless — meaning you can look sleek and straightened all day with a clean and shiny sheen, no grease in sight!
This is a heat protecting serum, so apply on damp or dry hair before using your flat iron for the best results..
3. Paul Mitchell Super Skinny Serum
If you have curly or wavy hair, you probably live in fear of your straightened style going frizzy throughout the day.
All the extra moisture in the air can be your number one enemy, and the worst part is that it’s seemingly unavoidable.
The good news is that Paul Mitchell kept his curly-haired friends in mind when he formulated his Super Skinny Serum.
Made to keep you smooth and flyaway-free no matter the weather!
Not only is it sweetly scented with fruit and flowery essences, but it’s also paraben/sulfate free, and perfectly safe for color-treated hair.
While this serum isn’t a heat protectant, it coats your hair with a moisture-resistant formula that locks your style in and keeps the humidity out.
You may think this calls for a thicker product, but this serum is still exceptionally lightweight, leaving your locks polished and neat without compromising volume.
And if you’re the type of person who’s not fussy about their beauty routine, you’ll be happy to hear that this serum actually speeds up your drying time, so you don’t need to worry about your locks taking forever to dry before you whip out your flat iron!
If it means we can catch some extra Z’s before going out, it gets an ‘A’ in our book!
4. Goldwell Just Smooth Spray Serum
While serum is an incredible addition to our hair routines, we can’t deny that the application does feel kind of messy at times.
Some serums claim that you can rub in any excess product into your nailbeds to moisturize your cuticles, while other serums aim to avoid the mess altogether.
Goldwell’s Just Smooth Serum is among the latter, as it’s one of the only serums we could find that actually comes in a spray bottle!
This serum is made for use on dry hair, and is a heat protectant up to 392° — perfect for your flat iron!
It’s also humidity-resistant for up to 24 hours, so you can go out for a night on the town and not have to worry about your hair having a party of its own!
We love the spray bottle feature as it makes it that much easier to dispense product, and makes the serum difficult to over-apply!
We’re also big fans of how this product is safe for use on dyed hair, shields against UV rays, and is sulfate/paraben/gluten-free.
Oh, and did we mention that it’s vegan-friendly?
This is a great serum for all hair types, and with its honey and floral scent, you’ll find yourself reaching for it over and over again.
5. Obliphica Seaberry Hair Serum
Have you ever wished for a potion or a drink you could take to give yourself Rapunzel-like locks?
While you won’t wake up with 40 ft. locks using Obliphica’s Seaberry Hair Serum, it’s about as close as you can get to real-life magic.
This is our pick for extremely damaged hair as it contains four omega anti-agers, 14 vitamins, as well as aminos and phytosterols.
Omegas 3, 6, 7, and 9 work to turn back time on any damage, hydrating your hair follicles on a cellular level, soothing your scalp, and improving hair elasticity (bye bye breakage).
And protecting your hair against the dangers of chemicals, weather, heat, and even the stress of your hairbrush.
When you coat your hair with this serum, you are not only promoting new hair growth by feeding your strands their vitamins and minerals, but you’re also introducing them to the incredible powers of lysine and serine.
Lysine will build a strong foundation for more Keratin production, while serine smooths and conditions your hair, keeping it supple, silky, and static-free.
You get all of this goodness in one lightweight formula. What’s not to love about that?
6. Redken Frizz Dismiss Serum
If you notice your hair looking frizzy after straightening, an oil-based hair serum may be your new best friend.
Redken has made an entire line with your concerns in mind, with its main focus being to keep frizz out!
One of the stars of this series is the Frizz Dismiss Serum.
And it’s so good that some customers claim it’s the only hair serum they’ve found that works for their chronic frizziness.
What sets this serum apart from other frizz-controlling products? The usage of babassu oil.
Babassu oil, derived from the babassu palm in the Amazon, is well-revered for its prevalence in the beauty community.
This oil is extremely rich in vitamin E and can improve blood flow to the scalp, making for healthier strands and faster hair growth.
With babassu oil being the wonder worker it is, it’s no surprise that this serum is intensely moisturizing and rich.
Unfortunately, this product is not a heat protectant, so to prevent damage, you’ll need to find a thermal protector to use in conjunction with this serum.
But if you find that your run-of-the-mill hair serum is leaving your hair poofy and unmanageable, we have high hopes that this serum will do the trick.
7. Fantasia Heat Protector Straightening Serum
If your hair is highly absorbent, curly, and thick, you need a serum that’s a little more heavy-duty.
Our pick for these locks is the Fantasia Heat Protector Straightening Serum.
Made for use with flat irons, this serum will act as armour for your strands.
So if your hair needs extra high temperatures to straighten out, you don’t need to worry about the potential damage you may be causing.
Enriched with aloe, vitamin E, silicone, and SPF, it’s no surprise that this serum is a favourite among the beauty community.
The secret to its longevity and lasting power is its addition of silicone.
While most serums use it, silicone is one of the most active ingredients of Fantasia’s formula, which means it’ll lock in every ounce of moisture your hair has once exposed to heat.
If your hair is on the finer side, we wouldn’t recommend this serum as your first pick, as it is a lot more concentrated and thick than your average product.
This formula was made with black locks in mind as their hair is more receptive to product, needs extra protection from heat, and calls for more moisture-wicking properties in their products.
8. HerStyler Hair Serum
Not only does the HerStyler Hair Serum do everything it promises and more,
But it’s also a great choice if you’re looking for the biggest bang for your buck.
You don’t need much of this serum (only 2–3 drops) to see a difference in your length.
People claim to have seen this product transform their hair before their eyes, and with its combination of argan oil, aloe vera, and vitamin E, we totally believe them.
If your hair is on the drier side, or if you find your hair lacking that “waterfall” type look once you’ve finished straightening it, the added moisture of this serum will work wonders.
This magic serum can detangle, soften, moisturise, and tame frizz, so once you pair it with a good heat protectant (this serum is not a thermal protector), your hair prep is all done!
But by far the most impressive part of this serum is how it cares for your hair that hasn’t even grown yet.
With aloe vera hard at work nourishing your scalp, any dormant or damaged hair follicles it finds will be stimulated and healed — meaning you can grow longer, healthier hair with ease.
9. Mixed Chicks Straightening Serum
We love Mixed Chicks because they formulate products with togetherness as their central foundation.
Their Straightening Serum was made for those with super curly or ethnic hair in mind, but it’s a product that’s loved by all!
This serum is lightweight and non-sticky.
Some even say they were initially surprised by the product as it’s definitely on the thinner side of the serum spectrum!
But don’t be fooled, because it’s jam-packed with the healing powers of 6 natural, plant-based botanicals: chamomile, goldenseal, silk amino acids, hops extract, witch-hazel, and rosemary.
The bonding properties of this serum are extraordinary, taming even the kinkiest of curls and treating the worst of your hair woes.
You can wave goodbye to an irritated scalp and dandruff thanks to the soothing benefits of chamomile, goldenseal, and witch hazel.
And say hello to shine with the help of silk amino acids, rosemary, and hops extract!
This serum is a heat protectant, humidity-resistant, and cuts drying time down.
It’s best used after a deep conditioning treatment and on damp hair.
Plus, it’s so gentle that it can be used every single day.
10. SheaMoisture Strengthen & Restore Hair Serum
If your hair constantly undergoes straightening procedures, whether by perm or flat iron, finding a hair serum that acts as a protective treatment should be a priority.
And if there’s any oil that’s gone viral due to its healing benefits, it has to be black castor oil.
So how lucky are we that SheaMoisture has made a serum that highlights all the incredible properties this oil has to offer, all while keeping the formula sulfate, paraben, and petroleum-free?
We would say extremely lucky.
The last thing that damaged hair needs are harsh chemicals, so we love that SheaMoisture uses fair trade, naturally sourced ingredients in all their products.
Is your hair curly, coily, or kinky?
Then your strands will love the restorative properties that Jamaican black castor oil has to share.
This serum is on the thicker side and will penetrate deep into the hair shaft, infusing your strands with immediate hydration and moisture, bringing even the most broken locks back to life.
Need more intensive help? This serum can also double as a hot oil treatment if need be.
Talk about an overachiever!
11. John Frieda Frizz Ease Serum
John Frieda has to be one of the most beloved styling brands in haircare history, and they definitely poured all that love into their Frizz Ease Serum.
This serum should be applied to soaking wet hair.
You heard us right, we’re talking straight from the shower!
John Frieda explains that this is the prime time to lock in moisture, making for a smoother finish once you take a flat iron to your strands.
You only need a dime-sized amount upon initial application, but you can increase as needed depending on the thickness of your hair.
Make sure to avoid your roots since this serum tends to look greasy!
We are in love with how moisturising this serum is, and we’re also huge fans of how it’s a heat and UV protectant.
The usage of Bamboo Extract, which contains a ton of biotin, also assists in repairing dry, broken, or frizzy strands.
Plus, it’s colour safe, and so loved in the hair community that it’s a stylist’s favourite. Salon treatment at home? Yes, please!
