Blowing out your own hair will always be a chore. I don't care how many Dyson Supersonics and Mason Pearson brushes you add to the equation—blasting really hot air at your head while wielding a round brush every time you emerge from the shower just sucks. ("That's why we all invested in air drying products, Emily!" OK fine, but that's another story, stop interrupting me.) Blowout balms have done a damn fine job draining me of my hard-earned income over the years and I'd had just about enough of it...until R + Co.'s Park Ave Blowout Balm. I didn't want to believe it! I'd been hurt too many times! And yet here I am, with hair I blow-dried myself while also not wanting to demolish my bathroom.

The gel-cream slips through wet hair easily, giving strands enough coverage without forcing your hand into using half the bottle just to end up with dry hair that's weighed down with grease. Once it's worked through, it's hard to even feel. Yet each section of hair smooths down with less tugging, eventually cutting down drying time for a better result. Fully dry hair doesn't have any leftover residue or scent—it's as bouncy as it would be walking out of one of those uptown salons the product is aptly named for. Now, I don't much care for bouncy hair, so I usually dirt it up with some Bumble and bumble Hairdresser's Invisible Oil and Rahua's Enchanted Island Salt Spray (really good, out soon). As is my prerogative—and it could be yours! Have whatever hair you want, at long last.

—Emily Ferber

Photographed by Tom Newton.

But first, wash those locks. Parisian colorist Christophe Robin shows you how, en camera, over here.