You’ve heard of hair pomade, gel, clay, and paste, but what about the best hair cream for men? Before you settle on a styling product, you should give hair cream a try. Hair cream can help with styling, frizz-control, volume, and curl support, and without the stiff, crusty texture you sometimes get with gels and pomades. Creams are super lightweight, you-can-barely-tell-it’s-there stylers that are actually a better choice for most guys. Why? Because many (most?) men’s hairstyles don’t require high-hold products. Sometimes, you just need some light coating, not a full-on shellacking.
These lightweight hair creams are a lot like leave-in conditioners, but with the lightest touch of shine and sculptability. They’ll accentuate and control curls without compromising volume. They’ll tame the unruly long hairs that stray from the flock. They provide direction and definition but never leave your hair feeling too firm. And if you’ve got thinning hair, some products can texturize without suffocating or weighing down your remaining locks. The best hair cream for men is also packed with nourishing, fortifying ingredients. If you aren’t sure where to start, then peruse our favorite lightweight heavy hitters below.
The Best Hair Cream for Men, at a Glance
- The Best Overall: Highland Glacial Cream, $30
- The Best Hair Cream for Style Minimalists: Imperial Freeform Cream, $24
- The Best Hair Cream for Straight Hair: Davines This Is a Relaxing Moisturizing Fluid, $30
- The Best Hair Cream for Wavy Hair: Moroccanoil Molding Cream, $30
- The Best Hair Cream for Curly Hair: Ouai Curl Crème, $32
- The Best Hair Cream for Coiled Hair: Miss Jessie’s “Multicultural Curls” Cream, $21
- The Best Hair Cream for Taming Flyaways: Living Proof Anti-Frizz cream, $42
- The Best Hair Cream for Thinning Hair: Living Proof Full Thickening Blow-Dry cream, $32
- The Best Hair Cream for Thick Hair: Jack Black Texture Cream, $16
- The Best Hair Cream for Short Hair: Malin + Goetz Sage Styling Cream, $26
The Best Overall: Highland Glacial Styling Cream
Highland is a small business based in Boulder which makes natural hair care products in Los Angeles. The brand’s Glacial Cream picked up a GQ Grooming Award in 2023, and if you like pomade, its Glacial Clay Pomade is a must-try. The cream uses Canadian glacial clay, shea butter, and 13 other organic and natural ingredients to provide secure styling. The cream has a thick texture when it comes out of the tube, but it feels impossibly lightweight when it goes into your hair. It’s not the best possible cream for flyaways, but on balance, we don’t think guys will find a better hair cream. Thanks to the hair and scalp-nourishing ingredients, you can even use it as an alternative to dry shampoo on those in-between shower days.
The Best Hair Cream for Style Minimalists: Imperial Freeform Cream
This is one of the most straightforward, no frills styling creams out there. It rinses clean as if you never had it in your hair to begin with—not that you could feel it when it was in your mane. It’ll prevent you from looking windswept and maintain tidiness throughout the day while taming frizz and flyaways. But it won’t do much beyond that—and that’s exactly the point.
The Best Hair Cream for Straight Hair: Davines This Is a Relaxing Moisturizing Fluid
Davines’ hair cream promises straightforward results—and if we’re being literal, straight down results. No frizz, no poofing. Only smooth relaxedness. Humidity has met its foe.
The Best Custom Hair Cream: Prose Custom Curl Cream
In our review of Prose, we found that the custom hair and beauty brand lives up to the considerable hype. If you’re already on board, add a Custom Curl Cream to your regular order. And even if you’re not, this is a smart option for accentuating your hair’s natural texture, be it wavy, curly, coily, or coarse. The exact formula you receive will vary based on your hair type, but look for ingredients like collagen, caviar lime extract, arginine, argan oil, coconut oil, and linseed extract. It can be used on wet or dry hair.
The Best Hair Cream for Wavy Hair: Moroccanoil Molding Cream
This nourishing molding cream is infused with silky argan oil which is great for taming frizz and strengthening hair at the root to prevent breakage and split ends. Apply a dollop for a flexible, medium-hold that delivers maximum shine.
The Best Hair Cream for Curly Hair: Ouai Curl Crème
Ouai’s popular curl cream is targeted toward women, but it will work just as well on men’s hair. If you’ve got big, well-defined curls, this cream can provide volume and definition while keeping pesky flyaways and frizz under control. The fragrance has notes of bergamot, Italian lemon, rose de mai, violet, and musk. And if you like Ouai’s hair products, be sure to check out the popular Ouai Anti-Frizz Cream, too.
The Best Hair Cream for Coiled Hair: Miss Jessie’s Multicultural Curls Cream
Not all curls are the same which is why you want a formula that enhances your curl pattern without making it unrecognizable. This curl lotion is packed with moisturizing oils that won’t leave you looking like greasy mess but will deliver a lightweight hold that’ll keep your curls nice and smooth–minus any weird crunchiness.
The Best Men’s Grooming Hair Cream: Baxter of California Grooming Cream
Worried about the fragrances that come with hair creams made for women? Then try a hair grooming cream made specifically for men, like this old-favorite from Baxter of California. This cream uses shea butter, sunflower seed oil, aloe leaf juice, vitamins B and E, and botanical extracts like meadowfoam and grape seed oil to get frizz under control and rehydrate dried out hair. Guys use this cream for styling without any added weight, and you can even use it on your beard.
The Best Hair Cream for Taming Flyaways: Living Proof Anti-Frizz Cream
The best anti-frizz hair cream will condition and tame the hair so that it doesn’t frizz, split, or poof, even days after application. This dual styler and conditioner from Living Proof gives your hair a natural product-free texture while also delivering some stealth humidity defense. It’s also designed with added heat protection, so you can apply this cream before blow drying and still enjoy frizz-free styling.
The Best Hair Cream for Thick Hair: Jack Black Texture Cream
No matter your thick hair’s texture, this cream from Jack Black will add separation, body, definition, density—whichever other word you choose from that school of thought. It gives even the driest strands a healthy glow, and delivers day-long, touchable hold without any crunch or residue.
The Best Hair Cream for Short Hair: Malin + Goetz Sage Styling Cream
Most short-styled guys would probably overlook a cream, and instead opt for a choppy clay, paste, fiber, or wax. But keep a cream like M+G’s at the ready: It allows your strands to sit down, and to look intentionally styled, as opposed to ignored, frizzy, and poofy. It even delivers a healthy shine that won’t transfer to your hands as you run your fingers through the mane; that’s the kind of effortlessness it provides you—it works hard while barely being noticed.
The Best Hair Cream for Thinning Hair: Living Proof Full Thickening Blow-Dry Cream
This cream amps up your strands with tiny thickening molecules that, when applied across your entire dome, give volume and density to otherwise thin strands. It’s lightweight but texturizing all at the same time, and it also conditions strands simultaneously (for longterm strength). Normally, guys with thinning hair should be wary of hair dryers, but if you prefer to style this way, then always apply this product first. As you’d expect from a blow-dry product, it gives your hair added heat protection so that hair dryers won’t leave your precious locks parched and burnt. This cream comes with a citrus scent.
The Best Air-Dry Hair Cream: R+Co Cool Wind pH Perfect Air Dry Crème
Certain hair creams are definitely air creams, in that they’re meant to be air dried instead of blow dried. Now, don’t let that confuse you, because most hair creams can be left to air dry, or applied to barely wet strands—or even applied to dry strands as a finisher/tamer. But when you see an air-dry cream like R+Co’s, the name says it all: Apply this product to towel-dried hair, and then go about your business as it gives your hair lightweight and touchable control. It thwarts frizz, humidity, heat, and all the other headaches hurled your way in a day.
The Best Ultralight Styling Cream: Oribe styling cream
Oribe’s styling cream moisturizes to keep your hair healthy without adding any weight—it’s a must-have for guys with even a slight hint of curl or wave. There’s a good reason you’ll find top-tier stylists stocking up on this stuff: “Crème for Style” gives a slightly higher hold than the other products here, making it perfect for teasing out a bit more texture, or tamping things down for a hard-parted slicked-back style.
The Best Hair Cream for In-Between Phases: Aveda Men Pure-formance Grooming Cream
If you’re in the middle of that awkward growth stage where it’s too short to really style but too long to leave completely untouched, you want a lightweight cream that won’t weigh your hair down but will give it some shape and body. This non-greasy formula has a spicy scent so you can look and smell good in one go.
The Best Hair Cream for a Longer Hold: Hanz de Fuko Scheme Cream
Unlike all the squeezable and pumpable picks on this list, Hanz de Fuko’s styling cream comes in a small jar, particularly since it’s too dense to dispense. That extra mass delivers a medium hold (as opposed to light ones from most on this roster), but it still wears lightly in your hair. It promises a medium-to-high sheen, too. And because “Scheme Cream” is quite similar to a hair paste, it delivers a pliable, reworkable style.
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