Dry shampoo began as a convenience product: a powder or spray that soaks up oil from the scalp when there is no time, or no water, for a wash. Over the past two decades it has become a mainstream part of the hair-care aisle. Products such as aerosol sprays, powders and impregnated wipes now compete with conventional shampoos, and the technology behind them has moved from simple starch-and-talc mixtures to carefully engineered formulations. Whenever a product category grows this way, patent filings follow. They show where companies are investing, which technical problems they consider worth solving, and which regions they want to protect.

Objective, scope and methodology

The aim of the study was to identify patents and published applications covering dry shampoo technologies and to observe the key trends in that body of work. No time restriction was applied, and the search covered patent publications worldwide, so the data reaches back to the mid-1990s.

The work followed two phases. Analyst built a working understanding of the domain from client input and freely available sources, then wrote search strings and ran keyword searches on the Thomson Innovation database and other patent databases. That produced a pool of roughly 500 patents and published applications. Duplicate family members were removed, and the records went through data-sanity checks. Analysts screened them on title, abstract and claims, and then categorised the relevant ones in detail. In the second phase, the categorised data was turned into charts and trend analyses.

A point worth keeping in mind when reading the numbers: some charts count one representative patent per family (a family is the group of filings that protect one invention in several countries), while others use family-expanded data, where every member counts. The first approach shows how many distinct inventions exist. The second shows how widely they are protected. The two should not be compared directly.

Dry shampoos are commercially available in several forms:

 

• Aerosol sprays: Pressurised formulations that distribute absorbent powders onto the hair.
• Loose powders: Powder-based formulations applied directly to the scalp and hair.
• Foams and mousses: Formulations designed to provide uniform application and reduced visible residue.
• Non-aerosol sprays: Liquid or suspension-based formulations delivered through pump dispensers.
• Specialised formulations: Products incorporating fragrances, conditioning agents, botanical extracts and scalp-care ingredients.

Common materials include:

• Rice, corn, wheat and potato starch.
• Aluminium starch octenylsuccinate.
• Silica and other porous materials.
• Talc and kaolin.
• Modified cellulose and other bio-based materials.
• Zeolites and other mineral-based absorbents.

 

 

A taxonomy for dry shampoo

To analyse the patents consistently, the study organised the field into a taxonomy with Dry Shampoo at the centre and the following branches:

• Application: shampoo compositions, application devices and cleaners.
• Area of application: hair, foot, pets, clothes and rugs or carpets.
• Type of composition: herbal, chemical, herbal and chemical combined, with water, and waterless.
• Composition/contents: base component, propellant, solvent, oil, starch, emulsifiers, perfumes and many minor agents.
• Dispensing form: powder, aerosol (powder aerosol, spray aerosol and combined forms), sheets, creams and others.
• After effects, purpose, packaging and other aspects: for example conditioning, ease of removal, detergent action, particle size and application units such as brushes and puffs.

This structure matters because it lets the study ask specific questions, such as which dispensing forms are most protected or which effects inventors emphasise. Those answers appear in Part 3.

Overall filing trends

Filing years: a late surge

For most of the period the number of new patent families per filing year stayed low and uneven. From 1996 to 2012 annual filings never went above 12 families, and many years saw only a handful. Between 2001 and 2002 there was a small bump, with 9 and 8 families, and 2003 and 2004 dropped to a single family each.

The picture changes sharply from 2012. Filings rose to 12 families that year and then to 27 in both 2013 and 2014, more than double any earlier year. The 2015 figure of 15 is lower, but it is also partial: patent applications are generally published about 18 months after filing, so the most recent years always look thinner than they really are.

Publication years: momentum into 2016

Publication data tells a similar story. Until 2013 the field rarely produced more than about ten publications a year, apart from a spike of 11 in 1999. Then the numbers climbed: 10 in 2013, 28 in 2014 and a peak of 30 in 2015. The 2016 count of 18 was recorded before the year ended, so it points to continued strong activity. The study concluded that the upward trend is likely to continue.

Priority years: where innovation actually began

Priority year, the date of the first filing for an invention, is the best indicator of when the underlying R&D happened. Here the count stayed below 10 per year until about 2008, then climbed steadily: 14 families in 2011, 19 in 2012, a peak of 23 in 2013 and 19 in 2014. The sharp fall to 3 in 2015 mostly reflects the publication delay mentioned above, so it should not be read as a collapse in innovation.

Year	Filing-year families	Publication-year families	Priority-year families
2011	6	2	14
2012	12	6	19
2013	27	10	23
2014	27	28	19
2015	15	30	3

 

Read together, the three views show a clear pattern. R&D activity ramped up around 2011 to 2013, applications were filed in volume in 2013 and 2014, and publications peaked in 2014 and 2015 once the 18-month delay had passed. Dry shampoo shifted from a niche area to an active field of invention in the early 2010s.

Several factors plausibly lie behind the timing, although the study itself does not test them. Social-media beauty culture popularised skipping wash days. Large consumer-goods companies broadened their dry shampoo ranges. Formulators also worked on long-standing complaints such as white residue, powdery feel and scalp build-up.

Classification-based trends

International Patent Classification (IPC)

Classification codes show what kind of technology the patents cover. Two classes dominate overwhelmingly:

IPC class	Meaning	Patents / publications
A61K	Preparations for medical, dental or toilet purposes	763
A61Q	Specific use of cosmetics or similar toilet preparations	491
C11D	Detergent compositions	94
A61P	Specific therapeutic activity of chemical compounds	34
C07C	Acyclic or carbocyclic compounds	25
C08L	Compositions of macromolecular compounds	23
A23L	Foods and foodstuffs	20
C08J / A45D	Polymer processing / hairdressing and toilet articles	19 each
A01N	Biocides and preservation	16

 

The dominance of A61K and A61Q is expected: dry shampoo is a cosmetic hair-care preparation. The presence of C11D shows that the detergent and cleaning side of the technology is also well represented. Smaller classes tell their own story. C07C and C08L point to the use of specific organic compounds and polymers. A23L suggests the use of food-grade ingredients such as starches. A01N reflects antimicrobial and preservative functions.

Going deeper, the three leading classes together account for about 55% of filings. Within A61K, about 7% of patents fall under A61K 8/00 (cosmetic or toilet preparations), and A61K 8/02 (special physical form) and A61K 8/73 (polysaccharides) take about 6% each. Within A61Q, 24% of patents sit in A61Q 5/02, which covers preparations for cleaning the hair. In C11D, 9% fall under C11D 3/20, which concerns oxygen-containing ingredients. The polysaccharide result fits the product category well, since starches and similar materials are the classic oil absorbers in dry shampoo.

US classification

The US Patent Classification, which the US Patent Office used for many years, gives a complementary view. US class 424 (drug, bio-affecting and body-treating compositions) leads with 219 patents. US class 510 (cleaning compositions for solid surfaces and related processes) follows with 102. Class 260 (65), class 514 (59) and class 252 (43) come next, with smaller counts in classes such as 132 (hair and body care), 521, 544, 549 and 562.

Together, classes 424 and 510 hold about half of all filings (34% and 16%). Within class 424, about 6% fall under 424/401 (cosmetic, antiperspirant, dentifrice), with 424/65, 424/69 and 424/70.1 also appearing in smaller shares. Within class 510, about 12% sit in 510/120, which covers package, solid or gas-propelled compositions. That subclass is a direct reference to aerosol dry shampoos.