People Are Using Hair Spray as Cooking Oil

Black women are intimately familiar with ORS Olive Oil Sheen Spray. It’s that extra layer they mist around you at the salon to give you a bump of sheen. It’s the helping hand you give yourself when your hair has gotten a little dry but you’re trying to make your style last. But for some, it’s apparently a vital kitchen tool.

A few days ago, Twitter user @ReauxBae took to the platform to reveal that a friend of a friend’s family was using the salon staple to grease pans and fry bacon. Yes, that’s right: People are using hair spray as cooking oil. But wait, there’s more.

Apparently, this wasn’t a one-off. According to BuzzFeed, as far back as 2011, stores have been mixing up olive oil hair spray with the oil that you spray on pots and pans, going so far as to slide it right beside Great Value’s canola oil spray. The gaffe and confusion are understandable, but it’s clearly humorous to those in the know.

For people with Afro-Caribbean hair, olive oil has been used to add shine, body, softness, and resilience to strands for years. For others, the oil represents a staple in Mediterranean cuisine or simply serves as a mechanism for keeping food from sticking to the pan. As with most things in life, context is everything.

That’s because there’s a difference between olive oil spray for hair versus the one for food. Using olive oil hair spray as part of meal preparation is actually dangerous — something that’s far from being funny. As with most other hair sprays, the formula is flammable and contains lanolin, which should never be ingested. So, while adding it to your dinner dish might give it an extra kick, it’s definitely not the kick you want. As always, a simple reading of the label (look for the words “hair” or “cooking,” in particular) is enough to make sure you’re in the right.

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