Tips and Tricks: Styling Volume into Thin Hair

Fine hair is not automatically sparse or thin hair. The problem may also be the thickness of each individual hair. Fine hair is about 2 thousandth of an inch (2 mil or points) thinner than regular or strong hair. It is also a little more sensitive. Regardless a regular number of hairs, your hair may still appear thin. Dependent on the hair color, you may have plenty of hair despite of its thin appearance. On average, blondes have about 150,000 hairs on their head, while most dark-haired women have only approximately 100,000. If you have thin looking hair you should use gentle methods to build its structure and be particularly attentive when blow-drying your hair.

Tender Loving Care for Thin or Fine Hair

Before you start blow-drying your freshly washed hair, you should cover it with a towel turban and allow it to dry thoroughly. Never dry your hair by rubbing it with a towel to avoid damaging the hair cuticles. The towel-dry hair then should be untangled using a wide-toothed comb. Be sure to hold the hair strands by their root portion while untangling them so that you don’t pull your hair with too much force. Only then should you blow-dry your hair. Set the blow-dryer to no higher than medium to prevent local overheating.

Thin or Fine Hair Needs Bounce

Limp hair immediately looks livelier after giving the root portion more bounce. Before you blow-dry your hair you should therefore apply a small amount of setting mousse or styling spray only to the root portion of your hair. Then you are ready to start drying your hair using a flat paddle brush. You do this by holding your head slightly askew while using the blow-dryer and brushing your hair against the grain using a paddle brush. After a few strokes, you repeat the same procedure blowing your hair to the other side. Finally, bend your head slightly forward while brushing and blow-drying your hair toward the front. In case your hair is too short for paddle-brushing, you should pull strands of your hair away from your head during blow-drying. You may also gather strands of your hair and shortly warm the strands using your blow-dryer. Then allow the strands to cool. These methods all give your hair more bounce from the roots up.

Getting Thin or Fine Hair to Stand up

It is best to keep styling to a minimum after you have paddle-brushed your hair. For thin or fine hair we also don’t recommend adding hair wax, styling gels or pomade to your hair for more gloss. Such styling aids contain greasy substances and are very likely to produce a stringy look. A small amount of wet gel usually works well for styling short fine hair. Hair spray for strong hold tends to work well for longer thin or fine hair. It is important to apply hair spray by lifting strands of hair and spraying the undersides of the strands. Applying hair spray from the top to the covering hair only weighs down your hair.