Today is a great day. Why? Because today I’m digging into my most common hair question – how to build massive hair volume! YAAAS!

I think it’s only fair to start off with sharing my hair details. While I believe you can build volume with any hair type, know that some products here may work really well for me due to my specific hair type. If we have similar hair types, it’s safe to say that these products may easily work for you. If we have different hair types, they may as well and the great thing with Sephora is that you can return anything you don’t enjoy 🙂

MY HAIR TYPE
TEXTURE: My hair is extremely textured. When dried naturally, the hair around my face is super frizzy. Then the top layer of my hair is really curly and the bottom section is really wavey.

I’d love to be able to air dry my hair and walk out the door in a flash or work with my natural curls, but I’m 28 and came to terms a few years ago that my hair is just high maintenance lol. That to say, I am very grateful for the texture and thickness I have! My lion’s mane just takes a little extra attention.

 CUT: To help with the weight, I have a lot of layers and long face angles. I’ve had the same hair cut my entire life, other than one random time in college when I chopped it to a long bob. NEVER AGAIN! It wasn’t for me.

FULLNESS: I have never worn extensions ,which I’m asked frequently. As mentioned above, I actually get layers because my hair is so thick.

COLOR: Highlights give a gorgeous dimension to your hair, especially with curls. And in my opinion, my natural haircolor washes me out so I like some color.

I get highlights 3-4 times a year, rotating between minis and partials.

Mini highlights are just along the part. Partial highlights are around the entire hair line, part and all through the top half of hair. I use minis to not overload on blonde and to quickly and affordably break up root growth. I just got a partial a couple days before this picture was taken, so I have a lot of highlights right now.

STYLIST: If you’re a Massachusetts girl, I go to Amanda Graham for color and cut at James Joseph Salon’s Burlington location. She’s AMAZING! Tell her I sent ya 😉

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FIVE STEPS FOR BUILDING MASSIVE HAIR VOLUME

1.VOLUMIZING MOUSSE
I cannot, will not style my hair without this volumizing mousse. Okay – probably a tad dramatic, but in all honestly there is not sense in me attempting to style my hair without this because it will be super flat! So I’ll just want to rewash and restyle the next day 😆 So, I make sure to always have a backstock!

I’ve tried many other root sprays and volumizing mousse’s, but nothing compares.

Just spray half a palm full onto your hand and strategically apply to your roots on damp hair. Basically when I get out of the shower, I spray detangler, towel dry and immediately apply this.

Once I blow dry, I make sure to use trick #2. This combo is bomb.

2.BLOW DRY UP
For the perfect blow out, I start by just free form blow dry my hair until it is about 3/4 of the way dry. S basically, I just blow dry it every which way without a brush. Once only lightly wet and almost dry, I will take my round brush

This is my holy grail blow dryer. My hair game totally changed once I bought this. If you’ve never been able to do an at home blow out, I swear by this bow dryer because of the power it has. One of my gfs got it and swears by it too!

Anywho, back to volume. When you’re giving yourself a blow out, take your round brush and pull away and up from your scalp and face. The heat is setting your hair, so if you blow dry it up away from your scalp [rather than down onto your scalp], you’ll get more height.

3.GRIT IT UP
After a blow out, you have clean hair. That’s not ideal for volume! You need something to give your hair some grit.

You can do this in a couple ways –

-DRY SHAMPOO
Use a dry shampoo that builds up product. Uh that sounds gross.. Okay, let me explain! The purpose of dry shampoo is to remove excess oil from your scalp so that you can go longer in between shampoos.. essentially ‘clean’ you hair. Some do that. Some don’t.

The only dry shampoo I’ve tried that comes anywhere near to cleaning my hair is this one. Note that this is coming from a girl that has been using dry shampoo before it was on Ulta shelves – like circa high school 10 years ago – so I’ve tried more than I could ever list! No dry shampoo cleans my hair other than this one. That’s what I suggest for anyone wanting to maintain their hair style in between washes.

Okay, but cleaning our hair isn’t today’s topic. Adding volume is! Many other dry shampoos leave a residue, right? That’s the good stuff for volume. My personal favorite dry shampoos to add texture and volume are both drugstore finds – this $8 one and this $6 one.

On clean hair, or during the week for additional volume, I spray my roots with either of those two products for added volume and some grit for my next step [teasing] to attach to.

-TEXTURING SPRAY
If your budget is over $10, you can skip the two dry shampoos I suggested and work with a texturizing spray! I use both at times for maximum results hehe.  😉

You can think of texturizing spray as a hybrid between dry shampoo and hair spray. Texturizing products create or enhance the texture in the hair without compromising the movement of it.

This is my all time favorite texturizing spray. The volume you get instantly is INSANE! I actually discovered it exactly one year ago. If you have a January birthday and are a Sephora Beauty Insider, you can grab a sample size at check out as your bday gift [while supplies last]. Woop. If you aren’t a fellow Capricorn 😉 , the travel size is $14 so that’s an affordable way to try products before committing to a full bottle!

This spray is the next on my list to try! Have ya tried it?!

4. TEASE
Next, I’ll tease. Using a finetooth comb is all ya need!

I’ll backcomb the hair on both side of my part, the back and a little in the area that frames my face. This is probably the most obvious way to get volume and because uh – it works! But teasing works better if you do first do step #3. Without grit, the tease easily slips out.

This comb from Amazon is what I use. I love that one end is pointy to create my part and one end has super fine teeth which produces a really great teasing result.

5.GET COLOR
Coloring your hair provides volume in two ways:

1.Introducing new hair growth to color treatment results in texture, giving your hair some grit [especially great for super fine, smooth hair]. This texture allows curls to hold better and aids in building volume. I know it’s time for me to get to my hairstylist due to growth, but also limp, flat hair!

2.Highlights break up the hair’s natural one-dimensional color block, creating an illusion of volume and length.

I feel that girls that have never colored their hair are often afraid of highlights because they think it may turn out to look like ‘sun in‘ circa middle school 2004. You can create a gentle, natural look with a minihighlight with a subtle color. Finding the right hairstylist is key and after many of my own salon hair coloring disasters [before I found my current stylist], I have a blog post coming with tips on finding yours!

Leave me more questions below or feel free to share your volumizing tricks too. Xo Mindy

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