17 Hair Hacks for Thicker, More Voluminous Hair
If you, like me, were cursed with baby-fine limp noodle hair that goes flat by 2pm, this post is for you. I have spent an embarrassing portion of my adult life trying to trick my hair into looking thicker than it actually is, and at this point I've got it down to a science. A weird, slightly chaotic science, but a science.
Some of these hacks are completely free, some involve products I'd genuinely sell a kidney for, and one involves just asking your stylist for a different cut next time. We're going to start cheap and easy and work our way up to the bigger stuff.
Flip your head upside down to blow dry
Let’s start easy right? The OG volume hack and still undefeated. Flip your head over, blow dry the roots while pulling sections away from your scalp, and then flip back up. If you hair looks like a poofy lion mane when you flip back over, then you did it right.
Now you have a great base to start with to try all these other hacks!
Flip your part to the other side
If you've been parting your hair the same way since college, switch it over for a day when you need an extra boost of volume. The roots that have been trained to lay flat on one side will rebel and stand up because they don't know what to do anymore. Instant lift. Costs zero dollars.
This works best if you have a special event where you want a bit more dramatic volume for the day. Obviously if you start to do this every day, your part will retrain itself to lay the other way lol! So it’s a good trick to pull out every once in awhile.
Skip conditioner!
This one took me way too long to learn. If your hair is fine and especially if it is more straight than wavy or curly, stop conditioning it! Yes, I am serious. It makes already limp hair softer, yes, but also more resistant to all these volume hacks.
If you absolutely MUST use conditioner, then put the tiniest amount on your ends.
Dry shampoo on CLEAN hair
I know how unhinged this sounds. Stay with me. A light dusting of dry shampoo at the roots of freshly washed and dried hair gives you grip and texture that your hair just doesn't naturally have when it's squeaky clean. It's the reason every blowout looks better on day 2 than day 1.
I like the Not Your Mother’s one but honestly most drugstore dry shampoos works for this.
Apply mousse to soaking wet hair
Most of us towel dry and then apply product. That's the mistake. Soaking wet hair distributes mousse way more evenly and gives you better lift at the roots. Rake a generous amount through your wet hair, scrunch a little at the roots, then blow dry like normal.
ColorWow Xtra Large Volumizer
This product gets it’s own section because it’s a non-negotiable when I want volume. ColorWow Xtra Large Bombshell Volumizer is a spray mousse that you apply to wet hair before blow drying and it does something I cannot scientifically explain. My hair looks like it belongs to a different person. A person who has hair.
It's not the cheapest, so I usually reserve it for when I’m going out somewhere not every day use, and it requires at least 4 pumps per use. If you only buy one thing from this entire post, make it this one.
Texture spray after styling
Once your hair is dry, a texture spray is what locks in volume and gives you that slept-in, lived-in look that makes hair appear thicker than it is. Oribe Dry Texturizing Spray is the holy grail. Not Your Mother's Beach Babe is the drugstore dupe I keep in rotation when I can't justify the Oribe spend.
Spray it underneath at the roots, scrunch a little, and try not to inhale the cloud.
Velcro rollers in the crown
Hear me out. Velcro rollers feel like a thing your grandma did, but if you pop two or three of them in the crown of your head while you're doing your makeup, your roots will set with lift. Take them out right before you leave, hit it with a quick blast of cool air, and you're done.
Use an Airstyler
For quick and easy bouncy voluminous blowout vibes with no rollers or round brush needed: use an airstyler! You don’t need the Dyson or Shark versions, I actually use a way more affordable one on Amazon that I love.
INSTANT VOLUME HACK: I just grab my two front pieces when I’m in a rush and it gives me an instant volume boost that also looks styled. The back of my head is none of my business, right? When I’m pressed for time, yes!
RELATED: The “I Woke Up Like This” Routine That Makes You Look Put Together FAST
Bouncy blowouts are totally trending this year! Check out the full list of hair trends for 2026.
Pull UP, not down, with your round brush
If you are more of a round brush girl, then don’t pull sections straight down toward the floor, you're literally training your hair to lay flat. Lift sections straight up and out from your scalp instead, and aim the dryer at the roots first.
This is the one I had to consciously retrain myself to do and it made a huge difference.
Use the cool shot button
That blue or snowflake symbol button on your blow dryer that nobody touches? Use it. After you've blown a section dry with hot air and gotten lift at the root, hit it with cool air to set the shape. Same logic as letting a curl cool before you take the curling iron out.
A light tease at the crown
We are NOT going full 1985 prom. We're talking three or four gentle backcombs at the crown with a teasing brush, just enough to create some hidden lift underneath the top layer. Smooth the top section back over and no one will know.
Make sure you use a teasing comb though for best results!
The double hair tie ponytail trick
If you've ever wondered why your ponytail looks sad and droopy, then this is the hack for you. Pull your hair up into your ponytail like normal, then add a SECOND hair tie about an inch above the first one. The pull the hair like you normally would when finishing your ponytail.
The hair between the two ties bunches up and gives the top of your ponytail volume and height instead of letting it collapse down.
Chris Appleton (Kim K's hairstylist) demoed this on TikTok a while back and it broke everyone's brain because it's so simple. Takes ten extra seconds. Game-changing for fine hair.
Stop washing your hair so much
Day 2 and day 3 hair has way more grip and body than freshly washed hair. If you can stretch your washes, do it. Train your scalp. Use dry shampoo. Wear a hat on bad days. Your hair will be thicker for it.
Sleep in a loose bun or braids
Going to bed with damp hair in a high bun or two loose braids gives you next-day bend and texture for free. Wake up, shake it out, hit it with some texture spray, and you've got volume you didn't have to work for.
Skip heavy oils at the roots
I love a hair oil. But it goes on the ends only, ever. Oil at the roots is how you get the worst possible combo of greasy AND flat at the same time, which is genuinely the lowest moment a hair day can hit.
As I mentioned earlier, I skip conditioner, so if my ends are looking extra thirsty I put the tiniest dot of this hair oil on my hands and then run my fingers through my ends only!
A hair fiber powder for thinning spots
If you're dealing with actual thinning around your part or temples (which is super common postpartum, perimenopause, after stress, after a bad year, after life), a hair fiber powder like Toppik is a game-changer. It clings to the hair you already have and fills in spots where your scalp is showing through. Two seconds, big difference.
Add some dimension with color
Flat, one-tone color reads as flat hair. Even if your strands are exactly the same density, lowlights or some painted dimension creates the illusion of depth and movement, which our brains read as thicker hair. If you've gone too monochromatic recently, ask your colorist to break it up a bit at your next appointment.
Clip-in extensions (just for thickness, not length)
I honestly only used these on my wedding day and WOW. They really make a difference. A set of clip-ins at the back and sides of your head adds instant volume without the commitment of tape-ins or anything more permanent. You wear them when you want them, take them out, done.
Halo-style extensions are even easier because they're one piece that sits on top of your head like a headband under your natural hair. Great for events when you want hair that does something it doesn't normally do.
Haircuts to ask for at the salon
This is the section where you can actually fix the problem at the source. The cut matters more than any product, full stop.
What to ask for:
Long layers. Not aggressive layers, not choppy, not 2006 emo. Just long, soft layers that start around the chin and continue down. They remove weight without taking length, which is exactly what fine hair needs.
Curtain bangs or face-framing layers. A curtain bang adds movement and softness around the face and breaks up the line of your hair so it doesn't read as a flat sheet of strands.
Invisible layers or internal layering. This is a technique where the stylist removes weight from underneath without changing the look of your one-length shape on the outside. Ask for it by name. Stylists who know what they're doing will know exactly what you mean.
The modern shag. If you're feeling bold, a soft, lived-in shag with face framing is THE haircut for fine hair right now. It's built on layering and texture, which is exactly what we need.
What to avoid:
Blunt one-length cuts. I know they're trendy. They are not your friend if you have fine hair. A blunt cut on fine hair just emphasizes how little hair there is at the bottom.
Anything too short on the sides without weight on top. Pixies and bobs CAN work for fine hair, but only with the right layering. A bad bob on fine hair is rough.
And bring a photo. Always bring a photo. Describing a haircut with words is how you end up with something you didn't ask for and a stylist who feels personally betrayed when you ask them to fix it.
So that's my whole bag of tricks. None of these will magically give you Disney princess hair (sorry), but stacking three or four of them at once? My hair has not looked the same since I figured this out.
Loved these hair hacks? Make sure you pin one of the images below so you can come back to review them anytime!
