Is Your Hair Lacking Volume?

A Guy’s Guide to Adding Volume to Improve Your Hairstyle

Every day guys are bombarded with photos of Instagram models and clean-cut celebrities splashed everywhere with perfectly tamed locks – and we can’t help but admire their great texture, definition, and style.  How do they get their hair like that?  The secret to a lot of these hairstyles is VOLUME.  Volume is often time most overlooked aspect of the hairstyle, and often time plays the most important role in achieving these looks!  This post will provide some guidance on how you can get more volume and how it will transform the way you’ve always been styling your hair.

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Hair Type – Friend or Enemy

Hair type can be the biggest friend or biggest enemy for achieving volume.  Everyone is born with a certain hair type and there’s very little you can do to change that.  But it’s the first thing to consider when it comes to adding volume to your hair.  Some guys have the luxury of having a ton of volume naturally, while others don’t.  Simply stated –

Thick hair is your friend. Fine hair is your enemy.

The advantage for guys with thicker hair is that they never had to worry about getting more volume…ever.  One issue that they typically have to deal with is volume reduction and control (but we’ll save that for another blog post).  Thicker hair has the natural tendency to stick up on its own due to the structure of the hair strand – the diameter of the hair shaft is larger than finer hair which gives it stiffness and strength.  This structure provides a natural lift and hinders the hair’s ability to bend over and lay flat. 

Finer hair folk typically don’t have the luxury of natural volume due to the smaller diameter structure of the individual hair strands.  For shorter hairstyles, you might be able to achieve some volume naturally, but once hair gets to a medium or longer length you can forget about it.  Finer hair types at these lengths will likely experience hair collapsing under its own weight, leaving your hairstyle looking flat and lifeless.  Guys with finer hair definitely require more assistance with achieving volumes and there are plenty of tools available.

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Hair Dryer – Your New Best Friend

Utilizing a hair dryer (or blow dryer if you prefer) to dry you hair can be a great tool for achieving volume without, or prior to applying, a styling product.  Typically hair dryers include a variety of temperature and airflow settings, including Low/Medium/High heat and Low/High air speed.  Choosing the right combination of heat and air movement will work extremely well to get your hair flowing in the right direction while providing lift to the hair.  As your hair dries it tends to stay in place naturally, and the force of the air movement will help “train” your go in the desired direction.  Hair dryer also have attachments like diffusers to better position and focus the air flow to get your hair flowing in just the right way.  (Note: It may be wise to use a heat-protectant spray prior to using a hair dryer to protect the hair from excess heat damage.)

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Hairbrush and Comb – Style and Form

For some guys, applying heat with a hair dryer while brushing (using a comb/brush or simply finger-combing) is highly desirable.  This will encourage your hair to comply with the direction and shape that you want, while also distributing the hair’s essential oils, making the hair look shinier and healthier.  Depending on the brushing method/type used, you can make your hair form any way that you want.  The most basic method for achieving volume is to brush up and away from the forehead while blow drying. 

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 Pre-styling – Texture Powder

The secret behind big volume and great texture may be hiding in a little bottle of white powder.  Texture Powder (or volumizing powder) looks very similar baby powder (or cocaine depending on your frame of reference) and works by adding extra grip between the hair strands to amp up the volume.  The main ingredient is likely silica silylate, which is an ultra-fine rough-shaped particulate that increases the friction between the hair.  Texture powder can be applied directly to the hair roots for an instant lift or all over your head – it really all depends on how much volume you are trying to achieve.   It’s a great product for pre-styling dry hair and the best part is that a little bit goes a long way!

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 Normal Styling – Consider Lighter Weight Products

Once your hair is “volumized” (using a combination of hair dryer, brushes, and pre-stylers), it’s time to form the hair into something more stylish and refined.  While heavier hair styling products with high hold, such as our Natural Beeswax Paste, might be a great option for finishing the style, it may not be that best option for guys with finer hair.  Lightweight hair styling products, like our Sculpting Clay, should be considered because they won’t weigh the hair down causing it to look flat.    We’d also throw high hold hair sprays into the mix because they are generally super light weight and will lock the volume into place. 

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We hope you find these guidelines to adding volume to your hair useful and that we opened your eyes to some new tools that you might have used or considered before.  Again, achieving volume can be done in a number of ways, but it’s important to understand that simply relying on one hair styling product isn’t always the best answer.

Feel free to reach out to us if you have any further questions or comments.

Best regards,

Matt and Zack

Co-Founders