Here’s a question from one of my readers:

“I’ve been growing my hair out for almost 2 years. It’s finally to a length that I’m happy with, but I’ve noticed that it’s really flat on top. Do you know of anything I can do to get volume at the roots without using hairspray or another product that will make my hair feel gross?”

This question hits a little close to home for me, as my hair is one of my most prized accessories, but along with length comes weight, which causes that dreaded flat-top look.

First, let me ask a question? Is your hair limp, and a little greasy looking? If so, you may be over conditioning. In that case, cut back on the amount of conditioner you’re using, or maybe even skip the conditioner on every other washing. If your hair is very thin, you may need to skip the conditioner to add texture.

If conditioner is not your problem, you could try teasing your hair a little bit at the roots.

To do this:

1.Lift up a thin section of hair at the crown of your head. Lay it down in the opposite direction that hair grows (this piece will be to cover the teased section of hair.)

2. Lift up another section directly behind the section to you laid down. Hold this hair straight up.

3. Take a comb, place it on the hair you are holding up, about 4-6 inches from your scalp and move it down to the scalp, then up and back down. This is basically creating knots that will make your hair stand out away from the scalp.

4. Continue until desired fullness has been acquired.

5. Cover teased section with the first section of hair you separated.

If you’re not really into the Jersey Shore look, and would like to create more natural looking subtle volume, try a Milk & Honey Hair mask.

What you’ll need:

1 TBS Honey

½ cup Full Fall Milk

1. Warm honey in microwave for 30 – 45 seconds.

2. Pour milk onto honey and mix well.

3. Massage into scalp and pull through to ends of hair

4. Cover hair with plastic shower cap or saran wrap

5. Cover plastic with a towel (this will hold the heat in)

6. Allow to sit for 20 minutes, then shampoo and condition as usual .

The Honey mask will add a little extra bounce and volume to your hair, as well as make it SUPER shiny.

Here are a few additional styling tips to add volume at the roots.

When blow drying hair:

1. Flip head upside down and blow dry until roots are just damp.

2. Separate hair into sections

3. Using a Fat round brush, wrap just roots of hair around the barrel of the brush and hold blow dryer on roots (top for a few seconds, then under for a few seconds). This will give your roots some extra lift.

If you use a Flat iron:

Instead of flat ironing hair in a downward motion, hold hair straight up and flat iron it away from the scalp.

For even more volume with the flat iron (must use a 1 inch flat iron):

Hold hair straight out/up (away from scalp), Apply flat iron as close to roots as possible, count to 3, then rotate flat iron 180 degrees (staying as close to scalp as possible) and slide it along the section of hair. This will also give the ends a nice natural looking curl. (This is similar to the way you make spiral curls with the flat iron, but you only rotate a half turn instead of a full turn)

I hope this helps!

Send your beauty questions to pamperp[email protected] and I’ll answer them in my next blog.

Thanks for reading,

Bethany