The Texturising Products To Use For Extra Volume And Oomph!
Flick is Adore Beauty’s Creative Copywriter. She started her writing career covering women’s sports and interviewing musicians and can often be found photographing gigs on the side. She’s no stranger to a rotating skincare cabinet and is currently on the lookout for a skincare routine that caters to redness, sensitivity and texture. She also used to complain when her mum would tell her to wear sunscreen and for that, she'd like to publicly apologise
Despite belonging to my head its entire life (or however long its cycle lasts), my hair is still a mystery to me.
Sometimes (likely when I’m doing nothing and seeing no one) it looks effortlessly nice, and sometimes it does everything in its seemingly omnipotent power to ruin my day.
My hair is fine, slightly wavy, and if I put it in a ponytail at the nape of my neck the circumference is about 8cm (scientific).
I’m still a fan of a good hand scrunch post-shower and love a microfiber towel.
Here are the mythic scenarios where my hair looks its best: Returning from a 15-minute stroll in very light rain, the DAY AFTER an event, any time I’m travelling somewhere with smog, at 73% dryness following a swim in the ocean, and after rinsing out a heavy dose of gel (sans shampoo and conditioner).
Although the above scenes are impossible to recreate on a day-to-day basis, they do all have one thing in common – the addition of grit.
Even so, I prefer the carefree, able-to-run-my-hands-through feeling of fresh hair and find myself moving wash day forward if my strands are left overly sticky, tacky, or inflexible after I’ve tried a product.
As a result, I’ve become a sucker for *undone* hair.
There’s something so chic about a fancy outfit + touseled hair combo (looking at you Chloë Sevigny, Alexa Chung and Devon Aoki).
I’m well aware that it was unlikely the above were rocking bedhead on the red carpet, but I’m still keen to find wavy hair products that can create the coveted flexible beach wave without relying heavily on hot tools or a full celeb glam squad.
I long for barely-there hair grit that will create texture, define, hold waves, and can be applied via a haphazard ‘scrunch and go’.
Scroll on for fine-hair-friendly finds.
KEVIN.MURPHY Killer Waves
One day, an angel was walking around the office giving out Kevin Murphy products and she handed me this heavenly bottle of KEVIN.MURPHY KILLER WAVES. I’ve since re-bought it twice, and it’s become a staple.
I appreciate that it does exactly what it says it does, the bottle reads ‘curl enhancer for fine hair’, and yeah, bang on. My curls are enhanced, my hair isn’t weighed down, it looks natural, and the result still feels like my hair!
Extra points for design, the bottle feels good to hold – not too heavy, this hair texture spray is easy to spritz (even when holding it upside down at the back of your head).
I apply about 5-6 random spritzes to damp hair, do a bit of light hand scrunching and then leave it to air dry.
I can layer hair oil on top of it for added shine, or, if I want to single out those 5 neck ringlets for extra definition, I layer on a tiny bit (5-cent piece) of lightweight curl cream.
My current pick is the Davroe Curl Creme Definer 200ml.
Killer Waves has earned its spot in my everyday product rotation, it’s entrenched into my routine and, to be honest, I can’t remember what I did with my hair beforehand.
It defines my curls without over-styling them, meaning that if I wake up the next morning and want something completely different, my hair still feels fresh and malleable.
R+Co Sail Soft Wave Spray.
My entire life I’ve been advertised salt sprays promising beachy waves and more often than not, I’ve ended up with very crispy pan-fried tendrils a la Angelica’s Cynthia doll in Rugrats.
I can swallow my pride and admit that those results probably stemmed from user error, but I still feel burnt from beach sprays. I hadn’t tried one for a while, and the R+Co Sail Soft Wave Spray is a solid choice if you’re re-entering your tousled waves arena this summer.
The formula of this texturising spray comes out as a fine mist, which means you can easily control the product distribution (important when you can’t evenly distribute a rogue glob with a comb for fear of mucking up your wave pattern).
It didn’t overwhelm my hair and created volume and definition without leaving the dreaded crunch behind.
The instructions say you can use it on damp hair, dry hair, and when styling with heat tools.
When I used it on towel-dried hair, the dry-down was softer than when applied to dry hair. I did get a bit more volume and hold when I applied it to dry hair though.
It’s an easy product to layer and play with until you get the movement you’re looking for.
The smell is DIVINE, it basically doubles as a hair perfume and I got a few ‘what are you wearing?!’ compliments.
However, if you’re sensitive to fragrance (headaches etc.) tread carefully because it is heavily scented and you are spraying it directly around your head. But all in all, thank you R+Co for officially restoring my faith in the mighty seal salt spray.
Oribe Dry Texturizing Spray.
Oribe styling products are generally solid.
You know when you’ve over-styled your hair and it looks a little flat? This is the hair industry’s answer to that.
While I wouldn’t go as far as to say that it replaces dry shampoo (it’s not meant to) this dry texture spray will do a good job of removing a bit of oil while boosting volume.
The Oribe Dry Texturising Spray Dry Texturising Spray has been a professional go-to for a while, but how can it help me on my quest for perfectly casual texture?
It creates a more ‘piece-y’ look, meaning that instead of your hair falling into a few strands, it works to lift your roots and create more segmentation and definition.
If you find your hair slipping out of updos, a few spritzes can provide extra structure to help keep things in place.
Some root-based volumisers I’ve tried work great to add volume but tend to break up my waves in the process, I’m happy to report that this spray was fine enough to hold my slight curls without breaking them up entirely.
If you want OOMPH, this is my top pick, it was able to lift up the pieces at the front of my hair and give texture to sections at the back which often fall flat. It is a little pricey, so if you’ve never tried it before and want to invest, I recommend getting the travel-sized version first.
That's the end of my product trials but if you want more styling recs, check out these articles next:
