by Rita McQuillan

Created on: July 28, 2011   Last Updated: August 24, 2011

I have lived with fine hair all of my life.  I then chose to be a beautician for a large part of my life.  When working with other beauticians every day you get nudged to perfect your coiffure constantly.  I have tried many cuts and styles and perms and some have worked and some have failed.

Thankfully my hair is fine, but not thinning out.  Fine hair means the strands are small in diameter, but if you have thin hair, due to genetics, age, stress, wax laden shampoos, improper rinsing of shampoos and conditioners or some other reason, covering the scalp can be hard,  Many clients use face powder on the scalp to cover the white shiny surface with great success.

Henna increases the diameter of each hair by coating it with colour, but one must go darker in colour unless you use the clear form.   Colouring or perming your hair after using henna does not work very well as these products have a hard time penetrating through the henna coating.  Henna is found in most health stores.  

In general if your hair is fine, and perhaps thin, a blunt cut will make your hair look fuller and is so easy to maintain.  Your face shape plays an important part in the length of a blunt cut too, but a shorter bob looks fuller.

The Bob

I wore this hair cut a lot when I was young and it made my hair more abundant in appearance.  However, my face is rectangular so a short bob did not fit as it made my face look to long.  A chin length bob did the same thing, but a shoulder length bob with some undercutting worked well for me, combined with fluffy curled bangs. Shorter bobs work better for an oval or petite face.

The Chopped Bob

This is a bob with jagged ends.  I found this to be a great  wash and go style, blow drying this upside down helped to get rid of the wave I have and add dimension, but wasn’t necessary.

The Crop

This style is layered and tapered and sits quite close to the head.  Men often wear this style too, but women call it a crop style cut..  Often a razor or clipper is used to give a choppy look.  I only used this style once when I bleached my hair and needed to start over.  My face shape did not suit this style, however if I fluffed up the top it looked OK.

Layers

Presently this is the style I have chosen with bangs to frame my face and soften the corners of my forehead.  The layers are just long enough so I can tie it back and my hair can have volume when I blow dry it as it is slightly wavy too.  I have finally stopped the fight with the natural waves and go with them now.  This style requires regular trims to keep it looking full though.  If left for to long between trims my hair gets long and limp looking.

Fine hair is especially good at going straight up and should be tamed.  I live in an arid environment which tends to produces static so a mist of hairspray helps to avoid the appearance of looking like I am grabbing an electric fence with both hands.

If you have fine hair one of the above cuts may be a great choice for you, but face shape plays an important role.  Many salons can show you a picture of yourself with a new style, which helps immensely. Have fun trying new things, it always grows back.

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