Curly Hair With Volume: Tips, Products, & Routine

If you’re a regular reader, you know I am always looking for more ways to add volume to my fine curly hair. Having thin curly hair makes it difficult to get those luscious big curly hairstyles many with wavy and curly hair have.

But it is possible to have volume even if you have fine or thin curly hair. You simply need the right products and the right styling methods. And if you don’t have thin hair but still want more volume in your curls, these tips will help you too! In this post, I’m sharing the best tips, tricks, and products to volumize curly hair.

How To Get Volume In Curly Hair

The basic idea to volumize curly hair is that you need to use volumizing products and style in a way that creates volume.

Be sure to check out my post on tips for thin curly hair if you have fine or low density curls. Those tips will help you ensure you’re doing the right things to encourage volume in thin or fine curly hair.

Use Strong Shampoos & Clarify Regularly

Shampoos with multiple surfactants that cleanse the hair more thoroughly result in increased volume. It removes the most buildup and oil so that your hair will have more bounce.

Use Lightweight Products

Lightweight products are products that have fewer ingredients that buildup or weigh down the hair. These tends to be watery, thin products like serums, foams, mousses, and gels.

Reduce The Moisture

The more moisture you have the less volume you’ll have. That’s why you’ll find “drying” ingredients like alcohol in most volumizing products.

To get more volume, cut down on the amount of leave in, creams, and hydrating treatments you do.

Use Volumizing Products

Of course, you have to start with some good volumizing products. I used to try different volumizing products all the time when I wore my hair straight but since going curly it’s been difficult to get more volume as moisture tends to weigh down my hair and curly products are all moisturizing.

Volumizing products tend to be on the lower end of moisturizing. My hair likes a lot less moisture than most curly and wavy types so I can go all out with my products and reduce moisture as much as possible. But for many others you’ll have to modify and put together what works for you and is balanced for your hair.

Use Volumizing Methods

The last thing you need to do is style in a way that adds volume. Simple changes like pulling the hair up and away from the scalp instead of down can make a huge difference. Other methods include styling upside down, scrunching at the root, styling on damp hair, and diffusing.

Volumizing Products For Curly Hair

These are some of the best products for adding volume to curly hair.

Malibu C Undo Goo Clarifying Shampoo

This is one of the best clarifying shampoos out there. It’s ideal to use a clarifying shampoo on a monthly basis to make sure your roots and hair are as clean as possible for maximum volume potential.

EVOLVh InstaVolume

InstaVolume is EVOLVh’s newest line and gives me more volume than any other line I have tried. It’s a shampoo and leave in conditioner duo. The shampoo is very lightweight and a stronger cleanser on the low poo spectrum. If your hair likes moisture, this will not provide enough for you. But it’s perfect for my hair. It leaves it super clean and light without drying it out.

Then you go straight into the leave-in. There is no conditioner in this line which makes sense since you need to sacrifice moisture to get more volume. So again, if your hair likes moisture this will not be enough.

Kerotin Volumizing Duo

I LOVE this root spray. It’s the best root spray I have used and really adds lots of root volume. The volumizing mousse is really good too, so this is a combo I reach for often. They’ll give your hair a little texture and hold, and add lots of volume.

EVOLVh InstaVolume Mousse

Another foam option is this volumizing mousse. It leaves hair a little softer than the Kerotin but adds lots of volume and fullness without making your hair feel dirty.

TreLuxe ReFlex Serum

ReFlex Serum is an extremely lightweight product that provides flexible hold along with definition and shine. It really helps my curls look smooth and shiny and gives amazing slip while styling. This is an optional product you can use if you want extra definition as this doesn’t add volume or hold.

EVOLVh Total Control Styling Creme

After testing out a ton of different products and combinations, including the Total Control Styling Creme product always gives me the most volume. It’s not a curl cream though so it isn’t moisturizing. It’s like a creamy gel with medium hold and is lightweight. It gives my hair some texture which really helps with volume, along with definition and hold so my style lasts.

Styling Methods For Volume

I use something I call the Rake Shake Scrunch method, which is exactly what it sounds like. After glazing the product over my hair, I rake through to distribute and reduce frizz. I shake my hair to encourage the clumps to naturally form. Then I scrunch to seal in the clumps and ensure the product is all over my hair.

Clip The Roots

You can try placing clips in your roots as your hair dries to encourage more root volume. Duckbill clips and claw clips are popular options for this technique. Some people place the clips in after they have diffused to set the volume.

Style Upside Down or Pull Hair Up As You Style

The hair should be pulled up and away from the scalp to encourage more volume. If you just pull the hair down, it won’t have as much volume.

Styling upside down makes this easy, but you could easily just pull the hair up as you style.

Scrunch At The Roots

When you scrunch your product in, don’t forget to scrunch up to the root area. You don’t want to apply product directly to the root area (unless it’s a volumizing foam or spray), but you want to get some product up there. Scrunching up to the root help with this and it encourages more root lift.

Diffuse Upside Down

Again, having the hair away from the scalp will encourage volume. You can diffuse upside down or tilt your head to each side as you diffuse.

Also, diffusing yields more volume than air drying to try to diffuse for at least a few minutes.

Go For Smaller Clumps

Don’t create thick curl clumps as that will make your hair look thinner. Instead, style with smaller, skinnier clumps.

If you struggle with frizz, a good method is to brush the hair to smooth it down, then use a comb to split it into smaller clumps.

Try Styling On Damp Hair

If your hair likes it, you can try styling on damp hair instead of wet hair. This doesn’t work as well for me but it does work for many.

The less wet your hair is, the more volume you can get, but it can also lead to a little more frizz.

Volumizing Curly Hair Routine

Here is a breakdown of my routine for volume:

1. Shampoo with EVOLVh InstaVolume. I leave it in for a few minutes while I soap up. Rinse it out completely.
2. Spray the EVOLVh InstaVolume elixir liberally all over my hair. I try not to get much near the roots and focus more on the ends. I flip my hair and spray the underside as well. I let it sit a bit then squish in a little bit of water. Then I finger detangle with my head upside down.
3. Spray in root spray for root lift.
4. Scrunch in one pump of volumizing mousse.
5. Rake in a pea sized amount of serum for definition. Shake and scrunch a little.
6. Rake in a nickel sized amount of EVOLVh Total Control Styling Creme. Shake and scrunch all over, flipping my head to the sides to ensure the curls fall naturally and avoid wonky sections. Scrunch in a pea sized amount of the styling creme to set the ends.
7. Microplop with my hair towel.
8. Wait a few minutes then pixie diffuse.

You can watch my full styling routine below.

And for the next day, I love using a hair spray along with some dry shampoo to add back in some volume. I use it if I’ll be spending some time outside to help hold my style and whenever I decide to refresh my hair a bit.

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If you want help with embracing your naturally wavy or curly hair, you can join my FREE email course and download my FREE pdf guide, THE QUICK START GUIDE TO MASTERING YOUR CURLS, full of everything you need to know to get started and bring out your beautiful waves and curls.

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