How to Fix Flat Curly Hair: 11 Tips For Achieving More Volume

Tools and materials:

• Lightweight shampoo
• Conditioner
• Leave-in conditioner
• Hairbrush
• Styler
• Hair wrap
• Little claw clip
• Hairdryer
• Hairspray
• Hair oil

1. Use a lightweight shampoo

If you have a normal to oily scalp, it’s not necessary to use a super hydrating shampoo marketed towards curly hair.

All this will do for you is make your hair oilier faster and weigh down your roots which will kill your volume.

Using a lightweight shampoo will cleanse your scalp without all of that excess moisture which will create lots of lift and volume.

2. Condition the length only

My next tip is to apply your conditioner to the length of your hair only. Applying it to the length of your hair will avoid over-moisturizing your roots, which will then weigh your roots down.

3. Apply moisturizing stylers to length only

Next, onto styling. So this tip goes along with the previous one; any moisturizing product that you use to style your hair should be applied to the length of your hair only.

Applying styling products directly to your roots can easily weigh your hair down and cause issues like itchiness and dandruff. So, it’s best to just avoid your roots altogether with your styling products, especially with your moisturizing products.

4. Use a styler with hold

My next tip is to ensure that you are styling your hair with a product that has a good hold. So, either a gel or a mousse. Here, I am using styling gel.

See my previous tutorials on how to apply mousse to curly hair and how to make DIY flaxseed gel for more product and technique ideas.

Using a product like a gel or a mousse is going to give your curls separation and give you that hold. Without hold, your curls are going to fall flat, and you are not going to achieve very much volume.

5. Style hair from the scalp

Always style your hair away from your scalp. It doesn’t have to be straight up or straight out; just any angle away from your scalp will help you achieve volume.

Whether you are raking your hair, doing the praying hands method, or scrunching, tilt your head at an angle or hold your hair to an angle to help with that volume.

If you're unsure what raking, praying hands, or scrunching are, read my simple curly girl method tutorial.

6. Flip hair and scrunch

Another great tip is to flip your hair around and scrunch as the last step to styling. This is going to make sure that no hair is stuck down to your scalp. It will give your hair lots of movement and volume.

7. Plop

Next, you can plop for a little while, which will hold your hair up and away from your scalp. (By plop, I mean tie your hair up in a wrap as shown). You can learn about plopping curly hair here.

8. Clip the top section

This is probably my favorite tip for achieving volume in the top section. I like to apply a little claw clip to the top section while my hair is very wet. This will hold the hair out of your face, which is really nice, and it will give you more volume in that top section.

9. Flip the part when drying

My next tip is to flip your part from side to side every so often when it’s drying. I like to do this with airdrying, and I’m also going to do it with diffusing. Learn how to diffuse curly hair without frizz here.

So what this is going to do is give you the ability to flip your parting to either side once it’s completely dry, which is super nice for achieving more volume as your hair naturally starts losing volume throughout the day.

All you need to do then is flip your parting to the other side, give it a little fluff, and you have that volume again.

10. Add hairspray

Apply hairspray to your root area on either side when your hair is about 90% dry.

I like to do it when my hair is still a little bit wet because I find that I get the benefits of the hold of the hairspray without that crunchy feeling.

11. Scrunch with oil

Last but certainly not least, when your hair is 100% dry, I like to scrunch out the crunch and fluff with hair oil.

I will just take a couple of drops of oil, smooth it over the top of my hair to avoid any frizz, scrunch it throughout my hair, and then fluff.

This is just that final little step to get out the crunchiness and separate the curls a little bit for even more volume.

How to fix flat curly hair

Here are the finished results. I can really easily and naturally flip my parting to the other side which really is my biggest secret to always having volume.

As my hair naturally starts losing volume throughout the day, I’ll just flip it to the other side, give it a little fluff, and I have all that volume back again.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial on how to fix flat curly hair. Let me know which tip was most helpful in the comments below!