My hair seems pretty easy, so most products seem to have worked just fine for me. There’s no product that I recall right now that a real dud! There have been some dry shampoos where the fragrance was so intense that I didn’t use them again, though.
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JVN Shine Drops! It’s almost like putting water on my dried hair – the product is that watery – and to get any shine, I have to use a fair bit and end up with oily looking hair, something that NEVER happens with any of the other oils/shine/finishing products I use on my hair.
For the majority of my life I didn’t pay any attention to my hair. I used whatever was on sale at the grocery store and never had any issues. I started seeing grey in my hair when I was about 16 or 17. My paternal grandmother had lost all of her hair when she was a teenager and when it came back in, it was pure white. She had been a redhead. All of her children and grandchildren had prematurely greying/whitening of their hair. So, I started coloring my hair when I was in my 30’s as by then there was quite a bit of white/grey. I colored it for about 15 years or up until my cancer. After cancer, I didn’t feel like putting harsh chemicals on my head was such a good idea and so when my hair grew in, I just left it. My paternal grandmother also had very thin hair from the time that I can remember her and again, all her children and grandchildren started losing their hair early. When I first noticed my hair thinning, I wasn’t too worried about it. I mean, I had just had chemotherapy and assumed it would likely return to the same volume and thickness that I had had before. Sadly, probably the timing as related to my age and when I would normally have started losing my hair, meant that I have pretty thin hair. Over the past 10 years I have tried a lot of different hair products in an effort to slow the thinning. None have really worked. I have been playing with trying Minoxydil but haven’t committed yet. I know I won’t like how my hair looks when taking Minoxydil as it makes your hair quite greasy apearing. So, my answer to the question is the Keranique system. It doesn’t give me any volume although it is suppose to make my hair appear thicker while encouraging new growth. I usually wash my hair every other day but when using the Keranique, I have to wash daily unless I am staying home and no one will see me.
Hey Deborah, I have been losing my baby fine thin hair for several years now and started using Minoxidil about a year and a half ago….My experience is “ehh” Maybe I’m not losing quite as much as before but don’t notice any major hair re-growth. I also started taking Nutrafol hair vitamins. Nothing gives super great results but I’m afraid to stop either incase it just accelorates. Right now it seems to just keep it the same. As far as the oily residue from Minoxidil, I find the best way to help that is to use the liquid (several brands advertise that they are less greasy, I like “Elevate 5%” as it is not greasy…get it on Amazon and it is less expensive also…One trick is I pour a little big in a little cup and part my hair in sections and apply with a q-tip…this keeps it just on the scalp and doesnt wet your hair much….You can also get large q-tips on Amazon which are better. Good luck, People with good hair don’t realize their good fortune…..
Thank you for the suggestion, Penny. Yes, thinning hair is something I knew I would face given that I have it in the family but like so many things, it is worse than I had thought it would be and my feelings about it are definitely stronger than I thought I would experience, also. So true for many physical changes. After my chemo, when my hair started to come back in, I was just thankful that it was growing back and didn’t pay much attention to it being much thinner until it got longer and the thinness was more obvious. I will order the treatment from Amazon and give it a chance. Like you, I started using a product called Vegamour and have gone through 5 bottles without noticing any new hair growth but I am sort of scared to stop it for fear that while I am not seeing new growth, I could experience more loss. I have found the company, Vegamour to not be a good company to deal with.
Hi Deborah,
I’ve always had baby fine hair but a lot of it until last year when I got really sick – I was so anemic and my hemoglobin level was so low that I needed 5 blood transfusions. At that time, I started noticing major hair loss, like clumps coming out in my brush and in the shower, and it got to the point where my scalp was clearly visible matter what I did. I tried multiple things, like Rogaine and such and fiber powders to hide it, but nothing really worked. The only thing that gave noticeable results was pre-natal vitamins; it helped thicken my hair so the bald spots weren’t as visible. Now that I’m healthy again, the hair loss has stopped and my hair is pretty much back to normal but I wanted to let you know abt the pre-natal vitamins, which I bought at the local drugstore.
I am so glad to hear that your hair returned to normal. I haven’t tried any vitamins besides Biotin and I didn’t even take prenatal vitamins when I was pregnant. I couldn’t keep them down! I will give it a try. Nothing has worked up to this point so vitamins are worth a try. Thank you for the suggestion.
Dry shampoos don’t work well for me, regardless of brand.
No product keeps a curl in my hair, to the consternation of myself and many hairdressers over the years.
Jeeeez I’m sorry but I’ll have to wing it here and describe it. It was all the rage a year ago. Maybe L’Oréal ??? Some liquid you put on your hair in the shower for 8 seconds, rinse and supposedly voila great hair. First it burned my scalp, second it dried my hair out incredibly. Something called 8 Plus? No idea. It was a nightmare.
That’s interesting, it actually works super well for me!
I don’t put it on my scalp though, just mediums and ends, and it helps my hair sort of “lock” moisture in in the super dry winter months with too much heating in switzerland.
I looked it up. L’Oréal Eleive 8 Second Wonder Water. And it wasn’t cheap either ! Wonder Water, hmmmm
I have very thin baby fine hair and I always fall for the hype of voluminous full sexy hair…..never hapens….
Seems all the models have really great hair to begin with so they would look great with no product!
I’ve tried a few products that help, like Living Proof full dry voluminizer but 90% of the products I’ve tried don’t do much……saying that I’m sure I’ll still fall for the advertising and keep on believing….
Dry shampoo – it doesn’t matter what brand, but they all leave my hair feeling straw like afterwards. I never use them anymore.
As I’ve gotten older, I find that my scalp (and my skin overall) is more and more sensitive. When I hit my 50’s, I realized that shampoos that contain SLS made my scalp itch and flake, so I avoided that ingredient. About a year ago, I found that I am also sensitive to cocamidopropyl betaine (used by many companies that avoid using SLS) and shampoo bars that use coconut oil. Now I look for shampoos that use decyl glucoside or cocamidopropyl hydroxysultaine as the main ingredient.
Thank you so much for sharing this. I recently struggled with itchy dry scalp after an SLS shampoo (Pantene Hydrating whatever), and it took almost 2 months for my scalp to recover. That Pantene shampoo made my hair look great, and I was getting compliments from strangers, but my scalp suffered. I also can’t do coconut oil, which is in most shampoo bars. Now I know what to look for to try next.
The whole no poo curly girl method was a disgrace to my hair. I lost my curls along the 7 years I did it. Hair became dry and brittle and my 3a/3b became 2b/2c/3a. It thinned and fell to the point I got an adrogenetic alopecy diagnosis. I stopped it 4 years ago and it took a lot of time and money to get my hair back.
[Background] I don’t have very demanding hair, most drugstore products work for me just fine…
*** Olaplex takes the first spot because not only it didn’t work for me, but because #3 actually damaged my hair. I don’t blame it on the brand or product, but I have a big issue with people that oversell this (especially hair stylists) without mentioning Olaplex is not for every hair type. Specific hair types will suffer from bonding and keratin treatments because they can’t take more protein; and using bonding results in fried hair. Mine wasn’t that bad, I has to trim a lot of my ends eventually, but one of my front pieces was almost like bleached until it grew up.
I know people are suing Olaplex, but I could only fault the brand for not doing the proper job of educating consumers that their product are not for every type of hair. Otherwise, we are all at fault for not testing the product on a small piece of hair first.
*** Briogeo takes the second spot only because I have a personal vendetta with this brand 😆 I want to love their products. So many people I actually kind of trust say these products are miracles in a bottle. But they are quite expensive and actually not even good compared to basic L’Oreal products (not the professionals line even). They just don’t do nothing for my hair (at least they don’t damage it). The mask that is so much loved didn’t do anything for me, even the cheapest drugstore conditioner does a better job than a product that’s supposed to be a deep conditioning mask.
I agree with Briogeo. The products are so basic & not worth the price. There are fantastic products at the drugstore that are far superior
I have wavy/curly hair that is color treated, so it needs a lot of TLC. That being said, most hair products aren’t very helpful and I’m always on a quest for the perfect hair care products.
I have limp wavy hair that can be curly with the right combination of product, weather, and planetary alignment, lol. So many wonderful ones stop working, and the dryness at this time of year has left me again searching for the HG. Curlsmith was working great but no longer is. Even Ouidad is just so-so.
All hair sprays. Not bc they don’t work but I cannot stand the smell of ANY hairspray. I agree with the JVN Shine drops. They didn’t do anything for me
First of all, my hair has gone through all sorts of unexpected changes as of 14 years ago when I: 1.) Underwent major lifesaving emergency surgery for Crohn’s Disease complications, 2.) Soon after I was started on Remicade infusions to get it under control, 3.) One or both of those caused me to gradually lose half of my once very thick, yet fine textured, wavy, color treated hair. I bought two wigs, chopped what little was left down to around 2 inches. Infusion center nurse recommended biotin and using Nioxin brand products to try to regrow my hair. Did both. Hair began to grow back but with a VERY different texture! At first, around a 3B! Currently, I have at least two or three different textures going on depending on what part of my head it’s growing from: Crown 3A, yet down near my ears and nape of neck is probably 2C. My experiments with trying to go with the curls have led to using some products that have left my curls hard, crunchy and caused damage when trying to finger comb after drying. One is by Cantu (Curl Activator) and another one from Tresemmé (curling mousse). Others, on the other hand, haven’t given enough hold or frizz control. Might return to blow drying it straight at this point!
Anything by Pantene. Leaves my hair lifeless and greasy. Yuck!!
Any new “clean” brands from Sephora (looking at you, Brigeo). I’ve come to learn that my products need to be 1. Silicone-free and 2. From a reputable brand. These new start up/pop up hair brands scare me.
The Olaplex dry shampoo – a complete dud that did absolutely nothing for my day 2 hair and left it feeling worse the next day than if I hadn’t used anything. I really like the regular Olaplex shampoo and conditioner and the clarifying shampoo but the dry shampoo was a big loser