Hair Basics: Quick Tips to Add Volume

Could your strands use a little extra oomph? Celebrity hairstylist Danielle Caputo shares and easy trick for adding quick volume to your hair. The process looks a little complicated, but once you've got it down you'll have big, lush locks, in minutes.

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Gather the top section of your hair like you're creating a Mohawk, then fasten it with a hair clip.

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Gather the rest of the hair back into a ponytail. This will divide the hair up into easy sections for you to style.

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Now that the rest of the hair is pulled back, you can unclip the top section to start adding volume. You will ultimately be dividing the top section into three smaller sections, each of which you will spray first with hairspray, comb through with a fine tooth comb, curl back with a wide barrel curling iron, and clip them into place to hold the curl.

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TIP: Hold the curling iron at the base of each curl, and then feed hair into the curl. This method will build more volume than the reverse (and more common) method of curling the hair from ends to roots.

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This is what your head should look like when all three top sections have been curled and clipped. Hello, faux-hawk!

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Section the ponytail into two (if your hair is thick, do three sections). Spray each section, comb it through, and then curl using the same method described previously.

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Help the curls set by cooling them with air from your hair dryer, using the cool setting (or button) to help accelerate the process. Caputo recommends blowing the air in the direction of the curls. "Doing it against the the curls will cause the hair to frizz up," she says.

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Once the curls have cooled off, take pins and ponytail out, then flip hair over and muss it up at the roots with your fingers.

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Spray with a little finishing spray, and there you have it, shiny, voluminous waves.

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