hair talk {how to add volume}

Have you ever heard of the "Utah poof"? It has quite the reputation... but I must admit that I'm a fan of the poof! I can go out in public in my husbands sweats, I can go without make up, but I can't make it out the door without my poof! So I'm going to show you how to "rat" your hair to add volume to the roots, while avoiding the dreaded "Utah poof" at the same time :)

I'm going to show you how to go from this....

.... to this! Not bad, eh? You can't even tell there's a "rats nest" under there ;)

Side note: please ignore my amazing paint skills, I'm hopeless when it comes to computer skills. In other words, I got no skills. And ignore the cheesy faces I pull. I mean really...

1- Pick your comb. Personally, I use a simple rat tail comb. But there are some pretty amazing ratting combs out there. My favorite to use in the salon is the waalaa comb.
2- Take a small section of the hair, maybe 1/2 inch wide (you don't want it too thick so that the comb can glide through and grab all the hairs), and pull it straight up. You do want to leave a little bit of slack so that the comb can pull hairs down as you "rat". 
3- Place the comb a couple inches above the root and pull the comb down in a curved motion (kind of like the shape of a crescent moon) all the way to the root. The closer you can keep the "rats nest" to the root, the better! You want the volume at the top of your head, just at the root, not on the side like it's coming out of your ears :) Repeat movement a few times.
4- Spray roots with your favorite hair spray. Note- you can spray before back combing (another word for ratting) but I prefer to just spray after. I don't like my hair too stiff or sticky. I believe there are products that are worth spending money on, but hairspray is not one of them. I just use the strongest hold of the Dove brand. I will share the products I believe you should spend your money on in another post :)
5- Flip first back-combed section over and grab a second section (the same size) just below it. Repeat steps 2-4. Flip section back to normal but don't comb it out. You want the hairspray to dry before combing out.
6- Repeat steps 2-5 on the other side of your hair. I don't back comb the back of my hair. I think it's a waste of time because I don't see it, and it can look really messy.
7- Wait a few more seconds (depending on the type of hairspray you use, and how quickly it dries) and laugh at how awesome your hair looks (or be scared. This part always scares my clients, ha!) Note: I wish you all could have seen Eric's reaction the first time he saw me do this to my hair. He was mortified but couldn't help "daring" me to go out in public like this :)
8- Take a brush or a pick (I prefer a brush) and gently brush over the very top layer of your hair. You want to smooth the poof, not brush out all of the back combing. Sometimes the poof doesn't look right so I have to re do a section or two. Then I spray a light film of hairspray over the finished product!

 Voila! Just in case you forgot that I posted this above :)

If this was hard to understand and you are interested, let me know and I will make a vlog. After I find someone who can teach me how to make one... ha ha!