My family is blessed with the thick hair gene. My 80-year-old dad still has a head of thick, bright white hair, and the women in my family require at least two stylists every time we get a blowdry. Growing up, I had Rapunzel-like hair down to my bum. My mum would spend hours – or what felt like hours – gently de-tangling and brushing my hair back into bunches or pigtails, before securing with a velvet Alice band, or those plastic snap clips all ’90s babies will remember. Needless to say, she cried when I chopped half of it off aged 12 (sorry mum).
Fast forward to almost 30, and as well as thick hair being a blessing, it’s most definitely a curse too. Styling is a colossal struggle, particularly on those days when I’ve pressed snooze one too many times (read: most days) and don’t have time to do anything more than brush it back into a messy bun. I still encounter the problem all thick-haired gals can relate to: brushing just makes it fluffy; no amount of conditioner is ever enough; and styling just takes hours.
What’s the best haircut for thick hair?
“Thick, healthy hair isn’t usually the problem,” says Michael, “often it’s the haircut; and the roughness or lack of pliability that makes thick hair – especially coarser hair – difficult to style.”
The key, Michael says, is in precision layering. “One-length, A-line haircuts on already thick hair make it such hard work – long-layered shaping is the answer, particularly for long or mid-length cuts.” This is best done when the hair is dry, as opposed to a traditional wet-cut technique, because this is when the hair is in its natural three-dimensional state and its unique features and type can be taken into account.
Michael calls this is ‘Diamond Dry Cut’ approach; sculpting dry so you can see the shape of hair evolve. This is particularly useful for thick hair as precise layering can add movement and balance, to ensure hair isn’t too bottom-heavy and ‘pulled down’ towards the ends, making it flat and lifeless.
Precision layering also cuts home-styling times in half, Michael says. “Clients of mine used to have bog-standard, one-length haircuts that were totally inappropriate on such thick, textured hair. Their home-styling times dropped from an entire hour to just 10 minutes.”