Enhancing Hair Thickness: Tips from a Dermatologist

Hair Health Hotline provides direct access to dermatologists, trichologists, hairstylists, and other beauty pros to offer science-backed solutions for various hair or scalp concerns. In this series, each story tackles a common hair or scalp concern, including thin hair, and offers effective solutions to care for your strands.

When asking people how they want their hair to look or feel, "thick" is a common answer among many other descriptors such as "shiny" and "healthy." Unfortunately, there are no simple formulas to get hair as thick as a diner milkshake. Thinning hair can occur due to a variety of reasons, and what works for one person may not work for others, making it essential to find personalized solutions to restore hair thickness. To help you avoid wasting time and effort on ineffective tips, Dr. Brendan Camp, a dermatologist at MDCS Dermatology, shares the most effective solutions to get thicker hair.

Before learning how to get thick hair, it's important to understand why hair thinning occurs in the first place. Hair grows out of pores in the skin called follicles, but these can narrow for various reasons, leading to thinner hair growth, according to Dr. Camp. (Note that hair volume loss can also occur due to hair shedding, referring to how quickly strands fall out of your scalp rather than the thickness of individual strands.)

Below are the most common reasons people experience decreased hair thickness, as identified by Dr. Camp:

The following strategies are generally the most effective tips you can try to restore hair thickness, according to Dr. Camp, but the intervention that best suits your needs depends on the reason behind your hair thinning.

Depending on your lifestyle habits, making some adjustments can help you get thicker hair. "As basic as it seems, getting adequate sleep, maintaining a healthy diet, and regular exercise are important to one's overall health and can therefore impact the health of hair, nails, and skin," says Dr. Camp. "A healthy lifestyle is essential to help your body adjust to the effects of stress, which can influence hair growth." This is also an excellent reason to practice meditation and incorporate foods that enhance hair growth into your diet.

Remember that decreased hair thickness often results from always wearing your hair pulled back too tightly. So, you might want to reconsider wearing snatched buns and ponytails regularly if you're hoping to get thicker hair. Instead, consider wearing your hair loose or trying loose braids. Even changing the way you detangle your hair could help. "Consider brushing from [the] 'bottom, up,' meaning start at the ends of your hair and move toward the root," says Dr. Camp. "This gentler approach to brushing limits tension on the root of the follicle."

Regarding "thickening" hair products, Dr. Camp emphasizes that these do not increase the diameter of hair follicles and only offer cosmetic benefits. "Products that promote thicker hair work by flaring the cuticles [scale-like structures on the outermost layer of hair strands], giving the impression of thicker hair strands," he says. "While they do not actually make the hair thicker, they can give the impression that hair strands are fuller and more voluminous."

For those concerned with getting thicker hair, there are various hair loss treatments available, depending on whether you're also dealing with shedding. These treatments can have more significant results for those experiencing noticeable hair loss or thinning. Nonetheless, even if you haven't experienced significant hair thinning, optimizing your hair-care routine can still make a difference, says Dr. Camp. "For example, platelet-rich plasma (PRP) treatments can help patients with alopecia and those without hair loss by fortifying hair follicles on the scalp by stimulating blood flow and flooding follicles with growth factors," he says. Some of the treatments effective for getting thicker hair include prescription treatments such as spironolactone and minoxidil, over-the-counter treatments like Rogaine, and low-level light therapy (LLLT) caps, according to Dr. Camp.

You're not alone in your aspiration for thicker hair or your uncertainty regarding which tips and tricks to try. If in doubt, visit a dermatologist or hair loss specialist who can help you identify the root cause of your hair thinning and provide you with personalized suggestions to promote hair growth.

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