Thick Heavy Hair? Why It Keeps Going Wrong, And What To Ask For Instead
If you have thick heavy hair, you already know the pattern. You walk out of the salon and it looks brilliant. Three weeks later it is back to being a lump. Wide at the sides. Heavy at the ends. It takes an age to dry and it never sits the way it did in the chair.
That is not bad luck. It is not your hair being awkward either. It is almost always the same mistake, made in the first ten minutes of the appointment.
Thick hair gets cut like normal hair
Most haircuts are built around length. Where do you want it to sit. How much are we taking off. That works fine on average hair.
Thick hair does not behave like average hair. The problem is rarely the length. The problem is the weight. Cut the length without moving the weight and you get a shape that looks great on day one, because it has just been dried into place, then collapses the moment you wash it at home.
So you come back and say it grew out badly. It did not grow out badly. It was never going to hold.
Weight is the thing to fix
Thick hair carries most of its bulk in two places. Around the sides, just under the ear, and through the middle of the back. Left alone, that bulk pushes the whole shape outwards and downwards.
The job is to take weight out from the inside without touching the outline. Done properly you keep your length, you lose the heaviness, and the hair starts to fall rather than sit.
Done badly, and this is the common one, someone thins the ends with a razor or thinning scissors. That removes weight from exactly the wrong place. Now you have fluffy ends and a heavy middle, and it frizzes.
Why the consultation matters more than the cut
At NOCO the consultation comes first, every single time. Before anything is cut we work out three things.
- How your hair actually grows, not how it looks when you walk in
- How much time you genuinely want to spend on it at home
- What went wrong last time, and why
That last one does most of the work. Nine times out of ten a client can describe the exact moment it stopped working, and that tells us more than any photo.
A lot of hairdressers would struggle with thick hair, which means a lot of people never find the right person. That is the bit we want to change.
Three questions to ask at your next appointment
Take these anywhere, not just here. If a stylist can answer all three, you are in good hands.
- Where is my weight sitting, and what are you doing about it
- What will this look like in four weeks, not today
- What do I need to do at home to keep it
If the answer to any of them is vague, ask again. It is your hair and you are paying for it.
Book a consultation
We are consultation led hairdressers in Clifton, Bristol, on Whiteladies Road. If your hair is thick and heavy and you are fed up with the three week collapse, come and sit down with us first. No pressure and no obligation to book anything on the day.
See how our consultation works, or book your consultation online.
