We enlisted the wisdom of multiple award-winning hair stylist and Tweak’d ambassador Domenic Iannuzzi, who agrees that volume is often lacking, no matter what your hair texture: “All hair types including thicker hair can lack volume, especially in the crown area.” Luckily, even for hair that naturally lacks volume, there are techniques and products to inject some height and body. And no, we don’t mean furious backcombing a la emo kids circa 2006.

So why do most hair types lack volume? Domenic continues: “Grease is often the main culprit when it comes to flat hair. A combination of natural oils that your hair produces throughout the day along with dirt and pollution will weigh down and dull your hair. If I had to suggest one thing it would be to cleanse your scalp regularly, using a volumising scrub to remove oils and impurities.” We love the Rhassoul Rise & Shine Cleansing Volumizing Scrub, which Domenic says “provides a deep yet delicate cleanse, gently removing impurities and build-up while boosting the volume of your hair right from the root.”

“Using volume-specific shampoos, conditioners and styling products together is key to achieving the best results”

He makes it clear that volumising starts from the moment you step in the shower: “A perfect voluminous style starts by using the right shampoo”, but he also warns against skipping the conditioner: “What’s the point of a voluminous style if your hair looks like a big heap of dry hay?” He recommends “conditioning the hair from mid hair shaft to the tips – usually where it is mostly needed – being sure to rinse out thoroughly.”

Domenic also advises to be targeted with your styling products: “Using volume-specific shampoos, conditioners and styling products together is key to achieving the best results when looking for fuller, thicker lasting volume.” This is where hair sets come into their own, as you’ll find they address your specific hair concern throughout your washing and styling products. The Taya Coco Water Hydrating Volume Haircare Collection is perfect for dry or coarse hair that lacks volume (and the packaging will look gorgeous in your bathroom), or for fine, flyaway hair try Philip Kingsley’s Triple Volume Collection.

Incorporating a volumising styling product couldn’t be easier. Domenic says: “Before starting the drying process apply a volume-boosting styling product to damp hair, working it in from the back of the hair to the front”. This will make sure most of the product is at the crown – where volume is most lacking – and you end up with a smaller amount of product dispersed evenly and more sparingly to the front. Try Tweak’d Dhatelo Restore Conditioning Thickening Foam or Percy & Reed Bouncy Volumising Mousse for serious build, or Taya Copaiba Resin Advanced Volumising Builder and Philip Kingsley Maximizer are good spray options. “It will provide structure and support for any lift you manually create near the roots when you dry your hair, helping your style last all day – or even several days.”

When drying your hair, make sure you lift hair up from the root to encourage volume. Domenic’s time-saving tip for this is to “flip your head upside down! The reason this works is because upside down, your roots are automatically lifting off your scalp, which is how you want them to dry. I like to use this method to get the hair to about 90 percent dry, then do the final smoothing with a round brush – though if you have a fringe, always dry right side up first!”

Finally, enlist the help of a finishing spray. Again choose a product designed to add volume such as Color Wow Style on Steroids Texture & Finishing Spray, which gives your hair a serious boost when sprayed at the roots, or Living Proof PhD Body Builder Hairspray which has a customisable nozzle that you can turn to adjust to the amount of volume you want. It acts as your volumiser and a hairspray, and is a great pick-me-up if you find your style has gone a bit flat during the day.

The post A hair stylist tells us how to add volume to hair appeared first on Stories.

When he first showcased the look on his Instagram, he said in the caption that his inspiration was ’90s swishy glass hair’. Since then it’s been seen on the likes of Dua Lipa and Olivia Culpo, and the trend shows no signs of abating any time soon.

The look started off with a razor-sharp cut complementing the glassy shine of the trend. But it was this amazing glossy finish that really captured the beauty world’s imagination, and achieving glass hair became all about that mirror-like shine, no matter what your hair length.

The post WATCH | TUTORIAL| How to get glass hair appeared first on Stories.

To find out what products we should have at hand, we asked Living Proof Ambassador Lotti Tyson for her hero products for smoothing out hair. In addition to her advice not to towel dry hair and sleep on a silk pillowcase to avoid unnecessary friction, Lotti recommends oil as your number one frizz-fighting agent, as it both “tames and conditions at the same time”. She also advocates using a priming formula on wet hair to help smooth and block humidity. However she also says know when to admit defeat and let nature take its course: “When it’s super humid outside, embrace the frizz by using conditioning, styling products that enhance the curl or wave”.

Armed with Lotti’s recommendations, we rounded up the products perfect for maintaining smooth, manageable hair.

The post The holy grail products for frizz-prone hair appeared first on Stories.

Our hair stylist Katie is here to help, talking us through a step-by-step halo braid tutorial, and giving us her insider tips and know-how. So grab a friend to practice on, then take on your own hair. You’ll be able to do halo braids on yourself – and on your friends – in no time.

The post WATCH | How to do a halo braid appeared first on Stories.

Clare Wiley is a journalist covering lifestyle, wellbeing and culture. Her writing on everything from identity to relationships, body image and activism can be found in Vice, The Guardian, Cosmopolitan, Stylist and plenty of others. Find her on Twitter and Instagram.

I have a confession: I love being ginger. These days I will graciously accept the generous compliments of strangers in club bathrooms and humblebrag to hairdressers that yes, this is in fact my natural colour.

But it wasn’t always this way. When I was little, having auburn hair and pale skin was cringe-worthy – even in Ireland, home to a sizeable proportion of the world’s redheads. From being teased in the playground to the sun-induced outbreaks of freckles, for me, being ginger was a source of shame.

Just two per cent of people worldwide have red hair. Blue-eyed redheads like me, are even rarer. And depending on which Buzzfeed lists you believe, redheads don’t go grey, have more sex and can produce their own vitamin D.

But those fun facts weren’t much comfort in my teenage years, when I was (affectionately?) nicknamed Big Red, to my eternal mortification. Later came the taunts from drunken cat-callers, bellowing after to me to enquire whether the curtains match the drapes.

To my mum’s unending horror, throughout my teens and early twenties I would dye my locks every colour I could think of. At first that just meant a slightly darker shade of auburn (imaginative). Then I went through a period of bleaching a small strand at the front so I could dye it everything from vivid purple (more Quality Street tin than Insta-worthy unicorn) to punk green (pale and sickly-looking).

When I eventually realised that cheap home dyes weren’t really going to conceal the ginger, I went through a series of increasingly outlandish haircuts. I basically tried every style there is – or at least, every style Carey Mulligan has ever had – from bobs and fringes, to layered shoulder cuts and a variety of undercuts, not forgetting, of course, the ill-fated pixie cut which prompted a friend to greet me with ‘Alright Justin Bieber?’

These striking women – who are impressive for more than just their hair – helped me to see that my (relatively) unique hair colour is something to be grateful for.

Slowly though, things around me – from celebrities to music – began to shift, and it caught my attention. This was circa 2007, and while I was getting my first few journalism jobs out of uni, Kate Nash appeared with her fiery crop and DGAF attitude.  There was Florence and the Machine, with her wild, red-hot mane and free spirit. Along came Jessica Chastain’s classic chestnut locks, and, later, the stunning Emma Stone.

It gradually dawned on me: is being a redhead cool now? These striking women – who are impressive for more than just their hair – helped me to see that my (relatively) unique hair colour is something to be grateful for.

As I neared the end of my 20s, I grew my hair out, the bleach-damaged bit along with it, and stopped dying it. (I kept the undercut though, that’s just good sense for thick hair). At the risk of making me sound properly old, these days I love to see Gen Z girls growing their gorgeous ginger locks out long and being proud of their hair.

Being ginger is hardly the biggest adversary to overcome, but accepting and learning to love the thing I was once teased about has been an important part of my overall path to learning to love and appreciate my body.

The post Clare Wiley: redheads in the media helped me grow to love my ginger hair appeared first on Stories.

So to help you through those heatwaves we’ve pulled together our guide to the beauty ‘knights in shiny packaging’ everyone should be investing in this season.

The post The beauty saviours you need to survive summer appeared first on Stories.

This season the trend for tropical beauty is going nowhere. Not only are our senses in luck with a mix of amazing fruity scents that transport us instantly to sun, sea and sand, there’s also an abundance of products powered by tropical fruit ingredients. So whether you’re jetting off this summer or staying put, make sure you always have that happy holiday mood with these tropical picks.

The post The tropical beauty products giving us high-summer feels appeared first on Stories.

Plastic. It’s a material which is absolutely everywhere, and one that has piqued our interest in recent years — for all the wrong reasons. David Attenborough’s groundbreaking 2017 Blue Planet 2 series revealed that an eye-watering eight million tonnes of plastic end up in our oceans every year; a fact that resulted in the world finally sitting up and taking notice about how much the material can really impact our planet. And nothing has proven how huge the anti-plastic movement has become more than Collins Dictionary’s 2018 chosen word of the year: ‘Single-use’.

Upsettingly, the beauty industry has a lot to answer for when it comes to plastic pollution. Look around in any drug store, higher-end boutique or online retailer, and you’ll be overwhelmed by the amount of plastic packaging on the shelves. And while we’re taking on excess waste by ditching straws, carrying reusable cups and bottles, and saying no to supermarket plastic bags, there’s a whole lot more we could be doing when it comes to keeping plastic to a minimum in our beauty routines.

I challenged myself to avoid plastic in my regime for two weeks, and in truth, it was hard. After trying it out for myself, it’s clear that certain areas are much easier to go plastic-free in than others. Buying non-plastic hair and body products, for example, is relatively problem free. Plastic bottles of shower gel can be replaced with the humble soap bar, as can facial cleansers (this Australian Bodycare Cleansing Bar Trio, for example, is great on the face and the body), and shampoo. My current plastic-ridden haircare routine features a lot of incredibly handy pumps, but unfortunately, these are non-recyclable at present, meaning they had to go (a hard adjustment, I must admit).

a lot of make-up still contains micro plastics, which are hard to avoid but are highly damaging

Skincare was a little harder, but using things like glass serums and ampoules really helped in ditching plastic. I also replaced any remaining face wipes (a sustainability nightmare which admittedly, I rarely turn to) with reusable muslin cloths and these amazing Face Halo pads, which are basically like cotton pads you can wash and use over and over again. There are other areas where reducing plastic in your routine can be done if you buy into the right brands, too. Perfume brand Floral Street, for example, has ditched their old cellophane packaging to become more sustainable. Their fragrances come in beautiful glass bottles, and their range of scents are divine.

The real problem is finding totally plastic-free make-up. While some products are packaged in alternative materials like glass tubes, a lot of make-up still contains micro plastics, which are hard to avoid but are highly damaging, inevitably end up in our oceans. While it’s seemingly difficult to avoid plastics completely, brands such as Illamasqua are doing everything they can to reduce plastic pollution within their packaging. “We have made some changes to help protect our planet,” explains Pablo Rodriguez, Head Of Artistry At Illamasqua. “These include replacing individual plastic eyeshadows for cardboard eyeshadow palettes. In addition, every time you buy Illamasqua products online, they are delivered in 100% recyclable paper/cardboard packaging.” Rodriguez goes on to explain that all glitter used in products is now biodegradable, and plastic q-tips in store are banned.

While avoiding plastic completely in my beauty routine has been difficult, I’ve learnt so much more about being more environmentally aware of the type of brands I buy from, and the approach to plastic that they have. Brands such as Ren Clean Skincare do use plastic, but they’ve worked with TerraCycle to create a new 100% recycled product bottle containing 20% reclaimed ocean plastic. They also vow to produce zero waste by 2021, meaning all their plastics will be recycled and recyclable, and they will offer refillable solutions for many of their products. Ren is a brand that largely represents the current situation of plastic in beauty: it may not be avoidable altogether, but when it is used, it should be done as sustainably as possible.

With this in mind, it’s important to brush up as much as possible on what can be recycled and what cannot, and to follow some top tips in order to reduce your plastic pollution footprint as much as possible. Arnaud Meysselle, CEO of Ren Clean Skincare, recommends following certain rules, such as avoiding brands that obviously feature unnecessary packaging, and opting for products that have been printed with vegetable ink rather than traditional inks, as this makes them far easier to recycle. Perhaps the best tip Meyselle offers is to keep a small recycling bin in your bathroom as well as in your kitchen. Statistics from a Recycle Now campaign show that while 90% of packaging is recycled in our kitchens, only 50% is being recycled in the bathrooms (largely because of laziness and inconvenience). But if you finish a shampoo bottle and have a small recycling bin next to your landfill bathroom bin, why would you not recycle it there and then?

While I found it relatively simple to ditch plastic in some areas such as my body and haircare products, elsewhere it was not as straightforward. Until brands dedicate themselves to using plastic alternatives and banning micro plastics, we have to be far more diligent in the way we buy plastic, in terms of who we buy it from, and how we treat it afterwards. In short, we have to shop smarter until we have more wide ranging plastic-free options.

The post Rebecca Fearn: I tried to adopt a plastic-free beauty routine – here’s what happened appeared first on Stories.

From moisturising minis to colour boosting sprays, we’ve rounded up our top five holiday haircare heroes and travel kits. This is your pre-boarding announcement to fabulous holiday hair.

The post Going on holiday? Pack these essential hair products appeared first on Stories.

That’s where we come in with this easy-to-follow tutorial for a stylish festival hair look. The trend for braids isn’t abating anytime soon, and these Dutch braids are the perfect festival style – low maintenance, they look cute and you can even sleep in them and wear again the next day. Get a friend to do them for you while you perfect your face gems, or take a little bit of time to practice doing them yourself, and you’ll be all set.

The post WATCH | Tutorial | How to do festival hair appeared first on Stories.